The founder of the Kurdish newspaper Miqdad Madhat Badirkhan was the son of Mir Badirkhan Pasha.
Year of birth and death are unknown. Miqdad Medhat Badirkhan is a compound name, which the Ottomans and Kurds of that time borrowed from the French to name their sons.
He came to Egypt in 1891 and published five issues of the Kurdistan newspaper in Cairo in 1898. The first issue was published on #22-04-1898#. He then returned to Istanbul for fear of the threats of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid, so that his brothers would not be tortured and imprisoned.
In 1899, he and his brother Ali Beg tried to pave the way for a national revolution, but failed. Some historians say that Miqdad Madhat Badrkhan was an active member of the Union and Progress Party. In 1906, he was expelled from Turkey for his position. In 1910, shortly after the proclamation of the constitutional government in Istanbul, he participated in the establishment of the Kurdish Knowledge Publishing Society. However, nothing is known about his life since that year. Besides being the first journalist and founder of the Kurdish movement, Badirkhan also founded a printing house called the Kurdistan Newspaper Printing House in Cairo, which is considered the first Kurdish printing house.
This great leader could also speak French well besides his own language, as well as Turkish and Arabic. Therefore, with the publication of the first issue of Kurdistan newspaper, he published a part in French that shows the opnenness and extent of Miqdad Medhat Badirkhan's mind.
April 22 is a national holiday in Kurdistan every year to commemorate the establishment of the Kurdish newspaper.[1]