Ep. 20 | A Rūmī in the Lands of Shām: Life, Poetry, and Legacy of a Janissary-Turned-Poet Māmayya al-Rūmī | Dr. Hacı Osman Gündüz

Dr. Hacı Osman (Ozzy) Gündüz is a winner of the 2025 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for his dissertation, "A Rūmī in the Lands of Shām: Life, Poetry, and Legacy of a Janissary-Turned-Poet Māmayya al-Rūmī (d. 985–7/1577–9)." Ozzy talks about his interests in Arabic literature during the Ottoman era, often considered a period of inḥiṭāṭ, or decline, in which Arabic literature became decadent, imitative, and lacking creativity. Ozzy challenges the decline narrative and conducts a micro-history of Māmayya al-Rūmī, a celebrated Arabic poet of non-Arab origin, whose poetry Ozzy analyzes on its own terms and within the context of the literary milieu of 16th century Damascus. Māmayya al-Rūmī's poetry spans a vast range, including panegyrics to rulers and scholars, multi-lingual macaronic poems, chronograms, and "bawdy" poetry on the themes of homoerotic desire, drugs, and the wildly popular new beverage, coffee. 

Dr. Hacı Osman (Ozzy) Gündüz is Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He earned his PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University in 2025.