Şêx Şemsedînê Exlatî (1588–1674) was a Kurdish Sufi poet associated with Ahlat and Birîfka. His surviving poems and lodge history provide distinct records of his work.

Two pages of handwritten poetry in an Arabic-based script, with ruled borders and marginal notes
A later copy of Exlatî’s Diwan in Şêx Memdûhê Birîfkanî’s hand, reproduced in Aykaç and Başçı’s 2022 study, p. 101. It is not the poet’s autograph. Memdûh Birîfkanî copy · reproduced by Yakup Aykaç and Veysel Başçı, 2022, p. 101 · CC BY 4.0.

From Ahlat through Hakkari to Birîfka

Abdulcebbar Kavak’s study dates Şemsedîn’s birth in Ahlat to 1588 and his death at Birîfka to 1674. It describes a family with roots in Hamadan and a father, Abdülkerim, involved in Sufi teaching. The family moved toward Hakkari amid Ottoman–Safavid conflict; Şemsedîn later settled in the Amadiya region with support from its ruler Seydî Han. He established a lodge at Birîfka and was buried there. [1]

The lodge and its changing religious affiliations

Kavak identifies Şemsedîn with the Halvetiyye, while discussing his family’s earlier Suhrawardi connections. He also notes gaps in the surviving evidence for the precise Halveti chain of initiation. Birîfka became a centre for teaching and spiritual guidance, continued by later family members. Its adoption of Qadiri practice belonged to the nineteenth century. [1] The institution’s later history should therefore be followed across generations.

Çelebî: poetry shaped by sound and devotion

Yakup Aykaç and Veysel Başçı’s 2022 study examines the seventeen-couplet Çelebî qasida. They analyse internal rhyme, repeated sounds and sound imitation alongside themes of divine love, piety, night prayer and seclusion. Their discussion treats literary form and Sufi practice together: patterned sound contributes to how the poem works, as well as what it says. The study also follows printed versions of the small surviving Diwan and reproduces later handwritten copies. [2] The image here belongs to that transmission history. Its identification as a copy in Memdûh Birîfkanî’s hand preserves the distinction between the seventeenth-century poet and a later transmitter.

Repetition as a subject of linguistic research

Önder Beyter and Zafer Açar’s 2024 study investigates cotepeyv, or reduplicated and paired expressions, in Exlatî’s Diwan. Using two editions, they identify 106 examples and classify them by meaning, word formation and grammatical role. Identical words, synonyms, near-synonyms and opposites all occur. Their reading also connects the sound patterns with Sufi remembrance and imitated bird sounds. [3] This gives readers a way to approach the poems beyond a biographical outline: attend to recurrence, rhythm and the relationships between words. The figure of 106 belongs to the corpus and categories examined in that study.

Sources and further reading

  1. Abdulcebbar Kavak, Şeyh Şemsüddin el-Ahlâtî ve Birîfka Tekkesi, Uludağ Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 23/1 (2014 issue), pp. 121–139, especially pp. 123–128.
  2. Yakup Aykaç and Veysel Başçı, Dahûrîneke Tesewifî li Ser Qesîdeya Çelebî ya Şêx Şemsedînê Qutbê Exlatî, Kurdiname 7 (2022), pp. 74–103; image p. 101, CC BY 4.0.
  3. Önder Beyter and Zafer Açar, Cotepeyv di Dîwana Şêx Şemseddînê Exlatî da, Kurdiname 11 (2024), pp. 1–17, especially method pp. 3–4 and conclusion p. 13.