Shaykh Marif Nodeyi combined poetry, language teaching and Islamic scholarship. His Ahmadi offers direct evidence of Arabic–Kurdish vocabulary teaching, while modern research examines his legal commentary and educational work around Sulaymaniyah.

Sulaymaniyah’s Grand Mosque with two minarets, turquoise domes, pedestrians and cars along the street beneath a clear blue sky
The Grand Mosque of Sulaymaniyah, photographed by Kushared (Mohammed Sardar) on 8 November 2019. This modern view illustrates a place associated with Nodeyi’s teaching, not its unchanged appearance in his lifetime. Kushared (Mohammed Sardar) · Grand Mosque, Sulaymaniyah, 8 November 2019 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Size variant; no creative changes.

A scholar whose work went beyond one poetic label

Marif Nodeyi, also known as Shaykh Muhammad Maʿruf al-Nudahi, was a Kurdish scholar and poet active across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Khalil Abdulla’s biographical essay describes writings in Arabic, Persian and Kurdish and places his teaching in Qalachwalan and Sulaymaniyah. [1] Treating him only as a late-eighteenth-century Gorani poet obscures that wider work. A better starting point is a named surviving text: Ahmadi, an Arabic–Kurdish verse vocabulary. VejinBooks catalogues its Kurdish as Central Kurdish and provides a readable transcription. [2] This identification concerns that work; it should not become an unsupported claim about the language of every composition.

Schools, teachers and the Sulaymaniyah setting

Abdulla traces his early religious instruction to his father, followed by study in Qalachwalan and Hazar Merd and contact with scholars including Mulla Abdullah Baytushi. He identifies the Grand Mosque of Sulaymaniyah as a teaching centre. [1] This gives specific places and relationships instead of guessing an origin from the name Nodeyi or automatically placing him at the Ardalan court. A biographical account and a modern photograph serve different purposes: one describes a teaching career, while the other helps locate an institution within the city readers can see today.

Ahmadi explains its own educational purpose

In the preface transcribed by VejinBooks, the author names his son Ahmad and explains the intention to make Arabic vocabulary accessible through Kurdish. It announces sections on nouns and verbs. [3] The preface itself moves between Persian, Arabic and Kurdish, demonstrating how several languages could operate within one teaching text. This is more specific evidence than a general claim that he preserved classical poetry. Verse here also organises instruction: the named pupil, vocabulary and grammatical divisions reveal a practical educational design.

What a learner encounters in the text

The noun section pairs Arabic terms with Kurdish equivalents, including words for the head and eye, rāʾs and ʿayn, with ser and çaw. [4] The verb section similarly sets Arabic forms beside Kurdish meanings. [5] These short examples make the method visible without reproducing an entire poem. The digital edition also distinguishes the metres of individual sections; one should not assume the whole book uses a single form. Readers can inspect the vocabulary and layout directly, while remembering that a modern transcription is an edited representation of a text rather than an autograph manuscript.

Religious commentary as a separate achievement

A 2022 research article by Reveeng Tayib Tahir and Fayez Abu Bakr Qader studies Kashf al-ghawamid, his commentary on the inheritance-law poem Qatr al-ʿarid. Its published abstract discusses arrangement, sources, Shafiʿi legal positions, scriptural reasoning, vocabulary explanation and grammatical choices. [6] This identifies another substantive branch of his scholarship. A verse lexicon teaches words; an inheritance-law commentary explains a specialised discipline. Their shared use of poetry and exposition helps show why literary and religious history should be read together in his case. This summary draws on the article’s abstract, not a claimed reading of the full manuscript edition.

Dates and editions need their own labels

VejinBooks gives 1753–1837 in its author metadata, while Abdulla’s account uses 1752 for birth and 1838 for death. [1] [2] The safe description is an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century career, with those variants visible rather than a false exact lifespan. The VejinBooks record lists a 1953 Zhyan printing in Sulaymaniyah, a 1986 Baghdad edition and a later Sanandaj edition. [2] Those are publication witnesses to continuing circulation. They are not the author’s lifetime dates, and the editions listed here have not all been independently collated.

How to read the legacy

Nodeyi’s contribution becomes clearer through the work itself: a multilingual preface, Kurdish explanations of Arabic vocabulary, grammatical organisation and a separately studied legal commentary. [3] [4] [5] [6] These details support a history of teaching and textual transmission. They do not require a fixed ranking as the second dictionary in all Kurdish history, an unverified total of books and poems, or an imagined place in every courtly succession of poets. The linked primary text lets readers move beyond the biographical label and examine what students could actually read.

Sources and further reading

  1. Khalil Abdulla, Shaykh Marif Nodeyi: scholar and intellectual, Kurdish Book House, 9 December 2024; biographical essay.
  2. VejinBooks, Ahmadi/al-Ahmadiyya; author and language metadata, edition list and contents.
  3. Marif Nodeyi, Ahmadi, preface, VejinBooks transcription; educational purpose and named son Ahmad.
  4. Marif Nodeyi, Ahmadi, noun section; selected opening vocabulary in VejinBooks transcription.
  5. Marif Nodeyi, Ahmadi, verb section; selected opening examples in VejinBooks transcription.
  6. Reveeng Tayib Tahir and Fayez Abu Bakr Qader, study of al-Nudahi’s method in Kashf al-ghawamid, Journal of Basic Sciences 7/11 (2022), pp. 49–66; published abstract consulted.
  7. Kushared (Mohammed Sardar), Grand Mosque, Sulaymaniyah, 8 November 2019; Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.