Talk:Nizami/AD

comments

This was written due to the same stuff being constantly repeated (and it gets lost due to archives or because they are in different places). Also users who vandalize the mainpage or users who ask the same questions that have been answered before. Note a portion of this is about Wikipedia policy and many other WP:RS sources. But a portion of this article is simply collected responses to the same original WP:OR misinterpretation/comments.

This small wikipage is written because occasionally disputes with regards to this topic arise. If there is a dispute I urge all sides to seek mediation and keep in mind WP:Weight, WP:RS, WP:fringe and of course WP:civil, WP:NPA and WP:FORUM. Mediation and even fringe noticeboard is necessary in case in the future some users to change the intro. So Wikipedia is just based on WP:RS sources and not really endless arguments about someone's fatherline (which was Iranic in our opinion per the scholars quoted here. Note his mother was Kurdish which is an Iranian ethno-linguistic group) 950 years ago (Nezami born around 1140, Yusuf born around 1115-1100 (probably earlier since Nezami was orphaned early), Zakki born around 1190-1175, and Muayyad born around 1165-1150 A.D.) years ago. However the characterization of the poet as a Persian poet and his work as part of Persian literature is not disputed by scholars.

The current introduction is fine: "Nezāmi-ye Ganjavi (Persian: نظامی گنجوی; Kurdish: Nîzamî Gencewî, نیزامی گه‌نجه‌وی; Azerbaijani: Nizami Gəncəvi, نظامی گنجوی ;‎ 1141 to 1209), or Nezāmi (Persian: نظامی), whose formal name was Niżām ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakī ibn-Mu‘ayyad, 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, and Tajikistan.".

However it should be noted that the Azerbaijani-Turkic alphabet is somewhat anachronistic (latin alphabet did not exist) and also the language itself was not formed in that area (for example we do not posses a single verse of Turkic from Nezami's time and all of his works (Panj Ganj, Ghazals, Qasida, Quatrans) are in Persian). However the issue is fine because of his importance in Azerbaijan too. However he wrote his name in Persian and all of his work was in Persian, official language of the Seljuq empire was also Persian. Unfortunately certain users tried to erase Persian name or the name of Iran or etc. And even one user tried to get rid of Azerbaijan from the intro. The introduction is fine and works good. But if there is a mediation on this page, then the alphabet and any sort of anachronism should seriously be considered.

Note, I believe that Nezami Ganjavi despite his Iranic background, culture and contribution to Iranian civilization is equally a part of the heritage of Iran, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan (all these I consider people who are part of a common civilization). These are people that are either Iranian or have been greatly affected by Iranian civilization. My main problem has been with the attitude of some hyper-nationalists who have made extravagent claims. These were first made by the USSR of course, but they should stopped hopefully.

I have done some study on this issue in my more extensive article I have also mentioned this in my article (about 400 and something pages) on him:[3][4] [5][6]

Here is the table of content of my article/book:

TABLE OF CONTENT

Basic Nomenclature on ethnic names used in this writing 6
On the ethnonym Azeri/Azerbaijani 7
What did the USSR mean by Azerbaijani? 18
Politicization of Nizami by the USSR and its Remnants Today 19
Two important and recent articles on Politicization of Nezami by Alexandar Otarovich Tamazshvilli 40
Article 1 of Tamazashvilli: From the History of Study of Nezami-ye Ganjavi in the USSR: Around the Anniversary – E.E. Bertels, J.V. Stalin, and others” 42
Article 2 of Tamazshvilli: Afterword: (Iranology in Russia and Iranologists) 70
Recent Politicization of the Figure of Nizami Ganjavi 77
Nizami’s Mother 90
Nizami and his maternal uncle Khwaja Umar 94
Nizami’s Father 94
Dynasties before and during the era of Nizami 97
Pre-Islamic Iranic dynasties of Arran, Sherwan and Azerbaijan 97
Post-Islamic period, the Iranian Intermezzo before the Seljuqids 100
Seljuqid Empire and subsequent local Atabak dynasties 110
Regional Iranian culture in Arran/Sherwan and Azerbaijan 122
Arran/Sherwan and Nezami’s designation of Iran/Persia for his land 122
Iranic languages and people of Azerbaijan 138
Language of Tabriz as a special case 143
Maragheh 149
Another look at the linguistic Turkification of Azerbaijan, Arran and Sherwan 149
Qatran Tabrizi, rise of Persian-Dari poetry and what a few modern scholars have called “Azerbaijani school”of Persian poetry 161
What did Nezami call his own style? 168
Persian poetry images and symbols: Turk, Hindu, Rum, Zang/Habash 169
Which Turks are described in Persian Poetry? 206
Unsound arguments made during the USSR era about the ethnicity of Nizami 211
False argument: A false verse created in 1980 211
Incorrect argument: Nizami uses “Turkish words” so “he must be Turkish” 214
Incorrect argument: Nizami Praises Seljuq Turks (or Turks) so he was half Turkic 221
Invalid Argument: Nizami wanted to write Turkish but he was forced to write in Persian! 238
The false statement from Stalin 238
No evidence of Turkic literature in the Caucasus and historical invalidity of the argument due to Shirvanshah not being Persian and not Turkic rulers 239
Example of politically minded writer today 246
Criticial editions of the verses in question 250
Translation and explanation of the introduction of Layli and Majnoon 257
Misinterpretation of a verse in Haft Paykar 310
Incorrect argument: Nizami and his research into Dari-Persian and Arabic literature means that he was a Turk 329
Incorrect argument: Nizami praises Alexander, so “he must have been a Turk” 334
Invalid arguments about Idioms, Dedicatees, Eldiguzids, Sunni and Shi’i and other invalid arguments. 338
Alleged Claim of Turkish Idioms 338
Eldiguzids-Feudal lords (Atabekan) of Azerbaijan 343
Invalid arguments: Dedicatees of Nezami were Turks so Nezami was a Turk! 349
Invalid Argument: Court poetry and official language was in Persian and that is why Nezami wrote in Persian to get paid 350
Sunni and Shi’i! 353
Conclusion of invalid arguments 354
Nizami’s Iranian Background, Culture and Contribution to the Persian Language, Culture and Civilization 355
Iranian background and some statements from scholars 356
Nezami’s reference to himself as the Persian Dehqan 359
Nizami’s reference to his wife and another proof of non-Turkic background for Nizami 363
Other Indicators of Nizami Ganjavi’s Father line 369
Lack of Turkish names unlike Turkish dynasties and groups 369
Urban background 369
Shafiite Madhab 370
Qom theory 375
Intermarriage was rare between Western Iranians and Turks due to both religious and ethnic factors 379
Nizami Ganjavi’s Culture 381
Viewpoints of Navai and a perspective upon culture 382
Nizami and the inheritance of Ferdowsi’s throne 387
Cultural Content of the works of Nizami Ganjavi 394
Nizami Ganjavi’s attachment to Iran 406
Conclusion 407
Bibliography 410
Appendix A: Modern scholastic sources 415
Corrected information 428
Appendix B: Response to two arguments with regards to the population of Turks in Caucasus 431
Do “Turkish” soldiers in Baghdad during the early Abbasid period have anything to do with Caucasus and Azerbaijan 431
Akbar Kitab al-Tijan: The Arab folklore Kitab al-Tijan and fight between mythical Yemenese Kings and Turanians/Turks in Azerbaijan has no historical validity. On the background of Turanians. 435
Appendix C: Some important neglected sources in the study of Nezami Ganjavi 459
Appendix D: On the etymology of the name Axsartan 460

In the current Nezami Ganjavi article we all agreed as a compromise that Nizami Ganjavi is part of the heritage of the countries of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Tajikistan. I have done a more detailed analysis here: [7][8][9].

Basically everyone agrees his mother was Kurdish. But about his father, there have been different theories (although he was orphaned at an early age and was raised by his Kurdish maternal uncle) and there is no direct reference like he has for his mother. However google books clearly favors Persian poet over anything else. About his father's background there seems to be no choice but to state in a single sentence that there are difference of opinion like there is now. Although one opinion is extremly fringe and violates WP:weight and if there is a mediation, it should be removed as WP:fringe [10].

Persian poet and Wikipedia

The correct word for Nezami would be Persian poet irregardless of ethnicity. This is supported by google books: [11] where nothing shows up for "Turkish poet Nizami" [12] or "Turkic poet". Of course one can argue, that instead of Turkish it should be "Azeri" (give couple of links one from USSR and one from Brenda Shaffer with no expertise), but Azeri as an ethnonym was not used then and actually the area was called Arran (see section on ethnonym of Azerbaijani). Also Nizami Ganjavi's work are all in Persian and actually draw from Iranian folklore. Azerbaijan used for Nezami would be simply a geographical location, that is using a geographical designation for a poet of 12th century, which actually is invalid, but it does occur.

Just like Shah Esmail I despite his Kurdish ancestry, or Shahriyar/Nasimi despite being Seyyeds (which means from the lineage of the Prophet Muhammad) are considered Turkic or Azeri-Turkic poets. Or Putin is considered a Russian poet despite his Ethiopian ancestry. In the case of Nezami Ganjavi both ancestries were Iranian (Iranic Kurd from motherside and Iranic also from father's side although some people dispute his father's side). However what is clear is that all of his works is in Persian and thus he is a Persian poet. Just like Esmail I or Nasimi or Shahriyar (these actually had Persian works as well) are Azeri-Turkic poets because of the significant contriubtions they made or Pushkin is a Russian poet. So just like no one is going to remove Esmail I from list of Azeris, Nasimi or Shahriyar because they did not have a Turkic paternal line (see Safavid article were Esmail's I Iranic ancestry is agreed by such scholars Minorsky, Savory and etc [13][14] and for the Seyyed ancestry of the other two, Shahriyar is clear but Nasimi is also clear from Encyclopedia of Islam and he is called Seyyed Imad al-Din Nasimi). Thus Persian poet is a cultural/language designation and is clear. Ethnic wise, nezami was at least half Iranian and we shall bring sources that say it was full Iranic. But the ethnicity of his father does not matter as much as culture/language since he was orphaned very early and raised by his maternal Kurdish uncle. There is no proof of anything but an Islamic Iranian culture at that time during the Caucasus among the Muslims.

Easily one can bring hundreds of sources with regards to Nezami being called a Persian poet (search google book for example).

Here 20 of these were chosen:

Here are 125+ or so sources or so that use Persian poet. On purpose they cover both sources related to Nezami, but also sources that have to do with other subjects like art, science, fiction, history of literature and etc. Here are the same sources for Wikipedia formatting:

1) John R. Haule, “Divine madness: archetypes of romantic love”, Shambhala, 1990. Pg 301: “The Persian poet, Nizami, collected most of the lovers' legends into a single poem, which mainly follows the life of Majnun and observes how love transforms”

2) Bill Beckley, David Shapiro, “Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New Aesthetics”, Allworth Communications, Inc., 2002. Excerpt from pg 132: “... and in the epic poems of the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami and in the fifteen century …”

3) Rudolf Gelpke, “The Story of Layla and Majnun”, Translated by Rudolf Gelpke, Omega Publications, 1997. Excerpt from pg xi: “somewhere in the western half of the Arabic peninsula, about 500 years before AD 1188 (584 H), the year in which the Persian poet Nizami wrote his poem”

4) Frank Tallis, “Love sick: love as a mental illness”, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005. Pg 90:”..are the precursors of one of the most influential love stories ever written - the story of Layla and Majnun by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami.”

