Professors Nurullah Koltaş and Vitoria Holbrook join us to discuss the poetry of Niyazi Misri (d. 1694) and Ismā’īl Ḥaqqī Bursawī (d. 1725), two of the greatest Sufi poets of Ottoman Turkish. Highly-esteemed scholars, authors, and Sufi masters of the Halveti order during their lives, their poetry is still sung today in Turkish tekyes, or Sufi lodges, forming the basis of many popular ilâhis. Their poetry is characterized by a marriage of Akbari metaphysics, Persian ghazal symbolism, and the directness and profundity of the earlier Turkish Ashki tradition. One of Niyazi’s poems even alludes to the title of this podcast: […]