Faqi Tayran


Faqi Tayran is considered one of the great classic Kurdish poets and writers. His real name was Mir Mihemed. He was born in a village called Miks in the Hakkari region of the Ottoman Empire. In his youth, he went to Cizre region to study under the well-known Kurdish poet, Malaye Jaziri.

Works

Among Faqi Tayran's literary works are Wesfê şêxê senhanî, Qewlê Hespê Reş and Ber Sîsayê Abid. He was greatly influenced by Kurdish folklore tales. He also wrote several poems. The most famous among them are the pastoral poems he wrote while corresponding with Malaye Jaziri. Faqi Tayran is also credited with contributing the earliest literary account of the Battle of Dimdim in 1609-1610 between the Kurds and the Safavid Empire.
In Kurdish oral traditions, literary works, and histories, this battle is seen as a struggle of the Kurdish people against foreign domination. In fact, Bayt dimdim is considered a national epic second only to Mem û Zîn by Ahmad Khani. It is known in both the Kurmanji and Sorani dialects of Kurdish and in Armenian.
The famous Kurdish poet Ahmad Khani expressed his own ideal role as a poet and a thinker in this way:
This is considered to be the first reference to Kurdish language literature by a Kurd or a non-Kurd.