(1797 - )

Warda al-Turk is one of the few women poets of the nineteenth century whose work in classical and colloquial Arabic still survives today. Born in 1797 in Dayr al-Qamar, Lebanon, Warda al-Turk learned Arabic language and literature from her father, Niqula, court poet of Amir Bashir al-Shihabi II. She wrote many poems, especially panegyrics – poems of praise, and elegies – poems of sadness and mourning.