Sheikh Reza Talabani and his Unpublished Poem in the Ottoman Archive

Abstract

Studying the lives and works of Kurdish poets through documents and archives is an important practical step to clarifying the history of Kurdish literature. Therefore, the Ottoman Archive is an important centre to uncover the origins of the lives and works of Kurdish poets, scholars, and personalities. Sheikh Reza Talabani (1837–1910) was able to write poetry in several languages. He was the son of Sheikh Abdulrahman Talabani, a prominent leader of the Qadiri sect, who was an influential figure in the Ottoman Empire and had a close relationship with the central government and senior officials. From this perspective, this study focuses on the position of Sheikh Reza Talabani in the Ottoman Empire in the shadow of Ottoman documents, as well as the discovery of his unpublished poem in the archive, which is a letter of praise to the Ottoman Sultan. The importance of this study is that it was previously only known that Sheikh Reza made several trips to Istanbul, but through this article, it corrects several previous opinions and specifically discusses the timing of his trips to Istanbul, his rank, and the fame of his praise poem to the Ottoman Sultan. The study reveals the poem for the first time.