HIS NAME WAS NIZAMI

One might think that man has lost his ability to wonder in this era of scientific and technological progress, nanotechnology and other technological discoveries and advances. Every household appliance allows us to choose the program we like, machines speak to us in our language and we read books on the screens of notebooks, netbooks and iPads. We enjoy cable TV and the internet which stream the products of the global entertainment industry to us, and already we cannot imagine another, real life, almost believing that it does not exist it all. But it does. There are real books, in hard covers, with real text, there is great music. There are real poets who sing of love, justice and humanity, with the talent which God bestows upon men. There are great names and anniversaries in Azerbaijan which must be remembered.  And there is eternity.

"There is eternity," said a woman who lives in Krasnodar, Russia. "There is eternity, and it is God and Nizami Gancavi." It was a surprise and a shock to hear such totally unexpected words; they were almost a revelation on the shore of the Black Sea. Her friend, a woman from Azerbaijan, had presented her with a book from the 'Classics of World Literature' series a long time before. It included Nizami's poem 'Layla and Majnun', so from that time on there had been no other philosopher, poet or thinker who could "bead the words on the string of the soul" so skilfully for her.  She admitted that Nizami had changed her life and her view of life. A teacher of the English language, she was unable to understand why Nizami was not part of the school curriculum, why children were not taught the highly ethical and edifying ideas of the thinker, why children were not given the opportunity to read books that will remain precious forever.  She then decided to create her own educational materials, translating some of the lines from Layla and Majnun into English. The results were very good. Things that her pupils had struggled for months to master now took them only one or two lessons with the help of Nizami's lines. The seventh graders were very interested, and they wanted to know what happened next.  In the end, she translated almost the whole of Layla and Majnun into English. And to this day, the school where she taught - she has retired now - uses those materials based on Nizami.  "Do you know that 2011 is his 870th anniversary?  His life was not very long, no more than 70 years, but his contribution to world literature is immense!  I believe that he was a genius for all times and peoples, and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is nothing but an earthly semblance of Layla and Majnun."

Nizami

What do we know about the great poet?  Almost nothing - he refused an offer to be a court poet, which is why very little information is available about his life.  Back then, only people close to the courts were mentioned in the chronicles. The great Azerbaijani poet, thinker and philosopher wrote in Farsi.  Nizami, or "He who beaded words" (real name Nizam ad-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas ibn-Yusuf) lived and worked in the 12th century in the Caucasus, in the city of Ganca (hence his pen name Gancavi - 'of Ganca').  The city on the Great Silk Road was a "great capital of the Turks," wrote Arab traveller ibn Arzaq, who visited the city almost 100 years before the birth of the poet, meaning the state of Arran, where the "Turks are as numerous as ants," as other prominent historian, al-Nasawi, noted.

Nizami Gancavi is one of the great writers of classical Eastern poetry, one of the greatest men of the arts in the medieval East, a prominent romantic poet who brought a colloquial and realistic style to Eastern epic poetry.  Nizami's strong character, his social sensitivity and poetic genius combined with a rich Eastern cultural heritage to create a new standard of outstanding literary works.  Nizami rose through the ranks of his fellow men of letters, creating great poetry, epic and rich in mysticism and romance.  His heroic-romantic poetry was a major influence on the entire Farsi-speaking world and inspired young poets, writers and playwrights who tried to imitate his style for many generations, not only in the Caucasus, but everywhere from the Ottoman to the Mughal lands (modern-day Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India).  His work influenced great poets like Hafez, Rumi and Saadi.  His five 'masnavi' - the Quinary (Khamse) deal with a variety of issues from different fields of knowledge and earned him great fame, as testified by the innumerable handwritten copies of his work. The protagonists of his poems - Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun, Iskander - are known throughout the entire Muslim world and beyond. UNESCO declared the year 1996 the year of Nizami to commemorate the poet's 850th anniversary.  Giacomo Puccini wrote his opera 'Turandot' using the plot of Nizami's poem 'Seven Beauties' (Haft Paykar), which illustrates its long-lasting fame, far beyond the realms of Azerbaijani literature, despite the fact that he wrote in Farsi.

