PERSIAN WRITING IN CLASSICAL LITERATURE: WEDA’Î SAMPLE

Abstract

The effect of Persian language has been on all neighbor languages. In the Ottoman Empire land, the influence of the Persian language was strong in education. Persian accompanied the Arabic language in teaching in madrasas and schools. This alone was a major factor on the increase of poets writing in Persian. This was also the case in Kurdish madrasas. We can say that the foundations of the classical Kurdish literature were laid by those people who attended madrasas. For instance, many literary figures from Melayê Cizîrî to Feqiyê Teyran, Ehmedê Xanî, Melayê Bateyî, and Şêx Ehmedê Feqîr graduated from these madrasas. They were all acquainted with the Persian literature and wrote poems in Persian, too. Weda’î, who lived during the rule of Mukus Kurdish Emirate, was one of these powerful Kurmanj poets. He was probably born in Mukus in 1790 and died in 1850. His diwan contained Kurdish as well as Persian poems, both which are distinguished. This article discusses the tradition of Kurdish poets writing in Persian in general and Weda’î and his diwan in particular, offering a content analysis of his poems