Nezami

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Image:Bahram-e Gur.jpg Nezami Gænjævi (نظامی گنجوی in Persian, Nizami Gəncəvi in Azerbaijani)‎ (1141 – 1209), whose full Arabic name was Nizām ad-Dīn Abū Muhammad Ilyās ibn-Yusūf ibn-Zakī ibn-Muˤayyid Nizāmī Ganjavī, was a Persian poet and storywriter. He was born in Ganja (known during the Soviet period as Kirovabad, Azerbaijan), the capital of Arran in Azerbaijan, where he remained until his death. His mother, named Ra'isa, was Kurdish.<ref>[1]</ref>. According to some sources, his father originated from the village of Ta or Tafresh near Qom.

The region of Arran (the central lowland part of today's Republic of Azerbaijan), where Nezami lived and wrote, had in his time only recently become the scene of significant literary activity in Persian. In Azerbaijan, where numerous languages and dialects were spoken, one of the original languages was a local Iranian dialect, Azæri (Arabic Āðarī, not to be confused by the Turkic Azeri language now spoken in the region) but with increasing westward migrations of Turks in the eleventh century, Turkish became widespread.

When in the twelfth century the Seljuks extended their control into the region, their provincial governors, virtually autonomous local princes, encouraged Persian letters. By the mid-twelfth century, many important poets enjoyed their patronage, and there developed a distinctive Azerbaijani style of poetry in Persian, which contrasted with Khurasani ("Eastern") style in its rhetorical sophistication, its innovative use of metaphor and its use of technical terminology and Christian imagery.

1 Works
2 Quotes
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

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Works

Image:Miraj manuscript.jpg Nezami lived in an age of both political instability and intense intellectual activity, which his poems reflect; but little is known about his life, his relations with his patrons, or the precise dates of his works, as the accounts of later biographers are colored by the many legends built up around the poet. Although he left a small corpus of lyric poetry, Nezami is best known for his five long narrative poems.

Often referred to by the honorific Hækim "the Sage", Nezami is both a learned poet and master of a lyrical and sensuous style. His poems show that not only was he fully acquainted with Arabic and Persian literature and with oral and written popular and local traditions, but was also familiar with such diverse fields as mathematics, geometry, astronomy and astrology, alchemy, medicine, Koranic exegesis, Islamic theology and law, history, ethnics, philosophy and esoteric thought, music and the visual arts.

Nezami was a master of the Masnavi style (double-rhymed verses) and one of the four great Persian poets of the 12th century CE. He wrote poetical works; the main one is the Pænjgænj "Quinary", also known by the Persian pronunciation of the same word in Arabic, Khamse. The Quinary includes five books:

Makhzan al-Asrar "The Storehouse of Mysteries" (1165)
Khosrow o Shirin "Khosrow and Shirin" (1175)
Leyle o Mæjnun "Layla and Majnun" (1188)
Eskændærname "The Book of Alexander" (1191)
Hæft Peykar "The Seven Beauties" (1198)

The Nezami Museum of Literature is located in Baku, Azerbaijan. Nezami's mausoleum is located in Ganja, Azerbaijan. The monument was built in 1991 replaced a similar obelisk dating from the late 1940s. The mausoleum is an elegant marble covered structure about 20 m tall. Behind it there is an open area with a display of scenes from Nezami's books, sculpted in metal.

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Quotes

همه عالم تن است و ايران دل "The world is my body and Iran is my heart", Translated from Nezami's original work (in Persian) <ref>Nezami, by Javid Huseynov </ref><ref>Le Monde diplomatique, January 2005 [2]</ref><ref>Azarpadgan Journal, no.21. August 2004 Nezami by Javid Huseynov</ref><ref>Shargh newspaper, 15 October 2005 [3]</ref>

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Notes

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References

E.G. Browne. Literary History of Persia. (Four volumes, 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing). 1998. ISBN 0-700-70406-X
Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. ASIN B-000-6BXVT-K

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