Muhamet Kyçyku also known as Muhamet Çami (1784-1844) was a

Cham Albanian Cham Albanians or Chams (; , ), are a sub-group of Albanians who originally resided in the western part of the region of Epirus in southwestern Albania and northwestern Greece, an area known among Albanians as Chameria. The Chams have their ow ...

author and one of the most famous bejtexhinj, the author of two religious poems. His major work is Erveheja written in 1820 but published in 1888.

Life

He was born in

Konispol Konispol ( sq-definite, Konispoli) is the southernmost town in Albania. It sits one kilometer away from the Albanian-Greek border. The settlement is inhabited by Muslim Cham Albanians. Konispol is the modern centre of the Cham Albanian community ...

on July 9, 1784, but we do not know much about his early childhood. He attended religious education for eleven years at

al-Azhar Al-Azhar Mosque (), known in Egypt simply as al-Azhar, is a mosque in Cairo, Egypt in the historic Islamic core of the city. Commissioned as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in 970, it was the first mosque established in a city that ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, then returned to his native village and served as a

imam Imam (; , '; : , ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Salah, Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, ...

until his death in 1844. Kyçyku has been a more productive author compared to others. He wrote in his Cham dialect and, apparently, was the first Albanian author to deal with the long poem. He is known for two poems with religious subjects and motives: Erveheja and Jusufi and Zylihaja. His major work is the Erveheja written in 1820, the source of which is the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Tûtî-nâme (The Story of a Parrot) by Ziyauddin Nakhshabî, inspired by the original Sanskrit Śukasaptati.{{cite book, author1=Elsie, first=Robert, title=Albanian Literature: A Short History, date=2005, publisher=I.B.Taurus, isbn=1-84511-031-5, pages=41–42, language=en, authorlink1=Robert Elsie Another well-known work is the religiously motivated poem "Yusuf and Zylihaja", a moralizing narrative with 2430 verses, based on the story told in Surah Yusuf of the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

, on the attempt of Aziz's wife to seduce and make Yusuf her own. The works written by these religious inspirations in oriental literature and beyond are well known. On this theme wrote in Persian Firdaus (935-1020) and the mystic Kyçyk's other works are the poem Bekriu (1824) in which he condemns the drinking of rakia">Ja'ami (1414-1492), in Turkish Hamdullah Hamdi (1449-1508) and many others. Kyçyk's other works are the poem Bekriu (1824) in which he condemns the drinking of rakia and wine, the historical one around 1826 for Ibrahim Pasha, the glorious campaigns of the Albanian governor of Egypt Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Mehmet Ali against the Greek rebellion and the poem that deals with the troubles of those who were forced to seek a morsel of bread and profit away from their homeland - the Gurbetlites. In 1888 Jani Vreto published Ervehena adopted as a fairy tale and sanitized by the oriental lexicon.

References

18th-century Albanian people 19th-century Albanian writers Albanian poets Bejtexhinj