This is an English translation of four ghazals by Nalî (c. 1800 – c. 1856).
Mallah Khidir, known by his pen name Nalî, was the most important Kurdish poet of the nineteenth century. He founded the Sorani School of Kurdish poetry, a literary movement which remains influential in the Sorani dialect of Kurdish today. Most of Nali’s early poetry is devoted to his beloved Habiba, while his later poetry, written in exile, turns to darker poetic contemplations of his homeland, the crumbling Kurdish emirate of Baban in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan and western Iran.