Mahwi

Mahwi or Mehwî (Mala Muhammad Mela Osman Ballkhi), (1830-1906), was one of the most prominenet classical Kurdish poets and sufis from Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He studied in Sablakh and Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan. He became a judge in the court of Sulaimaniya, in today's Iraq, in 1862, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. He travelled to Istanbul and met Abd-ul-Hamid II in 1883. He established a khaneqah, an Islamic religious school and mosque, in Sulaimniya and named it after an Ottoman emperor. In his poems, he mainly promotes sufism, but also deals with the human condition and existential problems, such as questions about the meaning of life.

Works

A collection of his poems has been published several times.

1. Dîwanî Mehwî, Sulaimaniya, 1922.
2. Dîwanî Mehwî, Edited by Jamal Muhammad Muhammad Amin, Sarkewtin Publishers, Sulaimaniya, 1984.
3. Dîwanî Mehwî, Edited and Analyised by Mala Abdolkarimi Modarres and Muhammad Mala Karim, Hissam Publishers, Baghdad, 1977 and 1984.

References

• A collection of essays on Mahwi's poems (in Kurdish)
• Classical Traditions and Modern Meanings, by Stephen Sperl. Last visit 19th November 2013.