5) V. I. Braginskiĭ, “The comparative study of traditional Asian literatures: from reflective traditionalism to neo-traditionalism”, Routledge, 2001. Excerpt from Pg 119: “In the 12th century ideas very similar to those expounded above were graphically expressed in the works of the great Persian poet Nizami, especially in a chapter entitled the “Advantage of Strung Speech over Scattered Speech” in his mathnawi the “Depository of Mysteries” (Makhzan al-Asrar)”

6) Gholam-Reza Sabri-Tabrizi, “Iran: A Child's Story, a Man's Experience “, International Publishers Co, 1990. Excerpt from 197: “Nizami School was called after a great Persian poet — Nizami Ganjavi. Nizami Ganjavi (his real name was Ilyas ibn-Yusuf), …”

7) Gülru Necipoğlu, Julia Bailey, “Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World”, BRILL, 2005. Pg 99: “Trying to emulate another great Persian poet, Nizami,Hatifi attempted to write a Khamsa (Quintent) but only produced four works …”

8) Giusto Traina, "428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire",Princeton University Press (May 31, 2009) pg 118:"... in the poem Haft Paikar ("The Seven Beauties") by the Persian poet Nezámi, who lived from 1141 to 1209 in the Caucasian ..."

9) Svatopluk Soucek, “A history of inner Asia “,Cambridge University Press, 2000 . pg 134: “..based on the number five, translatable as "Quintet") is a cycle of five lyrico-epic poems modeled on the work of the Persian poet Nizami (1141-1203)…”

10) Barbara Brend, “Perspectives on Persian painting: illustrations to Amīr Khusrau's Khamsah”, Routledge, 2003. Back cover: “..composed between 1298 and 1302, follows the main lines of that of the Persian poet Nizami..”

11) Nagendra Kr Singh, Nagendra Kumar Singh, “International Encyclopedia of Islamic Dynasties”, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., 2000. Pg 894: “in the fashion of the famous Persian poet Nizami [qv], with his Khamsa, two well-known poets can be mentioned here”

12) Julie Scott Meisami, Paul Starkeym, “Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature”, Taylor & Francis, 1998. Pg 69:“In Arabic literature there has been no artistic elaboration of the story comparable to that undertaken by the Persian poet Nizami “

13) Philippe de Montebello , "The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide Revised Edition (Hardcover)", Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2 edition (2000) page 338: "... hunter in the romantic epic Haft Paykar by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami. This miniature exemplifies the classic style of Persian painting, ..."

14) María Rosa Menocal, “Shards of love: exile and the origins of the lyric”, Duke University Press, 1994. Pg 143: ““In London he began reading the medieval Persian poet Nizami, author of a renowned version of a story already famous in Arabic..”

15) Amina Okada,”Indian miniatures of the Mughal court”, H.N. Abrams, 1992. pg 226: “Nizami: An anthology of five poems by the Persian poet Nizami (1140-1202).”

16) Juvaynī, Alā al-Dīn Atā Malik, 1226–1283 (1997). Genghis Khan: The History of the World-Conqueror [Tarīkh-i jahāngushā]. tr. John Andrew Boyle. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Pg 345-346: “Their story forms the subject of an epic by the Persian poet Nizami”

17) Francesca Orsini, “Love in South Asia” Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pg 116: “The poet's model was clear from the start, namely the great Persian poet Nizami ...”

18) Bernard Lewis, “Music of a distant drum”, Princeton University Press, 2001. Pg 9: “The Persians went a step further, creating authentic epic tradition comparables with those of Greece, Rome and the Vikings. This too, became in time, a form of Persian national self definition. The most famous of Persian epic poets, Firdawsi (940-1020) has been translated several times. An extract from the story of Farhad and Shirin, as told by the twelfth century Persian poet Nizami, exmpelified another form of narrative”

19) Bernard Lewis, “Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquirty”, Oxford University Press US, 1992. Pg 96-97: “In one picture, illustrating a manuscript of the book of Alexander by the Persian poet Nizami, and painted in Qazvin towards the end of the sixteenth century, Alexandar (Iskandar) is seen fighting the blacks”

20) Howard R. Turner, “Science in medieval Islam“,University of Texas Press, 1997.pg 112:”In a celebrated romantic saga Khusraw and Shirin, written by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami and based on a pre-Islamic legend, Khusrau, princely ruler of Sassanian empire, must endure many trials before finally winning the hands of his love, the Armenian princess Shirin”

21) Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, “Studying transcultural literary history”, W. de Gruyter, 2006. Pg 237:”It was the Persian poet Nizami (1188) who achieved the major shift in both language and genre”

22) S. Wise Bauer, “The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance”, Peace Hill Press, 2003. pg 138: “This beautifully illustrated collection of tale is based on the epic by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami”

23) Anjaan Chakravery, “Indian Miniature Painting”, Roli Books Private Limited, 2006. Pg 142: “The poetical manuscripts, some of which were prepared for the emperor’s personal delectation, comprise of Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Sadi, Khamsa (The Five Poems) of Persian poet Nizami, Baharistan (The Garden of Spring) by Jami and Divans (Collected Poems) of Hafiz and Anvari.

24) David James Smith, “Hinduism and Modernity”, Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. Pg 56: “One of the most splendid commissions was the classical ‘Quintent’ of the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami. The last part of this text, the Iskandar Nama, is the Persian version of the deeds of Alexander the Great”

25) Guida Myrl Jackson-Laufer, Guida M. Jackson. “Encyclopedia of literary epics”, ABC-CLIO, 1996. Pg 269:“Persian poet Nizami composed five epics at the end of the twelfth century; one was based on ill-starred lovers, Layli and her cousin Qays. Qays, distressed that he cannot marry his cousin, goes mad and becomes known as Majnun”

26) Maria Sutenly, “Visionary Rose: Methaphorical Application of Horticultural Practice in Persian Culture” in Michel Conan and W. John Kress, “Botanical progress, horticultural information and cultural changes”, Dumbarton Oaks, 2007. Pg 12: “In a highly evocative tale he relates in the Makhzan al-Asrar (“Treasury of Secrets”), the twelfth-century Persian poet, Nizami whose oeuvre is an acknowleged repository of Iranian myths and legends, illustrates the way in which the rose was perceived in the Medieval Persian imagination”

27) Orhan Pamuk, “My name is Red” translated by Erdağ M. Göknar, Vintage International, 2002. Pg 415: “c. 1141-1209: The Persian poet Nizami lived. He wrote the romantic epic the Quintet, comprised of the following stories, all of which have inspired miniaturist”

28) Percy Brown, “Indian Paintings”, Read Books, 2007. Pg 49: “The adaptability of these Hindu craftsman may be realised by the fact that their royal patron commissioned them to illustrate the works of the Persian poet, Nizami, and other literary productions, normally foreign to theis genius”,

29) Walter G. Andrews, Mehmet Kalpakli, “The age of the beloved”, Duke University Presspg 59:“This was to be the fourth in a series of five mesnevi poems (a hamse or “pentad”) intended to match the famed thirteenth-century hamse of the Persian poet Nizami of Ganja”

30) Encyclopedia Americana, Glorier incorporated. Pg 421: “..a place named for his Armenian Christian bride, his love for whom was immortalized by the 12th century Persian poet Nizami in Khosrow and Shirin”, Glorier, 1998, v.28.

31) John R. Haule, “The ecstaties of St. Francis: The way of LadyPoverty”, SteinerBooks, 2004. pg 66: “The Persian poet Nizami collected them into an episodic novel-length poem right around the time of Francis..”

32) Gene Santoro, “Dancing in your head”, Oxford University Press, 1995. Pg 62: “At the same time, he started to the read The Layla and Majun, by the Persian poet Nizami”.

33) David Christian, Craig Benjamin, Macquarie University. Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies. Conference, David Christian, Craig Benjamin, Macquarie University. Ancient History Documentary Research Centre. “Worlds of the silk roads: ancient and modern : proceedings from the Second Conference of the Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies (A.S.I.A.S.), Macquarie University, September 21-22, 1996”, Brepols, 1998. Pg 258: “Formly and thematically he was influenced by the pentalogies, especially that of the Persian poet Nizami (12th century),..”

34) Francis Lenormant, “Chaldean Magic Its Origin and Development”, Pg 159:“Later in the period of the Sassanian dynasty, the Persian poet Nizami, author of the Haft-Paykar, describers this style as prevailing in the place of the seven plants built by Bahram Gour or Varahan V.”

35) Lloyd. V. J. Ridgeon, “’Aziz Nasafi”, Routledge, 1998. pg 159: “By the twelfth and thirteen century, himma had become a technical of the Sufis. For example, the great Persian poet Nizami (b. 1140) refers to himma in his Makhzan al-Asrar (1166) when he describes how Mahmud Ghazna (969-1030) fell sick while besieging an Indian city”

36) Gerhard Endress, Carole Hillenbrand, “Islam a historical Introduction”, 2nd edition, Edinburgh University Press, pg 2002. Pg 178:“Death of the Persian poet Nizami of Ganja, important author of romantic verse epics.”

37) Mesrovb Jacob Seth, “Armenians in India, from the earliest times to the present day”, Asian Educational Service, 1992. pg 178: “In the preface to the Lahore edition of Sarmad’s quatrains, it is stated that Sarmad was born in Ganja, an important Armenian ciy in the Karabakh district, south of the Caucasus. The famous Persian poet Nizami, was also born in that city”

38) Ernst Robest Curtis, Williard Ropes Trask, “European literature and Latin Middle Ages” translated by Williard Ropes Trask and Peter Godman, 7th edition, Princeton University Press, 1990. Pg 347: “Goethe confuses the name with that of the Persian poet Nizami — in pious resignation puts it into the hands of God himself ('Master of Love,' 'Beloved')”

39) Slezkine, Yuri. “The Soviet Union as a Communal Apartment.”in Stalinism: New Directions. Ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Routledge, New York, 2000. pages 335: “The Azerbaijani delegate insisted that the Persian poet Nizami was actually a classic of Azerbaijani literature because he was a “Turk from Giandzha” and that Mirza Fath Ali Akhundov was not a gentry writer, as some proletarian critics had charged, but a “great philosopher-playwright” whose “characters [were] as colorful, diverse and realistic as the characters of Griboedov, Gogol’and Ostrovskii.”

40) Armando Maggi, “The Resurrection of the Body”, University of Chicago Press, 2009. pg 187: “Pasolini here blends two mythic sources: The Greek Orpheus and Alexandar the Great depicted as a prophetic figure in The Book of Alexandar the Great by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami of Ganja”

41) Edmund Herzig, Russian and CIS Programme (Royal Institute of International Affairs), Former Soviet South Project, “Iran and the former Soviet South”, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Russian and CIS Programme, 1995. Pg 50: ”It is not hard to understand why Iranians ridicule claims such as Azerbaijan's to the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, or Uzbekistan's to the great Ibn Sina”

42) Sheila Blair, Jonathan M. Bloom, Hood Museum of Art, Asia Society, “Images of Paradise in Iaslamic Art”, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1991. Pg 36: “and flying through the firmament are found in manuscripts of several poetic texts, including the popular Khamsa (Five Poems) of the Persian poet Nizami”

43) D.A. Spelling, “Politics, Gender and Islamic Past: The legacy of ‘Aisha bint Abi Bakr”, Columbia University, Press, 1996. Pg 215:“The Persian poet Nizami (d. 606/ I 209) named one of his female characters Fitna in his work the Khamsa.”

44) Diane Woklstein, “The first love stories: from Isis and Osiris to Tristan and Iseult “,HarperCollinsPublishers, 1991. Pg 266:“In the twelfth century C.E., Shirvanshah Akhsetan, a a Caucasian ruler, commissioned the elegant Persian poet Nizami to write a Persian romance based on Arabic folk legends, dating back ..”

45) Jean Bottéro, André Finet, Bertrand Lafont, Antonia Nevill, “Everyday life in ancient Mesopatima”, JHU Press, 2001. Pg 159: “This was a romantic epic written by the Persian poet Nizami (twelfth century), recounting the loves of the Sassanid King Khosroes II Parviz (590-628) and the Christian woman Shirin..”

