Talk:Nizami Ganjavi

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a better picture for infobox

there is another picture in the wikimedia that i think is more suitable for infobox.

File:Nizomi Ganjavi.jpg

. Bbadree (talk) 21:29, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you just remove the inscription from the picture? The picture itself is good. Tājik (talk) 15:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the portrait got changed already. Possibly someone should remove the Cyrilic/Latin inscription. --Nepaheshgar (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Jewish origin? (!!!!!!!)

Is the source really serious? --Wayiran (talk) 15:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that is a good question. I would not worry about attempts to de-Iranianize Nezami since all of his works are in Persian, his mother was Kurdish and he was raised by his Kurdish uncle. He was orphaned from his father early and did not even remember him according to his own words. I have opinions of 5 serious and scholars of Persian languages also on the funny USSR/nationalist misinterpretation of introduction of Lili o Majnoon as well. So if this article is disturbed, I will seek mediation and based on the overwhelming sources that call him a Persian poet, I would put that in the first line(Encyclopedia of Islam, Iranica, Britannica and any serious scholar) [1][2]. Note Pushkin was partially Ethiopian (through his father) but is considered a Russian poet nevertheless and no one challenges this position. But in the case of Nezami is even further different, since there was no nation states back then (unlike Russia of Pushkin), urban populations of Arran/Sherwan were Iranian and so one can only classify his identity based on his work and background (which in both cases are Iranic) only and all other associations are romantic nationalism. And culture takes supremacy as we move away centuries back, since culture (which poetry is tied to the language and the works of Nezami are simply the hardest to translate due to their symbolism which is tied with the culture and language) is the key. So any serious scholar will have to learn the language of Nezami and can do research based on sources provided and will not reach politicized conclusions in the long term. Some terms associated with Nezami in the 20th century by USSR did not simply exist at the time of Nezami, so eventually (say 100 years+ or so), untruth will disappear.

However, you raise an interesting question. I had a chance to e-mail the person (Dr. van Ruymbeke) who made this claim and this was the response I got (which can be verified by contacting her as well or I can send you the e-mail). Here was the response(note emphasis of bold is mine):

Thank you for your email and your query on Nezami. I am grateful to you for writing to me for clarification rather than jumping to conclusions. As you will notice from my book, I am absolutely NOT taking position on Nezami's origins, I am only mentioning - using the conditional - opinions found in previous scholarly works, one of which (but this is so far away I unfortunately cannot remember who the author might have been) must have mentioned the possibility that Nezami came from a Jewish background. If I remember correctly, no actual proof for this was given, except for his first name Ilyas son of Yusuf. The point I was making was that we have no biographical details on Nezami's origin, family background and education and thus need to look at his verses to understand who he was. I have not researched his background and all I can say is that no, there are no known works in Hebrew written by him, nor any traces of ties to a Jewish community, nor any mention by him that I know of that he was of Jewish origin. As to the opinions you are quoting, I would like to remark that this is a dangerous and pointless debate, as we have no biographical details about this or about most other medieval authors who wrote in persian. There was no definition of political nationalities in the large Saljuq Turkish Muslim empire in which Nezami was living. Nationalities, as Soviet and present-day Azarbaijan or Iran refer to, is not a concept that is relevant for those times. People who call Nezami a Persian poet are perfectly right, as the language in which he chose to express himself was Persian, whatever his family background might have been, and it was most probably Iranian. The area and town in which he lived has become Azerbaijan nowadays, so Azerbaijan is perfectly correct in claiming him as a local man - this might also be correct for the Soviet Union at one time. In my eyes, this does not rob Persian culture from one of its greatest man either.

Anyhow, the reason I included was not to say it is the correct opinion. As you see even the author of that quote now has a different opinion (and I did send her my own article) and she was not saying anything certain. But I just included variety of opinions (excluding USSR era and Iranian and Turkish (Turkey, Azerbaijan) sources), since it is now impossible to simply they exist outside of Wikipedia and also I gave my reasoning above after name of a certain place. To be fair, in the external link also I gave varying opinions. Basically it is very hard to find 100% the full background (what about Grandparents and parents of Grandparents and etc.) of most peoples who lived 800 years ago, so it is culture that comes first, which in this case was Persian (not just language but the themes and symbolism and sources(Shahnameh) of stories besides the fact that a poet is great due to the way he uses the language). Sometimes a group leaves genealogies like Safavids did, which makes it easy and ends all dispute. Other times though, they do not and just name partial (although I believe the evidences I cited in my article is sufficient). Then there is the issue of culture, language and etc. So without making the article complicated, I gave varying opinions which meet simple WP:verifiability and in this case neutrality (being Western or critical post USSR - Russian oriental sources).

