Wafayi, usually dated 1844–1902, belongs to the classical poetry of Mukriyan. His surviving Kurdish and Persian poems bring together the beloved, spring, religious devotion and elaborate literary form. Readings of named poems and documented editions reveal the range of his writing.

Courtyard of Mahabad’s Red Mosque, with brick arches, young leafy trees, paving stones and a shallow water channel
The Red Mosque, Mahabad, photographed by Houshang tabrizi on 14 April 2009. This shows the poet’s home city in a modern photograph; it does not establish where he studied or taught. © Houshang tabrizi · 14 April 2009 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

Name, place and the limits of a short biography

Wafayi is also written Wefayî or Wafai. VejinBooks’ author record gives Mahabad as his birthplace, 1844 as his birth year, and Dasht-e Sham and 1902 for his death. Its edition list identifies him as Mirza Abdurrahim Sablakhi. [1][2] Sablakh is the older name associated with Mahabad in Mukriyan. These records establish a useful starting point for a literary profile, while a complete travel itinerary or account of his childhood needs more evidence. The surviving poems offer a substantial way to explore his imagination even where details of his life remain uncertain.

The divan survives through edited texts

VejinBooks lists a Baghdad edition studied by Muhammad Ali Qaradaghi in 1978 and a Sanandaj edition prepared by Muhammad Saeed Najjari, Asso, in 2010. [2] These are identifiable routes to the poems rather than a claim that the online collection is a book printed in 1902. Comparing an edition with a transcription matters for spelling, order and attribution. The site offers Kurdish and Persian material; the language of an individual poem should be checked rather than inferred from a collection’s general label. The poems below show how a qasida, a recurring five-line stanza and an adaptation of an earlier ghazal create different effects.

A Nowruz breeze becomes a whole poetic world

The qasida beginning Nasîmi badî Newrozî is catalogued as Central Kurdish. Its spring breeze carries fragrance and the beloved’s message; clouds, lightning, flowers and nightingales become part of the lover’s emotional landscape. Spring is also imagined through royal ceremony, battle and a gathering of drinkers. [3] Nature here is not simply scenery or a literal diary of a festival. The poem moves between weather, desire and the shared imagery of classical poetry. Its metaphors give a reader concrete reasons to discuss Wafayi’s descriptive richness, without treating every flower as evidence of a particular historical event.

Shirin’s spinning: movement, repetition and desire

The poem associated with Şîrîn teşî deṟêsê repeatedly returns to Shirin spinning with a spindle. VejinBooks identifies its form as a five-line stanza structure. The turning spindle and thread expand into celestial motion, flowers, the beloved’s body and the speaker’s captivated attention. [4] Sensual imagery is part of this text; a description of the whole poet as exclusively solemn or detached would miss it. Repetition holds the scene together while the comparisons change. The speaker’s desire is a poetic construction, not sufficient evidence to identify a real woman, establish a relationship or reconstruct a domestic encounter.

Persian verse, Hafez and praise of Ubaydullah

A Persian poem in the collection is headed with Ubaydullah as leader of spiritual guides and is identified as a takhmis on a ghazal by Hafez. It combines added lines with recognisable Hafez material in five-line units, bringing praise, spiritual authority, love and the difficulties of the path together. [5] This is direct evidence of literary engagement with Hafez and of a devotional address to Ubaydullah. It does not by itself prove that Wafayi took part in a particular battle or fix where and when he wrote it. The online transcription is marked as needing review, so precise quotations should be checked against an edition.

How recent scholarship approaches his style

Hunar Anwar Mamsofi and Kadhim Sheikh Hussein’s 2026 Twejer article examines the Iraqi Style in Wafayi’s Kurdish ghazals. Its public abstract describes a descriptive-analytical study of linguistic, literary and intellectual features, situating his poetry within Kurdish–Persian literary exchange. The authors argue that features of this style are clearly present in his work. [6] This is an attributed critical interpretation, not a claim that the poet’s language was Iraqi Arabic or that every poem has one meaning. Reading the Kurdish spring poem, the spinning scene and the Persian Hafez adaptation together shows different forms and registers within the surviving body of work.

Sources and further reading

  1. VejinBooks, Wafayi: author record. Catalogue dates and places, not a complete biography.
  2. Wafayi, Diwanî Wefayî, VejinBooks catalogue and contents: editions by Muhammad Ali Qaradaghi (Baghdad, 1978) and Muhammad Saeed Najjari, Asso (Sanandaj, 2010).
  3. Wafayi, qasida beginning Nasîmi badî Newrozî, VejinBooks, text 595. Central Kurdish original consulted.
  4. Wafayi, poem known by its repeated line Şîrîn teşî deṟêsê, VejinBooks, text 1874. Central Kurdish original consulted.
  5. Wafayi, Persian takhmis on a Hafez ghazal, headed Ubaydullah as leader of spiritual guides, VejinBooks, text 12279. Transcription marked Needs Review.
  6. Hunar Anwar Mamsofi and Kadhim Sheikh Hussein, The Manifestation of the Iraqi Style in Wafayi’s Kurdish Poetry, Twejer 9/5 (2026), DOI 10.31918/twejer.2695.10. Public abstract consulted.