Skip to main content
edited tags
Link
verbose
  • 31.6k
  • 2
  • 73
  • 182
edited body; edited tags
Source Link
Rand al'Thor
  • 77k
  • 31
  • 250
  • 530

Wikipedia describes Mem and Zin as

a Kurdish classic love story written down in 1692 (...).

In other words, it was written down roughly two-and-a-half centuries after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. With this in mind, it may seem silly to ask when the Mem and Zin was first printed. However, its author Ahmad Khani lived in Doğubayazıt in what is now Ağrı Province, an area that the Safavid Empire lost to the Ottomans after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. A few decades earlier, in 1483, Sultan Bayezid II had prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire on penalty of death. Printing in other scripts, such as Greek and Armenian, was still allowed.

If I am not mistaken, Kurdish (or the Kurdish languages) was written in the Sorani alphabet at the time. The Sorani alphabet is derived from the Persian alphabet, which is itself derived from Arabic script. Based on this, I assume that the prohibition legislated by Sultan Bayezid II also applied to Mem and Zin. Wikipedia points out that it wasn't until 1727 that

Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century.

Based on this, it is far from obvious that Mem and ZimZin would have appeared in print before 1727, or even before the beginning of the 19th century. So when was the work first printed?

Wikipedia describes Mem and Zin as

a Kurdish classic love story written down in 1692 (...).

In other words, it was written down roughly two-and-a-half centuries after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. With this in mind, it may seem silly to ask when the Mem and Zin was first printed. However, its author Ahmad Khani lived in Doğubayazıt in what is now Ağrı Province, an area that the Safavid Empire lost to the Ottomans after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. A few decades earlier, in 1483, Sultan Bayezid II had prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire on penalty of death. Printing in other scripts, such as Greek and Armenian, was still allowed.

If I am not mistaken, Kurdish (or the Kurdish languages) was written in the Sorani alphabet at the time. The Sorani alphabet is derived from the Persian alphabet, which is itself derived from Arabic script. Based on this, I assume that the prohibition legislated by Sultan Bayezid II also applied to Mem and Zin. Wikipedia points out that it wasn't until 1727 that

Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century.

Based on this, it is far from obvious that Mem and Zim would have appeared in print before 1727, or even before the beginning of the 19th century. So when was the work first printed?

Wikipedia describes Mem and Zin as

a Kurdish classic love story written down in 1692 (...).

In other words, it was written down roughly two-and-a-half centuries after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. With this in mind, it may seem silly to ask when the Mem and Zin was first printed. However, its author Ahmad Khani lived in Doğubayazıt in what is now Ağrı Province, an area that the Safavid Empire lost to the Ottomans after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. A few decades earlier, in 1483, Sultan Bayezid II had prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire on penalty of death. Printing in other scripts, such as Greek and Armenian, was still allowed.

If I am not mistaken, Kurdish (or the Kurdish languages) was written in the Sorani alphabet at the time. The Sorani alphabet is derived from the Persian alphabet, which is itself derived from Arabic script. Based on this, I assume that the prohibition legislated by Sultan Bayezid II also applied to Mem and Zin. Wikipedia points out that it wasn't until 1727 that

Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century.

Based on this, it is far from obvious that Mem and Zin would have appeared in print before 1727, or even before the beginning of the 19th century. So when was the work first printed?

Source Link
Tsundoku
  • 51.2k
  • 8
  • 110
  • 238

When was Mem and Zin / Mam û Zîn first printed?

Wikipedia describes Mem and Zin as

a Kurdish classic love story written down in 1692 (...).

In other words, it was written down roughly two-and-a-half centuries after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. With this in mind, it may seem silly to ask when the Mem and Zin was first printed. However, its author Ahmad Khani lived in Doğubayazıt in what is now Ağrı Province, an area that the Safavid Empire lost to the Ottomans after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. A few decades earlier, in 1483, Sultan Bayezid II had prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire on penalty of death. Printing in other scripts, such as Greek and Armenian, was still allowed.

If I am not mistaken, Kurdish (or the Kurdish languages) was written in the Sorani alphabet at the time. The Sorani alphabet is derived from the Persian alphabet, which is itself derived from Arabic script. Based on this, I assume that the prohibition legislated by Sultan Bayezid II also applied to Mem and Zin. Wikipedia points out that it wasn't until 1727 that

Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century.

Based on this, it is far from obvious that Mem and Zim would have appeared in print before 1727, or even before the beginning of the 19th century. So when was the work first printed?