Art is considered to be one of the main and most important subjects in Kurdistan that possess a great place in Kurdish culture because Kurds have always expressed their experiences through art, poetry, and songs.

Every Kurdish artist has deeply expressed their pain and their nation’s sufferings.

Undoubtedly, the life experiences of pains and sufferings of every Kurdish artist throughout their lives have echoed in their works. More importantly, despite all these sufferings, they have served their national art a great deal and they would continue to do so.

One of these artists is Ayshe Shan who paid a great deal of significance to the Kurdish art of singing as a woman and despite all the hardships she had to face, she never gave up on her work.

Ayshe Shan was born in October 1938 in Amed (Diyarbakir) in the North part of Kurdistan. She was known as “Ayshe Eli”, “Ayshe Osman”, “Ayshe Khan”, “Ayshe Kurd” and “Ayshe Shan”. Her parents were both from great and well-known families at that time.

Ayshe Shani Kurd had lived in Dilok in the North part of Kurdistan, Istanbul, Izmir, Germany, and Baghdad the Capital city of Iraq. She was not able to live in her motherland until the last minutes of her life. Even after her death, although she had requested to take her body back to her hometown, due to her family’s disagreement on letting this happen she could not go back.

This artist faced her family’s opposition to her work as an artist thus she moved to Dilok and left Diyarbakir. She had to sing Turkish songs on radio stations because the Kurdish language was prohibited to be used at that time in Turkey. Due to financial problems, she moved to Istanbul in 1963 and held concerts in which she sang in Turkish and Kurdish. She began to be popular for her song “Ez Khazalm” and after that, she recorded Kurdish and Turkish songs in an album. This album made her to be famous in the music world as “The Queen without a Crown”. Gradually, the Turkish government’s pressures on her increased and she was forced to leave Turkey and move to Germany. Unfortunately, she lost her 18-month-old daughter named Shahnaz at that time.

After some time, she had three other children and this time this artist moved back to Istanbul as a mother. Once more she faced her family’s opposition and the Turkish government’s pressures for the songs she had sung and this time she moved to Baghdad, Iraq in 1979. She started to sing on a Baghdad radio station by the name of “Ayshe Ali”. She held concerts in Baghdad, Mosul, Hawler (Erbil), and Duhok.

She expressed all the pain she had suffered throughout her life in her songs and she made everyone listen to her agonies. Unfortunately, she got cancer and her agonies grew even more.

Her family did not let her mother visit her or even attend her funeral so she sang the song of “Dayk’ (Mother) and this song became her masterpiece.

This artist with her beautiful voice and her sufferings died because of cancer on December 18th, 1996 in Izmir. Although she requested to be buried in her hometown it did not happen.

Ayshe Shan’s famous songs:

Ez Khazalm

Qadar

Hay wax daye

Le Le bemal

Lorke Lorke