Ehmedi Xani s Mem U Zin - 1240 Words

Although Martin van Bruinessen in his essay â€Å"Ehmedi Xani’s Mem u Zin† concludes that that Xani himself was probably not a nationalist in the way academics understand it today, for his poem was written in the 1700s. Nevertheless, it does not dilute his importance to nationalist Kurds within the last hundred years (41). The Kurdish pride that Xani portrays in the poem through his writing it in Kurdish and its calls for Kurdish supremacy certainly aroused the religious and nationalist sentiments of those studying in the lodges and madrasas. In addition, other sources that circulated among these Kurdish schools including the 19th century Kurdish nationalist poet, Haji Qadri Koyi, who wrote poetry similar to that of Xani’s in the Sorani dialect, as well as the early writings of Said Nursi, a 20th century Kurdish rights activist who later abandoned his Kurdish roots and founded the very popular Nurcu Islamic movement in Turkey (Bruinessen, Mullas 48-9). For th e Muslim Kurds living in the rising era of nationalism, Islam and Kurdishness were fused, inseparable of one another. Besides the important function these lodges and madrasas had on Kurdish nationalism, the shaykhs attained immense power during the early 1800s, making them invested agents in an autonomous Kurdish state. Bruinessen postulates that because of the Ottoman Empires declining strength and lack of ability to formally control the Kurdistan regions, religious shaykhs became the intermediary, impartial forces