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An Unpublished Inscription from Bidlīs, Keshif, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2023): Keshif: E-Journal for Ottoman-Turkish Micro Editions

Tasavvufi uygulamalarla ilişkilendirilen en gösterişli ve sofistike müzik türlerinden biri, Sultan Sehak tarafından kurulan ve İran ile Irak Kürdistanı'nda bir dini Kürt topluluğu olan Ehl-i Hak camiasına aittir . Onların Cem (dini ayin) adı verilen törenlerinde müzik ve Kelam adı verilen dini şiirler tüm ayrıntıların son derece resmiyet kazandığı bölünmez bir birlik oluşturur. Orkestra bölümü çok sayıda Temîre veya Temûr'dan (Ar. Tunbür) oluşur ve onlardan ayrı olarak oturan vokal grubu, Kelamxwens (dini şiirleri söyleyenler) ise, profesyonel şarkıcılardan ibarettir.Ehl-i Hak'ın müzik anlayışını ve farklı yönlerini ele almayı amaçlayan çalışmalar mevcuttur . Ancak bunu belirtirken bile, bu dini müziğin metinsel arka planına ışık tutmak için önceki faktörlere değinmek zorunludur. Başka bir deyişle, mevcut makale, Ehl-i Hak mezhebinde musiki seviyesinin başka bir izahını verme iddiasında değildir. Artık Kürt müziğine dair tarihsel bilgimizi genişletmek için bilimsel metinlerin eleştirel baskılarının yayınlanmasına ihtiyaç var. Bu nedenle, bu yazıda Ehl-i Haklar ve onların dini müziklerinin çok kısaca anlatıldığı yeni bulunmuş bir Kürtçe folyo sunulmaktadır. Ehl-i Hak müziği hakkında daha fazla bilgi sahibi olmak isteyen okuyucular, bu makalede belirtilen literatüre başvurabilirler.

This paper studies a defective manuscript of the history of Ardalān which consists of 142 folios. The manuscript is part of the Gulpāygānī collection, held in the makhtūtāt collection of the Gulpāygānī Library in Qum. It is an unknown continuation to the Ardalān chapter of the Sharaf-nāma which librarians sometimes called it muntakhab-i Sharaf-nāma ‘An Anthology of the Sharaf-nāma’ in their internal records. The aim of the present paper, however, is to track down its provenance by means of describing its physical characteristics and contents.

Tahran’daki Ulusal Kütüphane arşivlerinde ve nadirkoleksiyonlarındaki bir araştırmada temel amacım Yezidi dinine karşı yazılanArapça tartışmaları bulmaktı, fakat sonunda Gorani edebiyatı hakkındaki yenibir bilgi kaynağı keşfettim. Bildiğim kadarıyla bu derleme daha once herhangibir yerde yayınlanmadı. Derlemede jung adı verilen ve Goraniedebiyatının yayınlanmayan malzemelerini içeren bazı elyazmaları mevcut.Elyazmalarında yer alan Farça materyalin çoğu kütüphane çalışanları tarafındankaydedilmişti, fakat Gorani parçaların paylaşımındaki kapalı tutumlarındandolayı bu malzemenin varlığı günümüze kadar bilinmemekteydi. Bu makale Goraniedebiyatının bu yayınlanmayan malzemelerinin tanıtımını yaparak onları genişkesimlerin kullanımına sunmaktadır, A search in the archives and rare collections ofNational Library, Tehran, intended primarily to find the Arabic polemicsagainst Yezidi religion, has resulted in the discovery of another source ofinformation on the Gūrānī literature. So far as can bediscovered, this has never previously appeared in print. It contains of somePersian codices, entitled, jung in which there are unpublished materialof Gūrānī literature. Most of the Persian material given in the jungswere considered by Library’s staff. However, they chose not to give details onGūrānī fragments, and the fact that this material exists has largely beenignored by scholars up to the present day. This paper gives a presentation ofthis Gūrānī unpublished material, making it widely available for the firsttime.

