Ehmedê Xanî’s Mem û Zîn The Consecration of a Kurdish national epic

This chapter seeks to trace the shifting reception of Xani's romance and briefly discuss how it acquired a central place in Kurdish national consciousness over the course of the twentieth century. Xani's fame and standing among the Kurds are due primarily to his story of two tragic lovers; his other works have hardly become known outside the medrese environment from which they originate and for which they were composed. More than any other work, Ehmede Xani's Mem u Zin (MZ), a mystical romance or mathnawî poem in 2,655 bayts, or distichs, written in Kurmanci or Northern Kurdish, symbolizes and reflects the Kurds' aspirations toward liberation and national independence. In monarchical and republican Iraq, the reception of the tale of Mem and Zin, and of Xani's epic, followed a rather different trajectory. The famous Soviet orientalist Orbeli ranked Xani alongside such acknowledged national poets as Firdawsî and Rustaveli, Qanatê Kurdoev openly stated that MZ is 'the national epic of the Kurds.'.