Haji Qadir Koyi ( ku, حاجی قادری کۆیی, Hacî Qadirî Koyî; c. 1817-1897) was a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

poet. He carried on the nationalistic message of

Ahmad Khani Ahmad ( ar, أحمد, ʾAḥmad) is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other spellings of the name include Ahmed and Ahmet. Etymology The word derives from the root (ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from the ve ...

in his writings. He wanted to enlighten the people and help them to remedy the problems of illiteracy and backwardness and ideas which result from lack of knowledge and religious fanaticism. He encouraged people instead to turn to science and to the realities of modern society in the struggle to liberate and build an independent

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, Kurdish la ...

. According to him, a

Kurd ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...

is one who speaks

. In his time, in the late 19th century, the remaining

Kurdish principalities The Kurdish chiefdoms or principalities were several semi-independent entities which existed during the 16th to 19th centuries during the state of continuous warfare between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran.

had been overthrown by the Ottoman and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

states. Koyi attacked the shaikhs and mullahs who did not care for the Kurdish language and the notables who ignored the destinies of their people. Living his last years in cosmopolitan

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, he was familiar with the

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

struggles and the material advancement of modern nations. He constantly advocated use of the

Kurdish language Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...

. Although his own medium was

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

, he urged the Kurds to publish magazines and newspapers. Calling on the Kurds, in the 1880s, to unite and form their own independent state, he also urged them to use the modern tools such as newspapers and magazines for mass communication. The first Kurdish newspaper, ''Kurdistan'', was published in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

in 1898, a year after Haji Qadir's death. Farangis Ghaderi who has studied his poetry in her PhD dissertation argues that modern Kurdish poetry emerged in the late nineteenth century and with Koyî's poetry. She also argues that Hacî Qadirî Koyî should be considered the architect of Kurdish nationalism. Jalal Dabagh wrote a book discussing Haji Qadir Koyi with the same name.

Books

#Dîwanî Hacî Qadirî Koyî (Collected Poetry of Haji Qadir Koyi). Collected and edited by Sardar Hamid Miran and Karim Mistafa Sharaza. Emîndarêtî Giştî Roşinbîrî w Lawanî Nawçey Kurdistan, 1986, Baghdad.

Sources

References

* Farhad Shakely
Classic and Modern Kurdish Poetry
Uppsala University, Sweden. * Amir Hassanpour

University of Toronto, Canada. *Amir Hassanpour

Paper presented at the Freie Universitat Berlin, Nov. 1995. * Farangis Ghaderi, Hecî Qadirê Koyî û Peydabûna Netewperweriya Kurdî"(Haji Qadir Koyi and Kurdish Nationalism), Zarema, no. 2 (Fall 2014) https://www.academia.edu/8433569/Hecî_Qadirê_Koyî_û_Peydabûna_Netewperweriya_Kurdî_Haji_Qadir_Koyi_and_Kurdish_Nationalism_ 1817 births 1897 deaths Burials at Karacaahmet Cemetery People from Koy Sanjaq Iraqi Kurdish poets Kurdish poets 19th-century poets of Ottoman Iraq {{Kurd-poet-stub