46) Geoffrey Wigoder, “Dictionary of Jewish biography”, Simon & Schuster, 1991. Pg 40: “From 1867 he attended the University of Budapest, receiving his doctorate for a thesis on the 12th- century Persian poet, Nizami.”

47) Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Eleanor D. Kewer, Maureen Cobb Mabbott, “Tales and Sketches: 1831-1842”, University of Illinois Press, 2000. Pg 636: “Retelling a traditional Arabian love story from the version by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami”

48) Luisa Passerini, “Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics in Britian”, I.B.Tauris, 1999. Pg 22: “and Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi between the end of '900 and the beginning of the first century of our millennium, in the work of the Persian poet Nizami, author of the 1188 tale Layla and Majnun”

49) Mian Mohammad Sharif, “A history of Muslim philosophy: with short accounts of other disciplines and the modern renaissance in Muslim lands”, Low Price Pub, Vol 1. , 1999. Pg 22:“His version of the Khusrau wa Shirin of the Persian poet Nizami is more than a mere translation”

50) Emily. A. Haddad, “Orientalist poetics: the Islamic Middle East in nineteenth-century English and French poetry”, Ashgate, 2002. Pg 193:“Goethe's models are, Gautier asserts, Eastern ones in both form and content; Goethe follows the example of the Persian poet Nizami rather than Shakespeare”

51) John Renard, “101 Question and Answers on Islam”, Paulist Press, 2005. pg 112: “A story told long ago by the Persian Poet Nezami (d. 1209) in his splendid mystical epic, Seven Portraits, offers a solution”

52) Sharon Kinoshita, “Medieval boundaries: rethinking difference in Old French literature”, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Pg 255: “Compare Khamsa by the twelfth- century Persian poet Nizami, in which a ten-year-old boy and girl who meet at Quranic school “embark on a chaste romance lasting the rest of their lives’”.

53) Rudolf Steiner, Catherine E. Creeger, “An outline of Estoric Sciences”, SteinerBooks, 1997. Pg 316:“A story attributed to the Persian poet Nizami (1141-1203), and adopted by Goethe for inclusion in his West-ostlicher Divan”, Quranic school “embark on a chaste romance lasting the rest of their lives’”.

54) Daniel Joseph Boorstin, “The Creators”, Random House, 1992. Pg 196: “The Persian poet Nizami (c.H4O-c.1202) depicted an ancient competition at the court of Alexander the Great. One spring day while Alexander was entertaining..”

55) Anne Varichon, Toula Ballas, “Colors what they mean and how to make them”, Abrams, 2007. Pg 183:”At the end of the twelfth century Persian poet Nizami (c. 1140-1209) wrote The Seven Beauties. which describes the tales told to the Sassanian ruler”

56) Tony Abboud, “Al-Kindi; the Father of Arab Philosophy”, The Rosen Publishing Group, 2006 . pg 26: “This sixteenth-century illustration from the Khamsa (Five Poems) by Persian poet Nizami portrays Caliph al-Mamun being groomed by a barber and other”

57) Meyer Waxman, “History of Jewish Literature Part 4”, Kessinger Publishing, 2003. pg 567: “At the age of twenty, he was awarded the doctor's degree by the University of Leipzig for his dissertation on the Persian poet, Nizami.”

58) Stephen Farthing, Geoff Dyer, ”1001 paintings you must see before you die”, Universe, 2007. Pg 232: “AThe painting once illustrated a copy of the Khamsa (Five Poems), by the twelfth century Persian poet Nizami, which included popular narrative poems..”

59) Mohan Lan Nigam, Anupama Bhatnagar, “Romance of Hyderabad culture”, Deva Publications, 1997. Pg 64: “He calls himself the disciple of the famous Persian poet, Nizami”

60) John William Seyller, “Workshop and patron in Mughal India: the Freer Rāmāyaṇa and other illustrated manuscripts of ʹAbd al-Raḥīm”, Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1999. Pg 344: Khamsa Quintet, a collection of five epic romance written by the Persian Poet Nizami (1141-1209)”

61) Jennifer Doane Upton, Charles Upton, “Dark way to Paradise: Dante’s Inferno in light of the Spiritual Path”, Sophia Perennis, 2005. Pg 15: The great Persian poet Nizami, writing of the lovers Layla and Majnun, tells of how Majnun finds a piece of paper with his name and Layla's written on it"

62) George Stephen Nestory , “Young Ukraine: the Brotherhood Saints Cyril and Methodius in Kiev”, University of Ottawa Press, 1991. Pg 74: “In his spare time he wrote learned treatises on the Georgian poet Rustaveli, the Persian poet Nizami, and the relation of the Georgian language to ..”

63) Petra de Bruijin, Abdulhak Hamit, “The two worlds of Eşber: Western orientated verse drama and Ottoman Turkish poetry by 'Abdülḥaḳḳ Ḥāmid (Tarhan)”, Research School CNWS, 1997. Pg 279: “the metre used by the Persian poet Nizami for his romantic mesnevi Leyla ve Mecnun and which was adopted by, amongst others, the Ottoman Turkish poet”

64) Edward Morgan Forster, Jeffrey M. Heath, “The creator as critic and other writings by E.M. Forster”, Dundurn Press, 2008. Pg 276: “While preparing this broadcast I've been looking at his edition of a sixteenth-century manuscript of the Persian poet Nizami, and reminding myself of what..”

65) Joseph T. Shipley, “Encyclopedia of Literature Vol. 1”, READ BOOKS, 2007. Pg 504: “A love romance on a theme fro Paykar (1660) and Sikandar Nama (1673), adaptations of two of the famous romances of the Persian poet Nizami (ca. 1141-1203);

66) Paul Pearsall, “The Beethoven Factor: The New Positive Psychology of Hardiness, Happiness, Healing, and Hope”, Hampton Roads Pub. Co., 2003. Pg 219: “The paper had a statement by the Persian poet Nizami, and it can serve as reminder to all of us about the importance of an optimistic explanatory style and”

67) Kevin Alan Brooks, “The Jews of Khazaria”, Jason Aronson, 1999. Pg 253: “The Persian poet Nizami (circa 1141-1203) described in one of his poems how the Cumans worshipped their ancestors and predecessors by kneeling down before..”

68) Marie-Luise von Franz, “Individuation in fairy tales”, Shambala, 1990. Pg 82: “Here the role of the storytelling person is represented by an anima figure. In a famous twelfth-century story by the Persian poet Nizami entitled, “The Seven Stories of the Seven Princess,” against every night a princess tells the King a beautiful fairy tale”.

69) David Comfort, “The First Pet History of the World”, Simon & Schuster, 1994. Pg 38: “..A PARABLE BY PERSIAN POET NIZAMI..”

70) Tetsuo Nishio, Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubutsuka, “Cultural change in the Arab world”, National Museum of Ethnology, 2001. Pg 148: “it seems that these "randomly strung pearls" of the tale of Majnun were not restrung by a deliberate writer's hand (as the Persian poet Nizami would do..”

71) Sadiq Naqvi, “The Iranian Afaquies Contribution to the Qutb Shahi and Adil Shahi Kingdoms”, A.A. Hussain Book Shop, 2003. Pg 109:” He started writing a Khamsa in the style of the famous Persian poet Nizami. But he could write only four volumes. He believed that his works were better”

72) Nathan Light, “Slippery paths: the performance and canonization of Turkic literature and Uyghur muqam song in Islam and modernity”, Indiana University, 1998. Pg 227:”and even suggested that Naval do a nazira ('version') of the tradition of composing a Khamsa (Five Epics) begun by the Persian poet Nizami, and reworked by Amir Khusrau and Jami himself”

73) Julián Baldick, “Imaginary Muslims: the Uwaysi Sufis of Central Asia”, Imaginary Muslims: the Uwaysi Sufis of Central Asia. Pg 27: “and has included the celebrated Persian poet Nizami”

74) John Reeve, Karen Armstrong, Everett Fox, Colin F. Baker, F. E. Peters, British Library, “Sacred: books of the three faiths : Judaism, Christianity, Islam”, British Library, 2007. Pg 161: “the poems of the celebrated Persian poet, Nizami. According to tradition, the face of the Prophet Muhammad has been whitened out”

75) John Renard, “Responses to 101 questions on Islam”, Paulists Press, 1998. Pg 112: “A story told long ago by the Persian poet Nizami..”

76) Mikhaĭl Borisovich Piotrovskiĭ, John Vrieze, Stichting De Nieuwe Kerk, “Earthly beauty, heavenly art: art of Islam”,De Nieuwe Kerk, 1999. Pg 135: ““A story told long ago by the Persian poet Nizami..”

77) Wiebke Walther, “Women in Islam”, M. Wiener Pub., 1993. Pg 44: “Also in his Haft Paykar, the hero of a celebrated romance by the Persian poet Nizami, and of many other romances by Turkish imitators..”

78) Wilhelm Geiger, “Civilization of the Eastern Irnians in Ancient Times: With an Introduction on the Avesta Religion”, BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009. Pg 229:”Later, in the period of the Sassanian dynasty, the Persian poet Nizami describes this style as prevailing in the ' Palace of the Seven Planets ' built by..”

79) Sir Richard F. Burton (translator), “Arabian Nights, in 16 Volumes: Vol. V”, Cosimo, Inc., 2008. Pg 254:“Much of the above is taken from the Sikandar-nameh (Alexander Book) of the great Persian poet, Nizami, who flourished AH 515—597, between the days of”

80) Caitlín Matthews, Olwyn Whelan, “The Barefoot Book of Princesses”, Barefoot Books, 2004.Pg 64: “The Mountain Princess The story comes from the work of the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami, one from a series of delightful stories about seven”

81) Barbara Brend, “The Emperor Akbar’s Khamsa of Nizami”, British Library, 1995. “a five-part work in verse by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami; its stories are among the most famous in Persian literature”

82) Wilhem Baum, “Shirin: Christian, Queen, Myth of Love; a Women of late antiquity”, Gorgias Press LLC, 2004. Pg 88: “Among the Persian poets whom Goethe was interested were Firdausi, Nizami and Hafis” (note this book uses anachronistic term as well)

83) R. Gelpke, “The story of the seven princesses”, Cassirer, 1976. Pg 2: “Haft Paykar (the seven images) by the Persian poet Nizami (1141-1202) is a precious jewel of oriental narrative art, to be compared only with the most beautiful stories out of Thousand and one nights”

84) Francis Jacques Sypher, Sarah L. Prakken, Bessie Graham, Jack Alden Clarke, Hester Rosalyn Jacoby Hoffman, “The Reader's Adviser: A Layman's Guide to Literature”, Bowker, 1977, v.2 edition 12. Pg 638: “a lyric poet with encyclopedic erudition, whose long poem "Iskender-name" continued the tradition of the Alexander romance of the Persian poet Nizami..”

85) Classical Arabic poetry: 162 poems from Imrulkais to Maʻarri , “Classical Arabic poetry: 162 poems from Imrulkais to Maʻarri”, KPI, 1985. “Five hundred years later, the subject was taken up by the Persian poet Nizami and formed into an epic running to over 4000 distichs”

86) Herbert Mason, “A legend of Alexander ; and, The merchant and the parrot: dramatic poems”, University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. Pg 3: “their mythical encounter to the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami, whose celebrated Khamsa includes among its "five epics"”

87) Janardan Prasad Singh, “Sir William Jones, his mind and art”, S. Chand, 1982. Pg 217: “Of the longest allegory in the collection, The Seven Fountains'. Jones said in his Preface that it was written in imitation of the Persian poet Nizami.”

