Yusuf Nabi

Yusuf Nabi (1642 – 10 April 1712) was a Turkish Divan poet of Kurdish origin in the court of Mehmet IV. He was famous for "his brilliant lyrics filled with popular sayings and critiques of the age and verses commemorating innumerable important occasions."^[1]

At the age of 24 Nabi left Şanlıurfa Province and came to Istanbul to study. Subsequently, around 1680, he settled in Aleppo (in modern Syria). But in 1704 when Baltacı Mehmet Pasha became the grand vizier, Nabi followed him to İstanbul where he lived the remainder of his days.

Notes

1. Walter G. Andrews as quoted in Orga, Atesh (ed.) (2007) "Istanbul: Portrait of a City" Istanbul: A Collection of the Poetry of Place Eland, London, p. 39, ISBN 978-0-9550105-9-0; see Andrews, Walter G. (1997) Ottoman Lyric Poetry: An Anthology University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, ISBN 0-292-70472-0.