Life and education

Nizami Gancavi was born in 1141 into a family of a theologian and, judging by his works, he received a comprehensive philosophical and philological education.  Besides his native Azerbaijani, he spoke the language of science and religion (Arabic) and the language of poetry (Farsi), studied mathematics, algebra, geometry, astronomy, medicine, logic and history.  "In a short life I studied all the sciences - from the rings of Saturn to the centre of the Earth, and became a treasure-trove of knowledge in all areas," or, in V. Derzhavin's Russian translation, "I studied all the books of our ancestors on my own, and my fast pen grew increasingly sophisticated and lofty."

We know very little about Nizami's life, but it is known for certain that he was not a court poet, because he thought that such a role might compromise his integrity, while he sought first and foremost freedom of artistic expression.  However, had he been a court poet, more biographical data would be available to us: quite a lot of biographical information about the Persian court poets has survived.  At the same time, following tradition, Nizami dedicated all his works to the rulers of different dynasties.  For example, Nizami dedicated his poem Layla and Majnun to the Shirvanshah dynasty, and Seven Beauties to one of the Maraga, Atabeg Ali al-Din, a rival of the Ildenizids.

As already mentioned, Nizami lived in Ganca.  He was married three times.  His first and beloved wife, a slave woman Afak, to whom he dedicated many poems, "grand in appearance, beautiful and sensible," was presented to him as a gift by Derbent ruler Dara Muzaffar ad-Din, circa 1170 AD.  Nizami freed Afak and married her. Their son was born circa 1174 and they called him Muhammad.  In 1178 or 1179, when Nizami was finishing his poem Khosrow and Shirin, Afak died. Their son Muhammed was about 7 years old at the time. His two other wives also died early, and the deaths of both wives coincided with the conclusion of a new epic poem, which was why the poet said:  "God, why should I pay with a wife for every poem!"

Dowlatshah Samarkandi mentioned in his famous Tazkirat ash-Shoara (Notes on Poets) (1494-1495) Nizami's brother, who was also a poet. According to the source, the brother's name was Qivami Mutarrizi. Nizami Gancavi died in early 1202. One of Nizami's kin, possibly his son, described the death of the poet and included these lines in the second book of Iskander, the chapter on the deaths of the philosophers of antiquity - Plato, Socrates and Aristotle.  The description mentions the age of the author of Iskander Nameh:

He was sixty and three years 

And six months, and he went into darkness,

Having said everything about men who illuminated

Everyone with their teachings, he followed in their footsteps.

Contribution to poetry

Nizami has one qasidah ('ode') in which, in this well-known genre of poetry, he discusses himself and his contribution to poetry:  "I have become the king of kings in the realm of wise thoughts/ The ruler of space, shah of time I have become/ In the kingdom of mellifluous songs I share my power with no one" (translated by I. Borisova).  This view of himself is confirmed by the diverse, powerful and truly great literary legacy of Nizami, who went down in history as the author who wrote, besides a large number of poems in every genre of Eastern poetry, the five poems of his Quinary: 'The Treasury of Mysteries', 'Khosrow and Shirin', 'Layla and Majnun', 'Seven Beauties' and 'Iskander Nameh' in two parts (the book of Alexander the Great).  Only a small portion of his lyrical poetry has survived, and most of it is in the forms of qasidahs (odes) and ghazals (lyrics).  A small number of his ruba'I (quatrains) have survived in the anthology of Persian poetry, Nozhat al-Majales, compiled by the 13th century Persian poet Amal al-Din Khalil Shirvani, but first described only in 1932. The epic poems which form the Khamse collection and which have been preserved are better known.

Nizami's Quinary has the title Panj Ganj, which in Farsi means "Five Jewels."  All five poems are written in the Masnavi style (double-rhymed verses), of which he was a master.

The first poem is Makhzan al-Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries), and it was written under the influence of the monumental poem by Sanai (died in 1131), The Walled Garden of Truth.  The poems Khosrow and Shirin, Seven Beauties (Haft Paykar), and Iskander Nameh are based on medieval tales of chivalry.  Khosrow and Shirin, Bahram Gur and Alexander the Great, who appear briefly in some parts of the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, are central to the plotlines and are the main protagonists in the three poems.  Layla and Majnun was based on Arabic legend.  In all five poems, Nizami masterfully reworked the material from the sources.

It must be noted that Nizami's poems contain unique information which has been preserved precisely thanks to his descriptions.  For example, some of the charming moments of the Khamse are the detailed descriptions of musicians; these make Nizami's poems the main source of modern knowledge about Eastern music and musical instruments of the 12th century.  Despite his interest in ordinary people, he did not contest the monarchic form of government and believed that it was an integral, spiritual and sacred part of the Eastern way of life.  

