Nizami Ganjavi was a 12th century Persian poet born in Ganja, Azerbaijan. He is considered one of the greatest romantic epic poets in Persian literature and brought a more colloquial style. He is most famous for his Khamsa (Quinary), a collection of five long narrative poems including Layla and Majnun and Khosrow and Shirin. These poems were based on pre-Islamic legends but reworked substantially by Nizami. He is widely celebrated in Azerbaijan and has had institutions like the Nizami Museum of Literature and a metro station named after him.

1. Nizami Ganjavi
Great poet of Azerbaijan

2. Life
• Nizami Ganje'i,Nizami, or Nezāmi, whose formal
name was Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās
ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī, was a 12th-
century Persian poet. Nezāmi is considered the
greatest romantic epic poet in Persian
literature,who brought a colloquial and realistic
style to the Persian epic.His heritage is widely
appreciated and shared
by Afghanistan,Azerbaijan, Iran,Kurdistan region
• Tajikistan.

3. • His personal name was Ilyas and his chosen pen-
name was Nezami (also spelled as Nizami and
Neẓāmi). He was born of an urban background
in Ganja (Great Seljuq empire now present-
day Azerbaijan) and is believed to have spent his
whole life in South Caucasus. According to De
Blois, Ganja was a city which at that time had
predominantly an Iranian population. The
Armenian historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi
• ( 1200–1271) mentions that: "This city was
densely populated with Iranians and a small
number of Christians".

4. • Nezami was orphaned early and was raised by his
maternal uncle Khwaja Umar who took
responsibility for him and afforded him an
excellent education. His mother, named Ra'isa,
was of Kurdish background. His father, whose
name was Yusuf is mentioned once by Nezami in
his poetry. In the same verse, Nezami mentions
his grandfather's name asZakki. In part of the
same verse, some have taken the
word Mu'ayyad as a title for Zakki while others
have interpreted it as the name of his great
grandfather. Some sources have stated that his
father might be possibly from Qom. Nezami is
variously mentioned as a Persian and/or Iranian.

5. Family
• Nezami was married three times. His first wife, who is
called Afaq by many modern writers, was a Kipchak slave
girl, was sent to him by Fakhr al-Din Bahramshah, the ruler
of Darband, as a part of a larger gift. She became Nezami's
first and according to Iraj Bashiri: "most beloved wife". His
only son Mohammad was from Afaq. Afaq died after
"Khosrow and Shirin" was completed. Mohammad was
seven at the time. Although her name being called "Afaq"
was first mentioned by Vahid Dastgerdi, Said Nafisi and a
recent source have challenged that her name was Afaq and
have taken the Afaq to mean "horizin" rather than a proper
name. Strangely enough, Nezami's other wives, too, died
prematurely – the death of each coinciding with the
completion of an epic, prompting the poet to say, "God,
why is it that for every mathnavi I must sacrifice a wife!".

6. Creativity
• He wrote poetical works; the main one is the Panj
Ganj(Persian: Five Jewels) "Quinary", also known by the
Persian pronunciation of the same word in Arabic, Khamsa.
The first of his five 'Treasures', called The Storehouse of
Mysteries was influenced by Sanai of Ghazna's (d. 1131)
monumental Garden of Truth. The other ‘Treasures’ were
medieval romances. Khusaw and Shirin, Bahrām-e Gur, and
Alexander the Great, who all have episodes devoted to
them in Ferdowsi's Book of Kings, appear again here at the
center of three of four of Nezami's narrative poems. The
adventure of the paired lovers, Leyli and Majnun, is the
subject of the second of his four romances, and derived
from Arabic sources.In all these cases, Nezami reworked
the material from his sources in a substantial way.

7. Leyla and Majnun
• A scene from the romance "Layla and Majnun". The thwarted lovers
meet for the last time before their deaths.
• Both have fainted and Majnun's
• elderly messenger attempts to revive Layla while wild animals
• protect the pair from unwelcome intruders. A story of Arabic origin
which was later absorbed and embellished by the Persians.The
poem of 4,600 distichs was dedicated, in 1192, to Abu al-Muzaffar
Shirvanshah, who claimed descent from the Sassanid King, whose
exploits are reflected in Nezami's "Seven Beauties"(Haft Paykar).
The poem is based on the popular Arab legend of ill-starred lovers:
the poet Qays falls in love with his cousin Layla, but is prevented
from marrying her by Layla's father. Layla's father forbids contact
with Qays and Qays becomes obsessed and starts
• signing of his love for Layla in publicLate
• sixteenth-century illustration. The Story of
• Layla and Majnun by Nizami, was translated
• and edited by Dr. Rudolf Gelpke into an English
• version in collaboration with E. Mattin and
• G. Hill Omega Publications and published in 1966

8. • Khosrow o Shirin
• (Persian: ‫شیرین‬ ‫و‬ ‫خسرو‬" ) Khosrow and Shirin" (1177–1180)
• A story of pre-Islamic Persian origin which is found in the great epico-
historical poems of Shahnameh and is based on a true story that was
further romanticized by Persian poets. The story chosen by Nezami, was
commissioned and dedicated to the Seljuk Sultan Toghril II, the Atabek
Muhammad ibn Eldiguz Jahan Pahlavan and his brother Qizil Arsalan. It
contains about 6,500 distichs in length, the story depicts the love
of Sassanian Khosrow II Parviz towards his Armenian princessShirin.
"Khusrow and Shirin" recounts the story of King Khosrow's courtship of
Princess Shirin, and vanquishing of his love-rival, Farhad. The story has a
complex structure with several genres exploited simultaneously; and
contains many verbal exchanges and letters, all imbued
• Khosrow endures long journeys, physical and spiritual,
• with lyrical intensity.
• before returning to Shirin, his true love. They are
• eventually married, but eventually Khosrow is killed
• by his son and Shirin commits suicide over the body of
• her murdered husband.[ Pure and selfless love is
• represented here embodied in the figure of Farhad,
• secretly in love with Shirin, who finally falls victim to the king's ire and
jealousy.

9. • The Nizami Museum of Literature is located
in Baku, Azerbaijan. One of the Baku Metro stations is
also named after Nizami Ganjavi. There is Institute of
Literature named after Nizami and Cinema named
after Nizami in Baku. One of the districts of Baku is
called Nizami raion. The life of Nizami Ganjavi is shown
in the Azerbaijani movie "Nizami" (1982), in which the
leading role, role of Nizami Ganjavi, was played
by Muslim Magomayev.The Nizami Mausoleum, built in
honor of Nizami, stands just outside the city of Ganja in
Azerbaijan. It is a tall cylindrical building, surrounded
by gardens. To one side, there is a metal statue
commemorating Nizami's epic poems.

10. • Azerbaijan’s literature is a unique spiritual
treasure-house for its people and there is no
doubt that Nizami Ganjavi is one of the greatest
representatives of this literary heritage. His
works, with their unique poetic innovations and
universal themes, have transcended borders to
influence the literature of distant lands. We
hope that by introducing readers to more
detailed information about the great poet’s life
and work