I hope that clarifies why I included it. It is not correct, but I am just putting variety of opinion since thats how it works with some of these articles (for another example: Safavids).--Nepaheshgar (talk) 16:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Nezami ye Ganjavi

The title of the article should be moved to the full name of the person that is Nezami ye Ganjavi or Nezami Ganjavi. Baku87 (talk) 22:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually his full name is Jamal al-din Abu Muhammad Ilyas. The Abu Muhammad is actually a title as well, so it is Jamal al-Din Ilyas. Ganjavi is his designation because he lived most if not all of his life in Ganja. But I don't have a problem with Nezami Ganjavi, since it is indeed popular and it is also in Persian Wikipedia too, and there are a lot of other people with the name Nezami. --Nepaheshgar (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone removed a category [3] (Persian poet) which by google books is the most common (544). My address is to this person. The language and cultural contributions of the poet is in Persian civilization/culture and note the message of the scholar Christian van Ruymbeke above who wrote:"People who call Nezami a Persian poet are perfectly right, as the language in which he chose to express himself was Persian, whatever his family background might have been, and it was most probably Iranian.". So the category is simply using scholarly conventions and the fact that the cultural contribution was in Persian language and civilization, besides the actual stories being Persian based like Haft Paykar and Khusraw o Shirin. Also the article covers varying view points on paternal background in external link as well in one line and so there is no chance of misreading and there is no ambiguity. Note for example Safavid king Shah Esmail was of Kurdish ancestry but is considered an Azerbaijani-Turkic poet (is listed in such category as well as under famous Azeris which is fine) due to language or Pushkin is a Russian poet despite some Ethiopian ancestry. So the category is simply the cultural/language contributions and is used widely in google books, besides Britannica, Encyclopedia of Islam, Iranica and etc. There are of course a lot of sources as well mentioning the urban muslim population was of Iranic background at that time. Virtually very little is known of the poets life, but that all of his contribution is in the Persian language is well known and we know at least he was half Iranians and it is clear by his work (at least to me and others) that he came from an Iranian background culturaly as he expanded Persian myths (Shahnameh). There are very few sources (about a dozen in google books) that might also say "Azerbaijani", but it is shown there was a political endevaour towards this, at the same time Azerbaijani in USSR time was not equalized with Oghuz Turks but actually Medes/Caucasian Albanians and the role of Oghuz Turks in the formation of Azerbaijani ethnic group was minimized, it is used also a geographical name and the actual ethnonym Azerbaijani was started in the 19th/20th century, with the formation of the group between 14th-16th century (Gumiliev) and there are good enough documents that show the USSR tried to de-Iranianize Nezami although this is being slowly corrected in Russia now. Note Azerbaijan should be proud of Nezami as a local man, but they do not need to try to minimize his contributions to Persian literature and poetry or even make a him a Turk in order to feel association with him. The fact that he was from Ganja or lived virtually all his life there and is buried there is already great and sufficient to associate him with the country. But Azerbaijani-Turkic poet in the cultural/ethnic sense would make sense for someone whose background is either clearly Turkic or half Turkic (in this case there is a disagreement) or someone who wrote in the language (like Ismail I despite being paternal descendant of Firuz Shah Zarin Kolah Kurd Sanjani but culturally the man was not Kurdish). Also geographical association to Ganja is mentioned as well his shared heritage. Only one source in google books, which is Turkish, calls him a Turkish poet [4] and that source is political. Interestingly enough several Turkish books call him an "Iranian poet" in google books. Note I do not use the term Iranian poet here since some users might say his other half was not Iranic (and I have mentioned the viewpoint of such users in that one line where Iranic is mentioned), but I use Persian poet because of cultural/language contribution. Just like one does not call Nezami or Ismail I a "Kurdish poet" despite Kurdish ancestry, since poetry is tied to language, so the equivalent would be to call Ismail I a Kurdish poet due to ancestry or Shahriyar as an Arab poet due to being Seyyed!, such criterions are not used obviously in scholarly conventions and "X poet" has to do with cultural/language contributions since poetry is an art of the language itself and cannot be translated without losing its intracies and meanings. So if one wants to call him a Turkic/Turkish poet, they need to show many sources that do so explicitly, and one does not add category based on unknown and contested background. The discussion on the ethnic background of the poet is discussed in the article very succintly (in one sentence) and despite the assertion of the post above where an author corrected herself (and now believes in Iranic), I mentioned her other two theories. It is put there so that alternative opinions despite weight are given. At the same time, it is put in one sentence since there will always be disagreements here, but I gave all three opinions on his father's background despite WP:weight and also the statement of a scholar such as above who changed her opinion. As the scholar says: :"People who call Nezami a Persian poet are perfectly right, as the language in which he chose to express himself was Persian, whatever his family background might have been, and it was most probably Iranian.". Note I did not put Persian poet in the intro despite Britannica, Encyclopedia of Islam, Iranica and overwhelming majority of google book sources. But if people remove categories at the end of the article which are simply cultural (and ethnicity is mentioned in one line) for nationalistic reasons, then I shall be inclined to do so and take it all the way to mediation and arbitration if necessary to have Persian poet on the first line in the intro and this can easily be done by Encyclopedias and overwhelming sources. Thank you, have a nice day and please do not remove it again.--Nepaheshgar (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)