88) Henry George Raverty, “Selections from Pushto Poetry”, al-Biruni, 1978. Pg 29: “and his mistress Layla are the subject of one of the most celebrated mystic poems of the Persian poet Nizami, and famous throughout the East”

89) Joseph Reese Strayer, “Dictionary of the Middle Ages”, v.5 , Scribner, 1985. Pg 418:”This famous composition by the Persian poet NizamI also had a strong influence on..”

90) Kolarz, Walter. “Russia and her Colonies”, London: George Philip. I952. Pg 245: “The attempt to ‘annex’ an important part of Persian literature and to transform it into ‘Azerbaidzhani literature’ can be best exemplified by the way in which the memory of the great Persian poet Nizami (1141-1203) is exploited in the Soviet Union.”

91)

Claude Cahen, “Pre-Ottoman Turkey: a general survey of the material and spiritual culture and history c. 1071-1330”, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1968. Pg 252: “…of the great Persian poet Nizami of Ganja (a town in the extreme north-west of Iran), and it is possible that he was acquainted with another poet,..”

92) Pepe Escobar, "Red Zone Blues”, Nimble Books LLC, 2007. Pg 94: “And Eurasia is the would be nothing but echoing the great 12th Century Persian poet Nezami, who in the famous Haft Paykar(“The Seven Portratins”) wrote that “The world is the body and Iran is its heart”

93) Felix J. Oinas, “Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction and Handbook to the World's Great Folk Epics”, Indiana University Press, 1978. Pg 324: “His model was the work of the great Iranian poet Nizami (1 152-1205?). The following generations of Ottoman poets continued to develop the romance genre”

94) Garth Fowden, “Qusayr’ Amra: art and the Ummayad elite in the late antique Syria”, University of California Press, 2004. Pg111: “As by the twelfth-century Iranian poet Nizami continued to develop the romance genre"

95) Gregory Minissale, “Framing consciousness in Art: Transcultural Perspectives”, Rodopi, 2009. Pg 304: “The author of the original text in the twelfth century, the Iranian poet Nizami, who composed the poetic imagery which the painting is meant to evoke”

96) Mikhaĭl Borisovich Piotrovskiĭ, John Vrieze, Stichting De Nieuwe Kerk, “Earthly beauty, heavenly art: art of Islam”, De Nieuwe Kerk, 1999. Pg 140: “The Khamsa (Quintet) by the renowned Iranian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1 141-1209) comprises five poems: The treasury of mysteries', 'Khusraw and Shirin'”

97) Wilhelm Bacher, Samuel Robinson, “Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Persian Poet Nizami, and Analysis of the Second Part of His Alexander-book”, Williams & Norgate, 1873.

98) Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson, “Persia Past and Present: A Book of Travel and Research, with More Than Two Hundred Illustrations and a Map”, The Macmillan Company, 1906. Pg 5: “Its chief claim upon our interest perhaps is the fact that Ganjah was the home of the Persian poet Nizami, who died about the year A.D. 1208.”

99) Friedrich Spiegel, Dārāb dastur Peshotan Sanjānā, “Irānian Art”, H. Frowde, 1886. Pg 2:“Later, in the period of the Sassanian dynasty, the Persian poet Nizami describes this style as prevailing in the ' Palace of the Seven Planets ' built by “

100) William Alexander Clouston, Edward Rehatsek(Translator), “A Group of Eastern Romances and Stories from the Persian, Tamil, and Urdu”, Privately printed [W. Hodge & Co.], 1889. Pg 173: “Alexander the Great, of whom Muslim writers relate many wonderful stories — especially the Persian poet Nizami, in his famous Sikandar..”

101) Jullia Scot Meisami, “Nizami c. 1141-c1209: Persian Poet” in Encyclopedia of literary translation in English, Olive Classe, Taylor & Francis, 2000. 2nd edition. pg 1005-1006.

102) Chelkowski, P. “Nizami Gandjawi , jamal al-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas b. Yusuf b. Zaki Muayyad .”Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2008. Brill Online. Excerpt:"Nizami Gandjawi, Djamal al-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas b. Yusuf b. Zaki Muʾayyad, one of the greatest Persian poets and thinkers."

103) A. Netzer, “BACHER, WILHELM” in Encyclopedia Iranica. http://www.iranica.com/newsite/index.isc?Article=http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/unicode/v3f4/v3f4a001.html Excerpt: “In 1870 he earned his doctorate writing a dissertation on the life and poetry of the Persian poet Neẓāmī”

104) Yo'av Karny, “Highlanders : A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory”, Published by Macmillan, 2000. Pg 124: “In 1991 he published a translation into Khynalug of the famous medieval poet Nezami, who is known as Persian but is claimed by Azeri nationalists as their own.”

105)

Ronald Grigor Suny, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. “Nationalism and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia”, University of Michigan Press, 1996. page 20. «…the great Persian poet Nizam ud-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas…»

106) The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press US, 2003. page 235: “Nizami, Jamal al-Din Abu Muhammad II- yas ibn Yusuf ibn Zaki Muayyad (d. ca. 1209) Persian poet. Author of the Khamsa”

107) Encyclopedia of Asian History: Vols 1-4. Ainslie Thomas Embree (Professor Emeritus of History Columbia University), Robin Jeanne Lewis, Asia Society, Richard W. Bulliet. Scribner, 1988. page.55: “..five historical idylls (1299—1302) as a rejoinder to the Khamsa of the Persian poet Nizami…”

108) Ali Akbar Husain, "Scent in the Islamic Garden: A Study of Deccani Urdu Literary Sources", Oxford University Press, USA (March 8, 2001). page 29: "... Muhammad Quli acknowledges his debt to the poetry of the Iranian poets, Nizami and Khaqani…”

109) Dr. Julie Scott Meisami, "The Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance (Oxford World's Classics)", Oxford University Press (T), 1995. Pg XXXV: “Nizami's imagery was the subject of a study by Hellmut Ritter, who compared the Persian poet's style to that of Goethe, contrasting the vividness and immediacy of the latter to Nizami's supposed ‘metaphorical transformation' of physical phenomena which permits the invention-of new relationships which have no basis in 'reality'.”

110) Dr. Colin Turner (translator and scholar), Layla and Majnun: The Classic Love Story of Persian Literature [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover), “John Blake; illustrated edition edition (June 1, 1997)”. Page ix (Forward): “The Persian poet Nizami was commissioned to write Layla and Majnun by the Caucasian ruler, Shirvanshah in AD 1188. “

111) Camron Micheal Amin (Editor), Benjamin C. Fortna (Editor), Elizabeth B. Frierson (Editor), "The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History ", Oxford University Press, USA (November 24, 2007). Page 140: "composed by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami and first translated into Ottoman in the fifteenth"

112) Oxford Encyclopedia of World History, Oxford University Press, USA (April 8, 1999), excerpt page 18: “In Persian sources, his search for knowledge takes precedence over world conquest. In the Iskandar-namah (Book of Alexander) by the Persian poet Nizami, Alexander is depicted as the half-brother of the conquered King”

113) Edward G. Browne, “A literary History of Persia”, Vol. 2 (London, 1906). Pg 403: “And if his genius has a few rivals amongst the poets of Persia, his character has even fewer. He was genuinely pious, yet singularly devoid of fanaticism and intolerance..” (Also quoted in Mirror of the Invisible World: Tales from the Khamseh of Nizami, Peter J. Chelkowski, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975, pg 5.)

114) Frank Griffel, “Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology”, Oxford University Press, USA (May 28, 2009). Pg 75: “Janza would become known as the home of the famous Persian poet Nizámi (d. c. 604/1207).”

115)

Giampaolo Casati , "Alexander the Great: Conquerer", Thunder Bay Press (CA) (February 28, 2005). page 131: "Magog behind a wall of iron, while the famous Persian poet Nezami, in Iskander-name, makes the conqueror into a just and wise ..."

116) W. Ouyang , "New Perspectives On Arabian Nights", Routledge; 1 edition (September 22, 2005) .pg 46: “.. of the latter version in the first tale of the Persian poet Nezámi's (died 1202) Haft peikar-e Bahrám-Gur and..”

117) Afkham Darbandi, and Dick Davis, “Conference of the Birds” (Attar), Penguin Classics (July 3, 1984). Pg 231: “on this story, the most famous being that of the Persian poet Nezami. Majnoun's madness is a frequent symbol in Islamic mystical poetry”

118) Nikolaj Serikoff, “Islamic Calligraphy from the Wellcome Library”, Serindia Publications, Inc. (June 1, 2007). Pg 12: "...beings, animals, birds, trees, etc. For example the 12th century Iranian poet Nizami Gandjawih described the master of the world, the Prophet Muhammad, ..."

119) Gregory Minissale, “Framing Consciousness in Art: Transcultural Perspectives. (Consciousness, Literature & the Arts)”, Rodopi (May 5, 2009). page 304: "... author of the original text in the twelfth century, the Iranian poet Nizami, who composed the poetic imagery which the painting is meant ..."

120) New Encyclopedia of Islam: A Revised Edition of the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. Cyril Glasse (Columbia university),Huston Smith, Altamira, 2003. “NizamI (Abu Yusuf Muhammad Ilyas ibn Yusuf Nizam ad-Dîn) (535-598l\ 141—1202). A Persian poet and mystic, he was born in Ganja in Azerbaijan”

121) Garth Fowden, "Qusayr 'Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria (Transformation of the Classical Heritage)", University of California Press; 1 edition (September 20, 2004) . page 111:"..As by the twelfth-century Iranian poet Nizami, Haft paykar 25–26..."

122) Kamran Talattof and Jerome W. Clinton, K. Allin Luthe. The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric. Palgrave, 2001 . Excerpt from Forward of book: “The work of Nezami Ganjavi, one of the great Persian poets, has achieved enduring significance” Excerpt from Pg 51: “Women are featured in the works of three major classical Persian poets, Nizami Ganjavi (1140-1202), Abu al-Qasim Firdawsi (932-1020), and Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414-92)

123) Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical Tradition",HarperOne; Reprint edition (September 2, 2008). pg 67:"... on this story, but much elaborated, is by the twelfth-century Persian poet Nizámi, who turned it into one of the masterpieces of ..."

124) A.A. Seyed-Gorhab, "Magic in classical Persian amatory literature", Iranian Studies, 1475-4819, Volume 32, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 71 – 97. Excerpts: "A meticulous description of Qays's demoniac had to wait till the twelfth century when the Persian poet Nizami of Ganjah composed an artistic and refined story of Majnun's legend. In recounting his version of the lives and love of Layla and Majnun, Nizami relies on a popular folkloristic theme in which a young prince is smitten by love for a fairy."

125) Richard N. Frye Reviewed work(s): The Turkic Languages and Literatures of Central Asia: A Bibliography by Rudolf Loewenthal. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 21, (Dec., 1958), p. 186. excerpt: Many works that appear in this bibliography have no proper place in it; for example, publications on the Persian poet, Nizami (page 73), as well as articles on such political matters as pan-Turkism

126) C. A. (Charles Ambrose) Storey and Franço de Blois (2004), “Persian Literature - A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period.”, RoutledgeCurzon; 2nd revised edition (June 21, 2004). Pg 363: “Nizami Ganja’i, whose personal name was Ilyas, is the most celebrated native poet of the Persians after Firdausi. His nisbah designates him as a native of Ganja (Elizavetpol, Kirovabad) in Azerbaijan, then still a country with an Iranian population..”

