Person

Ahmad Khani

1650–1707 · 17th century

Ahmad Khani was a Kurdish poet, scholar and mystic from the Hakkari region who settled at Bayazid and wrote in Kurmanji Kurdish. His verse epic Mem and Zin, completed in 1692, retells a tragic love story set at the court of the emirate of Bohtan at Cizre. Its preface calls on the Kurds to unite under a ruler of their own, and it is regarded as the national epic of Kurdish literature.

Ahmad Khani
Image: Diyar Muhammed · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 state history

Emirate of Bohtan

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Ahmad Khani. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ahmad-khani
MLA
“Ahmad Khani.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ahmad-khani. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Ahmad Khani.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ahmad-khani.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Ahmad Khani’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ahmad-khani (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