The first poem, The Treasury of Mysteries (1177) has 20 short poetic chapters, or 'speeches'.  In them, the author conveys his philosophical and ethical views of man, his material and spiritual world, love as the ultimate source of existence and trigger of creativity which makes one do good deeds and elevates one; he also ponders the vicissitudes of destiny, power and tyranny.  He has instructions for a ruler, discusses justice, benevolence toward subjects ('The story of Solomon and a villager'), the harmony of the divine and earthly worlds ("Not only in the heavens, but also here you are in paradise" - translated by K. Lipskerov and S. Shervinskiy) and of nature (the fable about the hunter king and the arrow which speaks in defence of a gazelle), he sings of greatness of mind, spirit and the hands of man (the story of the old brick maker).  The poem includes stories about Isa (Jesus), the Qu'ran and prophets, in particular a description of Muhammad's ascent to Heaven and his meeting with the Almighty (this story is revisited in three of the five poems of the Quinary). Following the literary traditions of the East, Nizami prefaced his poems, including The Treasury of Mysteries, with odes in honour of the Creator and the Prophet Muhammad, prayers for mercy and forgiveness to God, of the superiority of "speech arranged in proper order" (matters of poetics) over "speech resembling scattered pearls."  The poem with its rich plot and clear images won its author great fame.  Inspired by his success, and in memory of his wife Afak, he went on to write poems about love in which, according to researchers, Afak was the prototype for the female characters.

Important legacy

Nizami's works had a tremendous effect on the development of Eastern and world literature until as late as the 20th century.  There are dozens of 'nazirah' (poetic 'replies') and imitations of Nizami's poems, dating back to the 13th century, authored by, among others, Ali-Shir Navai, the Indo-Persian poet Amir Khusrow Dehlawi and others.  Many poets - Persian, Turkish and Indian - imitated Nizami's works over many centuries, even if they were unable to equal him, still less exceed him.  The Persian scholar Hekmat listed at least 40 Persian and 30 Turkish imitations of the poem Layla and Majnun.

In Azerbaijan and Iran, Nizami's work remains very popular.  There is a special competition in the recital of his poetry, called Musha'areh.  Nizami's works, his living words, are the source and symbol of ancient tradition.  They reflect the humanitarian, social, political, spiritual and ethical values of the period and were the pinnacle of the Eastern renaissance. The inner world of man, his feelings and thoughts, and the depiction of the dynamic of development in the protagonists are the basis and content of Nizami's literary heritage.  His poems account for the spread of the topic of love and universal human ideals in the literature of the Near East.  Pioneering in the depiction of love from a philosophical point of view, he created the paradigm of tender love, linking it to freedom of speech and conscience...

Nizami Gancavi discovered a new direction for the arts of the East and made an invaluable contribution to the development of humanitarian ideas in the Near East.  Although the poet dealt in his works with the problems of his period, his poems remain modern, even today.  Nizami Gancavi created great works by writing about the desires and dreams of his people in his unique manner.

For the first time in the history of literature, Nizami created an image of a woman as a human being with profound thoughts. He compared woman - noble, wise, and brave, on a par with man in many areas - with some men who did not have these qualities. He was the first to demonstrate that work distinguishes humans from other creatures. Nizami's works include descriptions of the beauty of the nature. They revive myths, legends, parables and proverbs of Azerbaijani folklore. They have been translated into many languages. Rare manuscripts are kept in the museums and libraries of Baku, Moscow, St Petersburg, Tashkent, Tabriz, Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul, Delhi, London, Paris and many other cities.  His writing still plays an important role in the development of Eastern art and perhaps we Azerbaijanis are very lucky that one of the greatest poets of all times and peoples was born on Azerbaijani land, and that we are the inheritors of Nizami's rich legacy.

I have a worry which has become so uneasy:

I want to preserve my name for the centuries to come.

Dear fellow traveller!  Remember these words:

If you wish to visit my ashes,

They will be dispersed by the wind all over the world,

And no one in the world will remember me.

But do put the palm of your hand on my tombstone

And remember the bright flames of my soul.

If you drop tears on my grave,

I will shed my never-fading light on you in return.

If you send me a greeting - I will reply with my greeting,

If you come, I will descend from the heights to welcome you.

And whatever your prayer is about, it will be heard, believe me.  I know this.