127) Annemarie Schimmel, "And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Studies in Religion)",The University of North Carolina Press (November 30, 1985) . pg 18: “In Persian sources, his search for knowledge takes precedence over world conquest. In the Iskandar-namah (Book of Alexander) by the Persian poet Nizami, Alexander is depicted as the half-brother of the conquered King “

128)

(Abel, A.; Ed(s). "Iskandar Nama." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill online) Excerpt:"At the time of Niẓami, however, Islam is from then onwards well established in Iran, and it is the prophetic and ecumenical aspect of his destiny that the poet makes evident in his hero. As a learned Iranian poet, Niẓami, who demonstrates his eclecticism in the information he gives (he says, “I have taken from everything just what suited me and I have borrowed from recent histories, Christian, Pahlavi and Jewish ... and of them I have made a whole”), locates the story of his hero principally in Iran. He makes him the image of the Iranian “knight”, peace-loving and moderate, courteous and always ready for any noble action. Like all Niẓami's heroes, he conquers the passions of the flesh, and devotes his attention to his undertakings and his friendships. These features appear in the account, which follows ancient tradition, of his conduct towards the women of the family of Darius, in his brotherly attitude on the death of that ruler, in his behaviour towards queen Nushaba (the Kaydaf of Firdawsi, the Kandake of the pseudo-Callisthenes) whom he defends against the Russians."

On the usage Azeri/Azerbaijan

See that section of my full article on this. Overall, the formation of Azerbaijani-Turkish ethnic group is from the 13th-16th century. But the USSR usage of Azerbaijani was not clear. The ethnonym "Azerbaijani" though is very recently and dates back to the early 20th or late 19th century. In some sources, "Azerbaijani" is used to refer to any modern inhabitant of the republic while "Azeri" is the ethnic term meaning Azeri-Turk

As noted by Oliver Roy.:

“ The concept of Azeri identity barely appears at all before 1920. Up until that point Azerbaijan had been a purely geographical area. Before 1924, the Russians called Azeri Tatars "Turk" or "Muslims" ”

.

According to Prof. Tadeusz Swietochovski:

“ "Azerbaijani" was coined in the 1930s to refer to the inhabitants of the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. ”

So a historical article should not have anachronistic terms. If some want to claim that Nezami's father was an Oghuz Turk, then that is a historical term. But Azerbaijani is not necessarily 100% Oghuz Turk.

According to the multi-volume book “History of the East” (“Transcaucasia in XI-XV centuries” in Rostislav Borisovich Rybakov (editor), History of the East. 6 volumes. v. 2. “East during the Middle Ages: Chapter V., 2002. – ISBN 5-02-017711-3. http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/HE2/he2510.htm )

“ In the XIV-XV cc., as the Azerbaijani Turkic-language ethnos was beginning to form, arose its culture, as well. At first it had no stable centers of its own (recall that one of its early representatives, Nesimi, met his death in Syria) and it is rather difficult at that time to separate from the Osman (Turkish) culture. Even the ethnic boundary between the Turks and the Azerbaijanis stabilized only in the XVI c., and even then it was not quite defined yet. Nevertheless, in the XV c., two centers of the Azerbaijani culture are forming: the South Azerbaijan and (lowland) Karabakh. They took final shape later, in the XVI-XVIII cc.

Speaking of the Azerbaijan culture originating at that time, in the XIV-XV cc., one must bear in mind, first of all, literature and other parts of culture organically connected with the language. As for the material culture, it remained traditional even after the Turkicization of the local population. However, the presence of a massive layer of Iranians that took part in the formation of the Azerbaijani ethnos, have imposed its imprint, primarily on the lexicon of the Azerbaijani language which contains a great number of Iranian and Arabic words. The latter entered both the Azerbaijani and the Turkish language mainly through the Iranian intermediary. Having become independent, the Azerbaijani culture retained close connections with the Iranian and Arab cultures. They were reinforced by common religion and common cultural-historical traditions.”

”

What did the USSR mean by Azerbaijani?

Since the ethnonym Azerbaijani for an ethnic group was new, the USSR era did not provide a clear definition. For example some considered Azerbaijanis to be Medes, others as Turks and others as Caucasian Albanians. Then there was theories combining some or all of these. This is another reason why calling Nezami Ganjavi as “Azerbaijani” in the politicized USSR sources lacks clarity. Do they mean Medes(and the descendant of Iranic Medes like Talysh, Kurds?), or Caucasian Albanians or Turks and etc.

For example Bolukbashi mentions:

“ During the Stalin era, Azeri historians were forced to link Azeri history to Persian Medes, whose appearance in Iran and the southern Caucasus dates back to the ninth century BC. In the post-Stalin era, this theory gave away to one which linked the Azeris’ origin to the Atropathenes and Caucasian Albania. By the early 1970s, however, the Turkic role in Azeri history had begun to be admitted, so that until the Gorbachev era the Azerbaijani historiography based Azeri identity on a combination of the Medes, the Atropathenes, the Albanians and the Turkic settlers, a formula which helped prevent the emergence of an all-Turkic historiography ”

Arya Wasserman notes:

“ The growing interest in the nationalities problem and the rising influence of the ideology of Turkism revived the old controversy over the ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijani people, that is between adherents of the concept of the decisive Turkic role and supporters of the pro-Iranian theory. In the mid 1970s, the republican authorities headed by the First Secretary Heydar Aliev had resolved the debate by ruling in favour of the Iranian concept. Now, for the first time monographs dedicated of this problem were published. The purely scientific problem of ethnogenesis became a regular theme in newspapers. The authors of some articles used this discussion to express their opposition to the policy of Turkicization. Politicians also intervened in the dispute. The President’s adviser on nationalities, Idaiat Orujev, supported the concept according to which Azerbaijan was the homeland of Oguz Turks, which obviously meant that he was inclined to accept the theory of the Turkic origins of the Azerbaijani people.

Opponents of the proto-Turkic conceptions of ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijani people insist that the Kurds, Talysh, Lakhij and other Persian-speaking peoples are ethnic Azerbaijanis, who had a part from ancient times in the ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijani people, and that all of them share the same Caspian racial type, to which no other Turkic-speaking peoples, not even the Turks themselves, belong to

”

Either way, the name "Azeri-Turk" or Azerbaijani Turk was not used at the time of Nezami. And this author has not found a single reliable expert Western source calling Nezami Ganjavi a "Turkic poet" (which is absurd because he did not write in Turkic) Azerbaijani at most had a geographical meaning although in general the name of the area was called Arran. Also the existence of Azerbaijani-ethnic group in the 12th century or even ealier 11th century (the time of Nezami's great grandafther Mu'ayyad) is not proven and most sources put the formation of this ethnic group between the 13th-16th century. See the section "Another look at the linguistic Turkification of Azerbaijan, Arran and Sherwan" in our article.

Quotes Showing Politicization by USSR

This is discussed more in my article, but here are some the quotes showing the USSR wanted to accomplish nation building and try to change Nezami's identity. Accordming to Bert Fragner

“ It was up to the central power to solve these kinds of contradiction by arbitrary decisions. This makes clear that Soviet nationalism was embedded into the political structure of what used to be called ‘Democratic Centralism’. The territorial principle was extended to all aspects of national histories, not only in space but also in time: ‘Urartu was the oldest manifestation of a state not only on Armenian soil but throughout the whole Union (and, therefore, implicitly the earliest forerunner of the Soviet state)’, 'Nezami from Ganja is an Azerbaijani Poet', and so on. ”

According to Yuri Slezkine:

“ Indeed, the 1934 Congress of Soviet Writers, which in many ways inaugurated high Stalinism as a cultural paradigm, was a curiously solemn parade of old-fashioned romantic nationalisms. Pushkin, Tolstoy and other officially restored Russian icons were not the only national giants of international stature - all Soviet peoples possessed, or would shortly acquire, their own classics, their own founding fathers and their own folkloric riches. The Ukrainian delegate said that Taras Shevchenko was a “genius”and a “colossus” “whose role in the creation of the Ukrainian literary language was no less important than Pushkin’s role in the creation of the Russian literary language, and perhaps even greater.”The Armenian delegate pointed out that his nation’s culture was “one of the most ancient cultures of the orient,”that the Armenian national alphabet predated Christianity and that the Armenian national epic was “one of the best examples of world epic literature”because of “the lifelike realism of its imagery, its elegance, the profundity and simplicity of its popular wisdom and the democratic nature of its plot.”The Azerbaijani delegate insisted that the Persian poet Nizami was actually a classic of Azerbaijani literature because he was a “Turk from Giandzha” and ... ”

According to Walter Kolarz:

“ The attempt to 'annex' an important part of Persian literature and to transform it into 'Azerbaidzhani literature' can be best exemplified by the way in which the memory of the great Persian poet Nizami (1141—1203) is exploited in the Soviet Union. The Soviet regime does not pay tribute to Nizami as a great representative of world literature, but is mainly interested in him as a ‘poet of the Soviet Union’, which he is considered to be because he was born in Gandzha in the territory of the present Azerbaidzhani Soviet Republic. The Soviet regime proclaims its ownership over Nizami also by ‘interpreting’ his works in accordance with the general pattern of Soviet ideology. Thus the leading Soviet journal Bolshevik stressed that Nizami’s ‘great merit’ consisted in having undermined Islam by ‘opposing the theological teaching of the unchangeable character of the world’. Stalin himself intervened in the dispute over Nizami and gave an authoritative verdict on the matter. In a talk with the Ukrainian writer, Mikola Bazhan, Stalin referred to Nizami as ‘the great poet of our brotherly Azerbaidzhani people’who must not be surrendered to Iranian literature, despite having written most of his poems in Persian. ”

Yo'av Karny states:

“ In 1991 he published a translation into Khynalug of the famous medieval poet Nezami, who is known as Persian but is claimed by Azeri nationalists as their own. ”

Igor M. Diakonov states:

“ "There were slight problems with Nizami - first of all he was not Azeri but Persian (Iranian) poet, and though he lived in presently Azerbaijani city of Ganja, which, like many cities in the region, had Iranian population in Middle Ages. Russian:Перед войной отгремел юбилей армянского эпоса Давида Сасунского (дата которого вообще-то неизвестна) – хвостик этого я захватил в 1939 г. во время экспедиции на раскопки Кармир-блура. А сейчас в Азербайджане готовился юбилей великого поэта Низами. С Низами была некоторая небольшая неловкость: во-первых, он был не азербайджанский, а персидский (иранский) поэт, хотя жил он в ныне азербайджанском городе Гяндже, которая, как и большинство здешних городов, имела в Средние века иранское.". ”

The Russian philologist Ivan Mikhailovich Steblin-Kamensky, Professor and the Dean of the Oriental Department of Saint Petersburg University comments:

“ "Мы готовили таких специалистов, но, как показывает наше с ними общение, там очень много националистических тенденций, научных фальсификаций. Видимо, это связано с первыми годами самостоятельности. В их трудах присутствует националистическое начало, нет объективного взгляда, научного понимания проблем, хода исторического развития. Подчас – откровенная фальсификация. Например, Низами, памятник которому воздвигнут на Каменноостровском проспекте, объявляется великим азербайджанским поэтом. Хотя он по-азербайджански даже не говорил. А обосновывают это тем, что он жил на территории нынешнего Азербайджана – но ведь Низами писал свои стихи и поэмы на персидском языке! Translation:We trained such specialists, but, as shown by our communication with them, there are a lot of nationalistic tendencies there and academic fraud. Apparently it's related to the first years of independence. Their works include nationalist beginnings. Objective perspective, scientific understanding of the problems and timeline of historical developments are lacking. Sometimes there is an outright falsification. For example, Nizami, the monument of whom was erected at Kamennoostrovsk boulevard, is proclaimed Great Azerbaijani poet. Although he did not even speak Azeri. They justify this by saying that he lived in the territory of current Azerbaijan, but Nizami wrote his poems in Persian language!". ”

Viktor Shnirelman writes in his important book in 2003:

“ К этому времени отмеченные иранский и армянский факторы способствовали быстрой азербайджанизации исторических героев и исторических политических образований на территории Азербайджана. В частности, в 1938 г. Низами в связи с его 800-летним юбилеем был объявлен гениальным азербайджанским поэтом (История, 1939. С. 88-91). На самом деле он был персидским поэтом, что и неудивительно, так как городское население в те годы было представлено персами (Дьяконов, 1995. С. 731). В свое время это признавалось всеми энциклопедическими словарями, выходившими в России, и лишь Большая Советская Энциклопедия впервые в 1939 г. объявила Низами "великим азербайджанским поэтом" (Ср. Брокгауз и Ефрон, 1897. С. 58; Гранат, 1917. С. 195; БСЭ, 1939. С. 94).

