Khana Qubadi: Gorani Poetry, Shirin and Khosrow, and the Kurdish Literary Language

Khana Qubadi’s eighteenth-century poetry joins the Shirin–Khosrow romance, devotional writing and an explicit defence of composing in Kurdish.

An eighteenth-century poet, with uncertain life dates

Khana Qubadi, also written Xanay Qubadî or Khana Qobadi, was a major poet in the Gorani literary tradition of Kurdistan. His chronology is not settled: Kreyenbroek and Mahmoudweyssi give approximately 1700–1759 or 1778, while VejinBooks uses 1704–1778. [1] [3] The Ardalan dynasty’s patronage helped Gorani become a shared literary medium across southern Kurdish areas. The scholarly biography presents a poet with a reported move to the Baban court; it does not establish an Ardalan reign. [1]

Shirin and Khosrow as a literary achievement

Qubadi’s best-known work retells the romance of Shirin and Khosrow in Gorani. Farangis Ghaderi’s study dates its completion to 1153 AH/1741 and describes it as a major surviving Kurdish narrative poem. She analyses its verse in relation to Nizami’s hazaj metre and its paired-rhyme narrative form, noting the prologue’s invocations and repeated acknowledgement of Nizami. [2] This makes literary form part of the achievement: Qubadi worked with an established romance while choosing a Kurdish literary audience and language. The story’s kings and princesses are characters within the narrative, not biographical evidence that its author was himself a ruler.

What the prologue says about language

The prologue available through VejinBooks invokes Shirin, Khosrow, Farhad, Shapur and the musician Nakisa before turning to the poet’s own task. Knowledge illuminates the writer’s vision; composing is pictured through jewels, fragrance and the pen. Qubadi praises Kurdish sweetness while also recognizing people’s attachment to their own languages. [3] Ghaderi discusses his expression bi lefzê Kurdî, meaning in the Kurdish language, as evidence of the literary tradition’s self-description. [2] Readers can therefore recognize the specifically Gorani form of the writing and its place in Kurdish literary history together. The prologue is an especially useful starting point because it states artistic ambitions in the poet’s own voice.

Devotional writing and reported persecution

Kreyenbroek and Mahmoudweyssi identify the Salawat-nama as praise of the Prophet Muhammad and Imam Ali. They also record the popular attribution of Quran translations to Qubadi and the story that these caused his flight to the Baban court. The attributed translations have not survived. [1] The attribution and the reported flight should consequently retain that qualification.

Manuscripts, editions and reading the poetry

Transmission gives the poetry a history beyond the poet’s lifetime. The University of Sulaimani’s Kurdistan Center for Documentation and Academic Research lists a copy of Khosrow and Shirin dated 1298 AH. [4] The Iranica bibliography identifies Mohammad Mela Karim’s Baghdad edition of 1975. [1] These are dates of copying or publication, rather than alternative dates for composition. The accompanying sixteenth-century painting belongs to a manuscript of Nizami, with Farhad and Shirin beside the milk channel. [5] It shows the romance’s wider artistic circulation; the linked Gorani prologue lets readers turn from that shared story world to Qubadi’s particular language and imagery.

Sources and further reading

1. Philip G. Kreyenbroek and Parwin Mahmoudweyssi, Ḵānā Qobādi, Encyclopaedia Iranica XV/5, 2010, p. 455; updated 2012.
2. Farangis Ghaderi, The Literary Legacy of the Ardalans, Kurdish Studies 5/1, 2017, pp. 32–55, especially pp. 36 and 44–45; analysis of Gorani poetry and Qubadi’s prologue.
3. Khana Qubadi, prologue to Shirin and Khosrow, Gorani text transcribed by VejinBooks; author dates in its catalogue differ from the Iranica chronology.
4. University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Center for Documentation and Academic Research, Manuscripts; catalogue notice for Qubadi’s Khosrow and Shirin, copied 1298 AH.
5. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Shaikh Zada, Farhad Carves a Milk Channel for Shirin, folio 74 of Nizami’s Khamsa, 1524–25, accession 13.228.7.5; public-domain image.