HAZRAT YUSUF IN QOVSI TABRIZI`S POETRY

The Azerbaijani literature, which constitutes a rich and important branch of Turkish literature, have been developed in Persian language until XIII century, and the famous Azerbaijani poets as Nizami Ganjavi, Khaghani, Qatran Tabrizi, Abu`l-`Ala Ganjavi, Mahsati Ganjavi, Falaki Shirvani and others left a remarkable Persian-language heritage. The Azerbaijani literature became more advanced along with Persian literature in the later centuries and the number of poets writing in Azerbaijani increased. In the XVII century, Persian poetry declined, and contrarily, Azerbaijani poets, mainly continuing the tradition of Muhammad Fuzuli, played an important role in the development of Azerbaijani literature. One of this poets was Qovsi Tabrizi. Unfortunately, the information, given in the primary sources about the life of Qavsi was less and sometimes inaccurate. They mistakenly confused Qavsi with the poets, living in different centuries but used the same pen-name. Academician Tofiq Hajiyev, Prof. Dr.Yavuz Akpinar, Dr.Pasha Karimov, Dr.Mumine Chakir and some other modern researchers have been able to correct these mistakes and contributed greatly to the study of Azerbaijany literature with their researches about Qovsi`s life, literary identity, his feelings, and thought-world. In this study, the life of Qovsi have been surveyed on the basis of primary sources as Sam Mirza`s Tuhfe-i Sami, Kerbalai Hafiz Hussein Tabrizi`s Ravzat al-Jinan and Jannat al-Cinan, Mirza Muhammad Nasrabadi`s Tezkire, Nur Hasan Han`s Nigaristan-i Suhen and Qovsi Tabrizi`s own poems. Qovsi`s Diwan (collection of poems) in Turkish, prepared by Pasha Karimov on the basis of Baku, Tiflis, London, İstanbul, Mashhad və Tabriz manuscript copies and published in 2012 in Baku have been investigated, and some couplets, written by Qovsi using The Prophet Joseph story, given in Qur`an and its interpretations, have been analyzed.

Keywords

Qovsi Tabrizi, Azerbaijani literature of the 17th century, Yusuf (Joseph), Zulaykha, Yakub (Jacob)