Translation from Russian:

By that time, already mentioned Iranian and Armenian factors contributed to the rapid azerbaijanization of historical heroes and historical political entities on the territory of Azerbaijan. In particular, in 1938, Nizami in connection with his 800-year anniversary was declared a genius(marvelous) Azerbaijani poet (History, 1939. Pp 88-91). In fact, he was a Persian poet, which is not surprising, because the urban population in those years was Persian (Dyakonov, 1995. page. 731). At one time it was recognized by all Encyclopedic Dictionaries of published in Russia, and only the Big Soviet Encyclopedia for the first time in 1939, announced Nizami as a "Great Azerbaijani poet (Sr. Brockhaus and Efron, 1897. page. 58; Garnet, 1917. page. 195 ; BSE, 1939. p. 94).

”

more on these sources, possible cricism and response in Wikipedia

Note the quote of Diakonov might be challenged by some users who will state it was a memoir (of course more than 700+ pages!). However, it is from a major historian and alsofrom a wikipedia point of view, what is also important is that if other historians/scholars refer to it. In this case, the Russian scholar Victor Shnirleman clearly references it and furthermore his book has been praised highly [[15]] and his book highly quoted in google scholar [[16]]. Plus this is Diakonov's last piece of writing (some of his works were later translated but his is the last writing from him) and he is a major scholar of the Medes and hence when Iranian languages faded away in the region. So it is obviously referenceable. If there is a dispute about it, one can say according to I.M. Diakonov, also quoted by Victor Schnirelmann and quote it.

On the book of Walter Kolarz, the statements about politicization can be found in other sources like Tamazshvilli, Franger,Yuri Slezkine and etc.. His book has been quoted greatly in google scholar and google books. Also there has been positive reviews as well: "and the conclusions which they support must be regarded as indispensable to anyone who regards himself as a serious student of the Soviet system or of Russian history. It should contribute greatly to the growing awareness of the existence of millions of non-Russians in the Soviet Union." A) (Reviewed work(s): Russia and Her Colonies by Walter Kolarz Russian Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct., 1953), pp. 279-280 JOHN S. RESHETAR, JR.)Princeton University) B) Another book review here: Reviewed work(s): Russia and Her Colonies. by Walter Kolarz The Peoples of the Soviet Far East. by Walter Kolarz American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Oct., 1955), pp. 415-416 .. and there are many reviews that can be found in JSTOR/google scholar. Nothing specifically reviews that sentence, however his sentence is confirmed by other independent scholars Franger,Yuri Slezkine. One can even say according to Walter Kolarz and cquote the issue if necessary. From this case, what is important is not the whole book but the statement with this regard to Nezami. That statement is supported by other sources and the book easily meets wikipedia reliability and verifiability and is quoted numerous times.

The sources above are only to show in the end that the concept of Nezami Ganjavi was politicized and his identity was called "Azerbaijani", something that cannot be denied (see also the two extensive translations in my article). These sources (with the exception of Schnirelmann and Diakonov) are not used to assert historical invalidity of such claim, as they are specific to nation-building and politicization. A long translation of Tamazshvilli is also provided in my article which discusses the politicization of Nezami Ganjavi in detail.

Some corrected information for Wikipedia

Corrected information

Despite the overwhelming number of sources in the previous section, we note that once in a while wrong usage and information creeps in from the USSR. Unfortunately wrong information from the USSR era has sometimes been looked at uncritically.

Here are three correspondences between this author and three Western writers. Dr. Van Ruymbeke is a major Nezami scholar however in one of her books she has written:

Christine Van Ruymbeke

Christine van Ruymbeke, "Science and Poetry in Medieval Persia: The Botany of Nizami's Khamsa", University of Cambridge Oriental Publications (No. 65), 2008. pg 9: "He might have been of Jewish background, or maybe Turkish." pg 18: "Before submitting the tree imagery in the Khamsa to a scientific examination, we first need to define closely as possible what is understood by "botanical knowledge", or more precisely, by "knowledge about trees and fruit", when this is applied to a twelfth century Persian poet." pg 236: "As a result, this study not only proposes a better understanding of nature imagery in the work of a seminal Persian poet, but provides a useful insight into the breadth and depth of education of Medieval poets and their readers."

I asked her about “Jewish background” and even maybe Turkish, and gave her some of the sources from the article. This was her response:

“ 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.

As to Medieval jewish authors, I do not research this but my experience tells me that they ought not to be too hard to locate, as I am sure their works or names would normally advertise their origins in one way or another.. There was no reason to hide this in any way.

I hope this is helpful and wish you success in your research.

C van Ruymbeke

”

George Lane (geographical term)

We did mention that small number of writers have used anachronistic place names and used modern geographical conventions without any ethnic designation.

Doing a search in google books (in the year 2009) under “ Nezami Azeri poet”, we did not come across any serious source except one literature book. Here is the correspondence with that author:

An inquirer asked one academic writer who used this term:

In the book “Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-century Iran” on page 65 you wrote “The renowned Azerbaijani poet, Nizami of…”. What do you mean with “Azerbaijani poet Nizami”? Ethnic, cultural, geographical or other characteristic?

The Author of the book who used the term responded back:

geographical. The whole subject of nationalities is fraught with controversy since in mediaeval times nation-states did not exist people could not so easily be labeled. Often people were defined by their city, e.g. Samarqandi, Balkhi, though often by the region, Rumi. Nizami has been claimed by the modern state of Azerbaijan though he continues to be considered a Persian poet and for the student seeking further information Azerbaijan could be a starting point for their research. You should not read too much into such labels. George Lane

And here is another correspondence:

Istvan Csicsery-Ronah

Dear Sir,

In your book "The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction", you have written: "The Haft Paykar (Seven Beauties), a mystical epic by the twelfth-century Azeri Poet, Nizami, tells of a legendary King Bahram..."

Respone:

Dear Mr. Doostzadeh,

“thank you very much for your note on my anachronistic use of the term "Azeri" for Nizami. I am usually reluctant to ascribe national/ethnic origins to any writer, since it is ultimately the language that counts. I will make the appropriate changes when and if a second edition comes out. For the record, I did note tin the sentence you quoted hat the Seven Beauties is a _Persian_ poem.

With best wishes, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.” “

Britannica

Also noted should be an effort around the time of November 2008 where due to political lobbying, Encyclopedia Britannica had changed Nezami Ganjavi from a Persian poet to a “Persian language poet” as a first step to rob him off his Iranian heritage. However, after consulting with some scholars, they accepted the correct term Persian Poet.

In the long term these efforts will be futile (say 1000 years from now), but due to geo-political maneuvering and active lobbying, and also lack of awareness of the historical politicization of Nezami, as well as not everyone being able to dissect USSR propaganda, it can be expected that in the near term, if nationalistic feelings flare-up and oil money is poured in, there will be massive political efforts to rob Nezami Ganjavi of his Iranian heritage (see some of the news item posted in the intro). But in the long term, without a doubt, this effort is futile as 30000+ verses of Persian poetry will forever define the man's heritage.

Invalid Arguments by USSR politicized scholar on Nezami's background

Invalid argument: Persian was the high court language, So that is why Nezami wrote in Persian

A person has written: Azerbaijani Turkic kings of Azerbaijan in 12th century used Persian language as lingua franca, just like Russian aristocracy at the end of 18th century used French, and encouraged court poet Nizami to compose poetry in it

The argument and sentence is invalid because of many reasons, but the author is trying to imply that Nezami wrote in Persian because of the court. First the Eldiguzids were not “Azerbaijani”(not used as an ethnic name then) in the ethnic sense. They were Qipchaq Turks and they ruled areas such as part of Arran, parts of Azerbaijan (the historical one) and even extended far as Jabal and Ray. So they did not speak Oghuz Turkish. They were obviously of Turkic lineage but culturally they were Persianized.

However, the most important reason for the argument to be invalid is that Nezami Ganjavi was not a court poet. He did not serve in any of the courts. Indeed, it was the Eldiguzids, and Ahmadilis who commissioned him and he was free to choose whatever story and language he wished. Obviously he chose his stories based on Persian Sassanid stories (Khusraw and Shirin, Haft Paykar) for these two rulers and he wrote in Persian, which was the common language of the area. The comparison with Russian aristocracy is also invalid as there are many Russian texts from the end of 18th century, but there is not a single verse of Turkish from Nezami Ganjavi or any other writer or poet from that era. Also the Russian aristocracy ruled a Russian speaking country, where as the newly Persianate Turkic dynasties ruled a predominantly Christian and Iranian Muslim region. They are given the title rulers of Persia/Iran by Nezami.

Also a major rebuttal to the argument above is the book Nozhat al-Majales. We will again mention some important points from this book:

“ NOZHAT AL-MAJĀLES, an anthology of some 4,000 quatrains (robāʿi; a total of 4,139 quatrains, 54 of which have been repeated in the text) by some 300 poets of the 5th to 7th/11th-13th centuries, compiled around the middle of the 7th/13th century by the Persian poet Jamāl-al-Din Ḵalil Šarvāni. The book is arranged by subject in 17 chapters (bābs) divided into 96 different sections (namaṭ). The anthology also includes 179 quatrains and an ode (qaṣida) of 50 distiches written by the author himself, who is also credited with one lyric (ḡazal) in Moḥammad Jājarmi's Moʾnes al-aḥrār.

As stated in Jamāl-al-Din's own ode at the end of the book, he compiled his anthology in the name of ʿAlāʾ-al-Din Šarvānšāh Fariborz III (r. 1225-51), son of Goštāsb and dedicated it to him. It has reached us in a unique manuscript copied by Esmāʿil b. Esfandiār b. Moḥammad b. Esfandiār Abhari on 25 Šawwāl 731/31 July 1331, and is presently bound together in one volume with the divān of Faḵr-al-Din ‘Eraqi at the Süleymaniye Library in Turkey (no.1667) among Wali-al-Din Jār-Allāh's collection. This manuscript embraces some 77 leaves (fols. 41a-118a), each page having 27 lines. The first few leaves of the book, which had probably embodied a preface in prose, have been lost. Fritz Meier (p. 117) and Christian Rempis (1935, p. 179) have erroneously taken Esmāʿil b. Esfandiār, the copyist, to be the author of the book. .. The most significant merit of Nozhat al-majāles, as regards the history of Persian literature, is that it embraces the works of some 115 poets from the northwestern Iran (Arrān, Šarvān, Azerbaijan; including 24 poets from Ganja alone), where, due to the change of language, the heritage of Persian literature in that region has almost entirely vanished. The fact that numerous quatrains of some poets (e.g. Amir Šams-al-Din Asʿad of Ganja, ʿAziz Šarvāni, Šams Sojāsi, Amir Najib-al-Din ʿOmar of Ganja, Badr Teflisi, Kamāl Marāḡi, Šaraf Ṣāleḥ Baylaqāni, Borhān Ganjaʾi, Elyās Ganjaʾi, Baḵtiār Šarvāni) are mentioned together like a series tends to suggest the author was in possession of their collected works. Nozhat al-mājales is thus a mirror of the social conditions at the time, reflecting the full spread of Persian language and the culture of Iran throughout that region, clearly evidenced by the common use of spoken idioms in poems as well as the professions of the some of the poets (see below). The influence of the northwestern Pahlavi language, for example, which had been the spoken dialect of the region, is clearly observed in the poems contained in this anthology. … In contrast to poets from other parts of Persia, who mostly belonged to higher echelons of society such as scholars, bureaucrats, and secretaries, a good number of poets in the northwestern areas rose from among the common people with working class backgrounds, and they frequently used colloquial expressions in their poetry. They are referred to as water carrier (saqqāʾ), sparrow dealer (ʿoṣfori), saddler (sarrāj), bodyguard (jāndār), oculist (kaḥḥāl), blanket maker (leḥāfi), etc., which illustrates the overall use of Persian in that region. Chapter eleven of the anthology contains interesting details about the everyday life of the common people, their clothing, the cosmetics used by women, the games people played and their usual recreational practices such as pigeon fancying (kabutar-bāzi; p. 444), even-or-odd game (ṭaq yā joft bāzi; p. 446), exercising with a sledgehammer (potk zadan; p. 443), and archery (tir-andāzi; p. 444). There are also descriptions of the various kinds of musical instruments such as daf (tambourine; see DAF[F] and DĀYERA), ney (reed pipe), and čang (harp), besides details of how these instruments were held by the performers (pp. 150-63). One even finds in this anthology details of people's everyday living practices such as using a pumice (sang-e pā) to scrub the sole of their feet and gel-e saršur to wash their hair (pp. 440-41). Nozhat al-majāles suffers from certain structural shortcomings. The overriding concern of the author has been to arrange the quatrains strictly according to their contents, therefore paying little heed to the names of the poets of the verses. This has occasionally led to the attribution of a particular quatrain to two different persons. The scribe has not been very careful in doing his work either. He has apparently transcribed all of the available poetry first and then added the names of their poets so haphazardly that the name of a poet is sometimes mentioned either further down or further up than the place where his quatrains are located. Some of the errors and oversights have been identified in the edited version, and, following the publication of the text, Sayyed ʿAli Mir-Afżali pointed out a number of other errors missed by the editor (see bibliography).