The term mawlid, or mawlūd (< mawlūdun fīhi) refers to the verse and sometimes panegyric prose texts written in honor of the Prophet, his birth, and his life. Laylat al-mawlid, mawlid al-nabī, and mawlid al-nabawī were the cover names for the general celebrations on the occasion of the prophet’s birthday (generally accepted as Monday, 12 Rabī‘ I). While authors of mawlid deal with diverse aspects of the historical life of Prophet, however, this textual tradition normally suffers from simplistic rendering of the realities of Prophet’s life. A notable addition to the mawlids, for example, includes the mythological trends which heavily have focused on the superiority of Prophet over the human. The mawlids sometime include a number of mystical or non-Orthodox terms as well as a type of Shiite superiority over other Islamic sects1 . Despite the serious limitations of the genre, the mawlids are useful introductions to some religious, mythological, and even musical aspects of Islam2 . What is given here for the first time is merely a very brief introductory note on a newly-found Gūrānī 3 manuscript in which the Muslim Kurds’ interest in the genre is visible. Although since the last decade Kurds devoted most of their energy to national studies, they also offered important contributions to mawlid scholarship, particularly textual studies, such as their editions, rarely accompanied by translations. The rise of attention to the mawlid religious texts perhaps is due to the same rise in national identity as mawlids (written in various Kurdish dialects) encourage a popular conception that it is a sign of Kurdish ethnic and cultural boom in the Islamic area. Whatever mawlid’s influence may have been, the present Gūrānī manuscript is a respected resource in the tradition and may prove helpful in providing some new aspects of this large body of Kurdish literature

There is a natural tendency in dealing with the Yezidism of becoming overwhelmed bythe fascinating and complex details of its present situation, oral tradition, and sacred textsthat, however, it is safe to say, defy simple comprehension and adequate explanation. Mypurpose here, however, is possibly much simpler and that is to suggest what role theMuslim Kurds played against the Yezidis in the 10th/16th century Kurdistan. In part thecomments that follow here are especially about the Kurdish Muslim polemics against theYezidi religion. And depend on an earlier study of mine entitled “The Fatwa of MalaSalih al-Kurdi al-Hakkari”, which may be consulted for the background and sources(Dehqan, 2008). What is provided in the present essay has two sections: i. some notes onthe newly-found manuscript of a commentary by Mawlana Muhammad al-Barqal‘i whohas written it on the fatwa of Mawlana Sallih, and ii. the edition and English translation ofthe text which is given here for the first time.

The Sharaf-nāma, that huge compendium of Kurdish history, constitutes a large collection of gnomic sayings which has survived in the text. It is possible, in general, to distinguish between two types of gnomic literature in the Sharaf-nāma. A distinction can be made between verse compositions containing mainly pragmatic advice and those prose aphorisms which have primarily religious character. Although one cannot expect absolute separation of themes as there is very little that is completely secular in the text.Loosely speaking, every citation has itself a source. What distinguishes the citations of the Sharaf-nāma from others is the unsystematic way in which they are expressed, showing almost always no mention of the sources used. In this context, the job of the editor or translator is not merely to make interesting remarks about, for example, the Kurdish nationalism in the Sharafnāma but to identify literary references. They are very useful not only for the supposition and the semantics of terms but also for clarifying the exact meaning of a number of points of this text, as well as for correcting or reconstructing some passages of the text especially when the questions of meaning, language, and particularly variant readings are concerned.The present article provides a complete checklist of literary citations given in the text. Literary here can apply to anything eloquence, including elegant and subtle poetry, to proverbs, ḥadīths, to āyas, invocations to God for assistance, satires, and on occasion even to the divinatory art of astrology etc. There are certain fragments where a poetical citation has not been identified, where a hemistich of long qaṣīdas remains undiscovered. Lacunae always do exist but I hope that the present checklist, as a slight recompense for its priority, may constitute a modest contribution to further research on this textual aspect of the Sharaf-nāma; especially as a stepping-stone to other scholars in happier times. My work makes no pretension to completeness