”

Thus many everyday people from Ganja have used Persian during the era of Nezami Ganjavi, but not a single Turkish verse has been found. It is obvious that blanket makers, water carriers, sparrow dealers, saddlers, occultists and etc. were not affiliated with the court. Neither were the women poets mentioned in this anthology. As mentioned by different sources, the urban areas of Arran and Sherwan at that time were not Turkish speaking. Example of everyday usage of Persian in the area is given in the Nozhat al-Majales with its own peculiar dialect and Fahlavi features. In other words, as mentioned by one author; Stephen P. Blake, "Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639-1739". Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 123: "For the Seljuks and Il-Khanids in Iran it was the rulers rather than the conquered who were "Persianized and Islamicized".

Also the Quatrains, Ghazals and etc. of Nezami were not for the court and not a single quatrain, ghazal or etc. exists in Turkic from the region by any writer or poet at the time of Nezami Ganjavi. Obviously these did not have any monetary value.

Furthermore, Nezami did not write for money as he had another job (which we believe since he was from the Dehqan class, he was caretaker of some villages). However, to disprove the argument about money, we note that Nezami Ganjavi writes in the Sharafnama (one of the last epics to be composed by Nezami in his life):

گر این نامه را من به زر گفتمی
به عمری کجا گوهری سفتمی
همانا که عشقم بر این کار داشت
چون من کمزنان عشق بسیار داشت

If I hold told this story for Gold
How could have pierced shells and brought pearls then?
It was love that brought this magnificent work
Love had a lot of people who did not seek Gold and Silver.

Also we can see this with Layli o Majnoon were the author says “if it was not for other works, this would have finished in two weeks”. Thus Nezami Ganjavi had other sources of income. Also he did not get paid for his ghazals, qasida, quatrains which are all in Persian. Thus such arguments are just ideological-nationalistic arguments in order to disconnect Nezami Ganjavi from his Iranian heritage and use him for local nation building consumption.

Nizami used Turkish words. He also used Greek, Arabic and etc. Nothing to do with ethnicity

One author states, Nezami uses the words: "alachiq - alaçıq (a hut), ushag – uşaq (a child), yatag – yataq (a convoy), bichag – bıçaq (a knife), gaichy – qayçı (scissors), keynek – köynək (a shirt), papakh – papaq (a headdress), jorab – corab (socks) etc,. I am asking: how come Nizami knew these Turkic words which carry mostly daily importance if Turkic was not spoken in Ganja by the majority?"

Some of these are not use by Nezami (Papaq I checked couple of database) nor is Qaychi (what manuscript or verse?) nor Keynak or Bichagh. However some are possibly Persian like Jorab (but where is that used anyway by Nezami). However, on actual Turkish words (say yataq, Ushaq or etc.)(very small number relative to number of words Nezami uses and probably less than 1%), most if not all of these been used by other Persian poets before Nezami. See the section: (Incorrect argument: Nizami uses “Turkish words” so “he must be Turkish”) of here: [17][18]

For example: 1) Yotaaq/Yataaq (یتاق) which in Persian means “Paas Daashtan, Sarvari, Hefz, Mohafezat”has been used by the Seljuqid Vizier Nizam Al-Molk. We will quote the Dehkhoda dictionary here:

معلوم کرده بودند که چند مرد به یتاق رفتندی و جایگاهی گروهی پایدار بودی (سیر الملوک نظام الملک)

The word is also used by Sa’adi who is definitely not considered to be Turk: تو مست شراب ناز و ما را
بیداری کشت در یتاقت
Note that Turkish spelling of this word is یاتاق which neither Nezami nor Sa’adi nor Nezam al-Moolk use.

2) Vushaq/Oshaq is already used by Manuchehr and Attar long time before Nezami.

کی تواند داشت رندی در سپاه
زهرهی گستاخی در پیش شاه
گر به راه آید وشاق اعجمی
هست گستاخی او از خرمی
(عطار – منطق الطیر)

گرفتم عشق به آن جادو سپردم دل بدان آهو
کنون آهو وشاقی گشت و جادو کرد اوشاقش
(منوچهری)

If you provide correct transliteration of the rest of these terms (Perso-Arabic), then I can check it. However, you can find more Turkish words in say Bayhaqi's history or even the Siyasat nama of Nizam al-Molk has some too. Even Khaqani uses more Turkish words than Nezami.

As explained in Iranica: “The Turks, on the other hand, posed a formidable threat: their penetration into Iranian lands was considerable, to such an extent that vast regions adapted their language. This process was all the more remarkable since, in spite of their almost uninterrupted political domination for nearly 1,000 years, the cultural influence of these rough nomads on Iran’s refined civilization remained extremely tenuous. This is demonstrated by the mediocre linguistic contribution, for which exhaustive statistical studies have been made (Doerfer). The number of Turkish or Mongol words that entered Persian, though not negligible, remained limited to 2,135, i.e., 3 percent of the vocabulary at the most. These new words are confined on the one hand to the military and political sector (titles, administration, etc.) and, on the other hand, to technical pastoral terms. The contrast with Arab influence is striking. While cultural pressure of the Arabs on Iran had been intense, they in no way infringed upon the entire Iranian territory, whereas with the Turks, whose contributions to Iranian civilization were modest, vast regions of Iranian lands were assimilated, notwithstanding the fact that resistance by the latter was ultimately victorious. Several reasons may be offered.”(Land of Iran, Encyclopedia Iranica). So 3% of Persian vocabulary is Turkish (although most of these words are not used anymore), but if you do a word count of Nezami is less than 1% easily.

Just like for example Nasimi/Fizuli using much higher percentage of Persian (easily 20%) does not make them native Persian. I have not seen Qeychi being used by Nezami either, but Qeychi anyhow is used in modern Persian and its native equivalent is Do-Kaard, but Qeychi is used much more frequently than the native Do-Kard. So these are borrowed words. But they are very very small portion of Nezami's vocabulary. For example just the intro of the 5 works and also the end of 5 works (hope that is sufficient) and one does not find anything Turkish.

As per the language of everyday people I think the book Nozhat al-Majales provides a clear proof. There are more than 24+ poets from Ganja, many ordinary non-court peiople. So there has been Turkic words (say Khaqan) used by Ferdowsi, Attar and etc. Turkic words entered Persian after Ghaznavids, and Seljuqids era. Just like there are many Persian words in Turkish. Most of these words are military terms or terms used by nomads or state apparatus or weapons.

I have responded to this weird argument in my article:

excerpt from article with this regards

One of the unsound claims used is that since Nizami Ganjavi uses a dozen or so Turkish words, then he could have been Turkic! Mohammad Amin Rasulzadeh (who was a pro-Iranian nationalist at first but later on became pro-Turkic nationalist and pan-Turkic) is known for his political activism, but he also admired Persian poetry and has written a book where he enumerates 30 or so “Turkish” words and titles. It should be mentioned that the etymology of some of these words that are claimed to be Turkish by him are not probably Turkish. For example Khatun, Saav, Ghirmiz, Miyanji, and Amaaj are not Turkic words. Before looking at the matter closely, we should mention that many Persian poets before and after Nizami use the same Turkish words. Indeed as Professor Xavier Planhol has stated:

The Turks, on the other hand, posed a formidable threat: their penetration into Iranian lands was considerable, to such an extent that vast regions adapted their language. This process was all the more remarkable since, in spite of their almost uninterrupted political domination for nearly 1,000 years, the cultural influence of these rough nomads on Iran’s refined civilization remained extremely tenuous. This is demonstrated by the mediocre linguistic contribution, for which exhaustive statistical studies have been made (Doerfer). The number of Turkish or Mongol words that entered Persian, though not negligible, remained limited to 2,135, i.e., 3 percent of the vocabulary at the most. These new words are confined on the one hand to the military and political sector (titles, administration, etc.) and, on the other hand, to technical pastoral terms. The contrast with Arab influence is striking. While cultural pressure of the Arabs on Iran had been intense, they in no way infringed upon the entire Iranian territory, whereas with the Turks, whose contributions to Iranian civilization were modest, vast regions of Iranian lands were assimilated, notwithstanding the fact that resistance by the latter was ultimately victorious. Several reasons may be offered.(Land of Iran, Encyclopedia Iranica)

Thus Persian has been influenced slightly by Turkish and Turkish has actually been influenced much more by Persian. The argument also has no importance. For example Ottoman Turkish has many Persian words but that does not make the users of the Ottoman language necessarily Persian.

Now as per some of the words Khatun, Saav, Ghirmiz , Miyanji, Amaaj, their etymologies are not Turkish.

For example Khatun: This is considered Soghdian by Frye (History of Bukhara, 1954), Clauson from Soghdian xwate:n (“lord”with fem. end.). Modern Iranians use the term Khanum (which is Turkish) besides the Persian word Banu (which is Persian) and occasionally Khatun is seen. Nevertheless, the word Khatun had entered modern Persian from Soghdian already and is attested in Rudaki’s Diwan, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and Naser Khusraw’s Diwan. The Dehkhoda Dictionary provides sufficient testimony to this fact. بدانست بیدار دل پاک زاد
که دورند خاقان و خاتون ز داد
(فردوسی)

فقیه آن یابد از میر خراسان
که خاتون زو فزونتر یابد اکنون
(ناصر خسرو)
The word Saav (ساو) is a Persian word and its Middle Persian/Pahlavi form is saag or saav and it is also used already by Ferdowsi (again quote from the Dehkhoda Dictionary): مرا با چنین پهلوان تاو نیست
اگر رام گردد به از ساو نیست
(فردوسی)
The word Miyanji is also Persian and is related to ‘Mian’or middle. Its Middle Persian/Pahlavi form is Mianjig and has been used numerous times in the Shahnameh and has been also used by Nasir Khusraw: میانجی نخواهی بجز تیغ و گرز
منش برزداری ز بالای برز
(فردوسی)
It is the same with the word Ghirmiz (red) and Amaaj which have been used by Persian poets before Nizami. One may refer to the RIRA online Persian poetry (http://rira.ir/rira/php/?page=view&mod=classicpoems&obj=home&id=0 accessed Dec 2007) or the Dehkhoda Dictionary. For example, Nasir Khusraw, the Khorasani poet says: همچنین دانم نخواهد برگشت زمان
جعدت عنبری و روی خوبت قرمزی
(ناصر خسرو)
(برگرفته از لغتنامه دهخدا)
And the word Amaaj has already been used by Khorasani poets including Sanai Ghaznawi and Farrokhi Sistani: چون تو به آماجگاه تیر نهی بر کمان
سجده کند عقل و روح دست و عنان ترا
(سنائی)
The word Bilak (بیلک) is probably a Persian word although some sources have said it could be Indian. Anyhow, regardless of its etymology, it has been used by many poets, even prior to Nizami. For example Sanai, Suzani, Anvari Abivardi. زودا که آسمان ممالک تهی کند
از دیو فتنه بیلک همچون شهاب تو
(انوری)
So not all words claimed to be Turkish are indeed of Turkic origin. We now take a look at ten of the words which we believe have clear or probable Turkish etymology and that are used by Nizami Ganjavi. The Dehkhoda Dictionary brings sufficient examples that these words were used by Persian poets before Nizami Ganjavi. Also a false claim has risen by authors who are not familiar with the Turkish law of vowel harmony nor Perso-Arabic script that Nezami used Turkish spelling of these words. Actually as shown he uses Persian spelling which were used by previous poets. We should also note that Doerfer has listed virtually all Turkish words in Persian and all the Turkish words used by Nezami have been used by other Persian poets and they follow Persian spelling and form of these words. 1) Yotaaq/Yataaq (یتاق) which in Persian means “Paas Daashtan, Sarvari, Hefz, Mohafezat”has been used by the Seljuqid Vizier Nizam Al-Molk. We will quote the Dehkhoda dictionary here: معلوم کرده بودند که چند مرد به یتاق رفتندی و جایگاهی گروهی پایدار بودی (سیر الملوک نظام الملک)
The word is also used by Sa’adi who is definitely not considered to be Turk: تو مست شراب ناز و ما را
بیداری کشت در یتاقت
We note that Turkish spelling of this word is یاتاق which neither Nezami nor Sa’adi nor Nezam al-Moolk use.

2) Another word is Totoq (تتق). Note Nezami uses the form تتق but in Turkish spelling it would be spelled as توتوق. The Dehkhoda Dictionary believes its etymology is possibly Persian. The meaning of this word is a big tent or curtain. Anyhow the word has been already used by famous poets like Asadi Tusi and Anvari Abivardi before Nizami. We will quote examples from the Dehkhoda Dictionary:

دل خانه فروش نام و ننگم زو
دلبر ز تتق بدر نمی آید
)انوری(

ز اول که داشت در تتق صنع منزوی
ارواح را مشیت و اشباح را گهر
(انوری)

The word is also used by the Persian poet Attar: چون تتق از آفتاب چهره کنی دور
عقل براندازی و بصر بربایی
(عطار)

3) Another word is Manjuq/Monjuq (منجوق). Although the Dehkhoda Dictionary is not sure about etymology of this word, that could possibly be Iranian (it might even be Greek), there are numerous examples of this word in Persian poetry by Attar, Farrokhi, Asadi Tusi, Sanai and other Khorasani Persian poets. سر ماه دادش کلاه و کمر
یکی مهر منجوق و زرین سپر
(اسدی طوسی)

باغ پنداری لشرگه میر است که نیست
ناخنی خالی از مطرد و منجوق و علم
(فرخی سیستانی)

در کوکبهی طلوع آدم
منجوق لوای عز والاست
(عطار)

از برای نصرت دین ساختی هر روز و شب
طبل و منجوق و عراده نیزه و خود و مجن
(سنائی)

As well as Nezami: به هر سو دیلمی گردن به عیوق
فروهشته کله چون جعد منجوق
(نظامی)

Again the etymology of Majnuq was claimed to be Turkish by a Turkish author, but we are not sure. Be that it may, the word has been used by many other Persian poets.

4) Another word is Bayraq (بیرق or flag) which we believe is Turkish since the Persian word for it is Akhtar/Darafsh. The word has been used by Khorasani poets already and the Dehkhoda Dictionary gives the example of Anvari Abivardi:

به حکمتی که خلل اندرو نیابد راه
ز مهر و ماه گشادند زان میان بیرق
(انوری)

The word is also used by Khaqani, Khaju and other Persian poets.

5) Toghra (طغرا). This word has been used by Attar, Borhani (an early Persian poet of the Seljuq era who served in the Seljuq courts), Hafez, Khaqani and etc. The Dehkhoda Dictionary gives some example of the usage of this word. Here is couplet from Borhani:

طغرای نکونامی و منشور سعادت
نزد ملک العرش به توقیع تو بردم
(برهانی)

ز فیض نقطهی نام تو همچو دریایی
محیط گشت و چنین نامدار شد طغرا
(عطار)

و در این بیت خواجه حافظ:
صاحب دیوان ما گوئی نمیداند حساب
کاندر این طغرا نشان حِسْبةً لله نیست
(حافظ)

6) Yazak (یزک). The Dehkhoda Dictionary believes the word is actually Persian. Whatever the origin, it has been used by such poets as Anvari Abivardi, Rumi, Sa’adi, Nizami, Khaqani and the Samanid era Tarikh-i Bal’ami (a Persian translation of the Tarikh-i Tabari).

ای سپاهت را ظفر لشکرکش و نصرت یزک
نی یقین بر طول و عرض لشکرت واقف نه شک
(انوری ابیوردی)

آن بحر که در یگانگی اوست یکی
یک قطره از آن بحر نسنجد فلکی
گر هجده هزار عالم افتد در وی
حقا که از او برون نیاید یزکی
(عطار)

7) Totmaj (تتماج). This word has already been used in the Persian medical dictionary (Dhakhireyeh Khwarizmshahi) and the Khorasani poet Suzani and the Shirwani poet Khaqani. It is a certain type of soup and there are many Persian food names in Turkish and there are Turkish food names in Persian. Just like the word Macaroni is in many languages of the world. Here is what Dhakhioreyeh Khwarimzshahi (written in Khorasan which shows the familiarity of Persians with this type of meal) says:

در جمله سبب تولد سنگ امتلاست و رطوبتهای لزج که از طعامهای غلیظ تولد کند چون گوشت گاو...تتماج و رشته و کرنج و ..(ذخیرهء خوارزمشاهی)

The fact the word is used by a famous medical tome written in Khorasan shows that it was a popular dish throughout the Persian Islamic world.

چشم اعدای تو خلیده بخار
هم بر آنسان که تیغ در تتماج
(سوزنی)

همه ترکان فلک را پس از این
خلق تتماجی ایشان شمرند
(خاقانی)
We should note that Turkish spelling (following vowel harmony) would be توتماج which is not used by Nezami.

8) Chavush (چاوش) is another military term that has been claimed to be Turkish (it is possible too since a good portion of Turkish loanwords in Persian had to do with military, nomadic lifestyles and aristocratic titles). It has been used by such Persian poets as Anvari Abivardi and Amir Mo’ezi (early Seljuqid era poet):

گر حاجب تو پوشد پیکار را زره
ور چاوش تو بندد پرخاش را کمر
(امیر معزی)

چاوش اوهام نتوان رسیدن
تا کجا تا آخرین صف رو بارت
(انوری)

9) Voshaq (وشاق) has also been used by such Khorasani poets as Manuchehri and Attar.

کی تواند داشت رندی در سپاه
زهرهی گستاخی در پیش شاه
گر به راه آید وشاق اعجمی
هست گستاخی او از خرمی
(عطار – منطق الطیر)

گرفتم عشق به آن جادو سپردم دل بدان آهو
کنون آهو وشاقی گشت و جادو کرد اوشاقش
(منوچهری)

10) Khailtash (خیلتاش). The word Tash in this word is Turkish. The word has already been used by the Ghaznavid era historian, Beyhaqi in his famous Tarikh.

و سه خیلتاش مسرع را نیز از طریق به غزنین فرستاد. (تاریخ بیهقی(
)برگرفته از دهخدا(

Where-as the dozen or so Turkish words Nizami uses have been used by Persian poets and can be found in Persian texts before and after Nizami, he has used peculiar Kurdish words that no other Persian poet has used as far as we know, like ‘golalakan’in the following couplet:

گوهر به «گلالکان”برافشاند
و ز گوهرکان شه سخن راند
)لیلی و مجنون(
Dr. Servatian considers this as Kurdish meaning the eyes. (Ayandeh, 15/657)

As clearly demonstrated, a number of Turkish words which became part of the Persian lexicon have been used by poets and authors before and after Nizami Ganjavi. Indeed we only used two sources, the Dehkhoda Dictionary and a poetry database with 25 poets, most of them after Nizami Ganjavi. There are thousands of manuscripts before, during and after the time of Nizami Ganjavi. Indeed it is surprising to see that out of an estimated 300,000 (unique and non-unique) words (in 30,000 couplets and assuming 10 words per couplet) only 30 or so words are of possible Turkish origin (assuming the etymology is certain). This is extremely of a low frequency and percentage. Dr. Behruz Therwatiyan and Barat Zanjani are also clear that the frequency of Turkish words used by Nezami is characteristic of Persian poets of that era. Thus we can see many of the same words are also used by Khaqani who is another Persian poet. Had one browsed through every book before, around and after Nizami Ganjavi, one could easily find Turkish words also and Doerfer has done a complete listing (although it should be mentioned that not all of his etymologies are agreed upon). This is expected, since at least from Samanid era, Turkish soldiers were used in the army. Consequently Turkish terms (many of them military) slowly entered the Persian-Dari language. The argument can also be brought for Greek words that are part of Persian like:

دیهیم , اقلیم, لغت, دفتر, زمرد, کلید, قلم, سمندر, ارغنون, اکسیر,

(all used by Nezami and many also by Ferdowsi)..and more. As well the many Greek names and titles used by Nizami(overall Greek words come third after Persian and Arabic). Yet none of this implies that Nizami’s father was Greek or he knew Greek! The politically minded scholars who want to use such an unsound argument in order to cut off Nizami Ganjavi from his Iranian and Persian heritage are actually showing their lack of knowledge in the Persian language. These politically minded scholars do not understand that Nizami Ganjavi is part of the greater genre of Persian poetry and it is imperative to study important works of Persian poetry in order to understand him. Thus as we can see, this was another unsound argument created during the USSR era in order to disassociate Nizami Ganjavi from Iranian civilization. It is like claiming that Fizuli or Ottoman writers were all Persians because they used many Persian words (with extremely higher frequency than Persian poets use Turkish or Greek words). Interestingly enough, we would like to point out that Nizami Ganjavi pronounces Azerbaijan as in the New Persian Shahnameh: آذرآبادگان and Vis o Ramin: آذربایگان . This is the older Persian pronunciation where-“Azerbaijan” is a somewhat Arabicized form of the Middle Persian word Aturpatakan.

Invalid argument: Nezami praises Turks so he was half Turkic

The problem with this argument is mani-fold and like all the other arguments, there is sufficient and detailed response to it in here:[19][20] [21][22]

However the argument is invalid for many reasons including: A) Nezami also has negative comments about Turks as well. B)praising a certain people does not mean that the person is from that ethnic group. For example Xenophon praises Cyrus or Plato even has positives about Persians, but no one claims these as Persians. Many people praise Jesus by they are not Jewish. C) Nezami praises Persians, Zangis, even Rus, or Greeks and etc., this does not make him belong to any of these groups. D) The authors who make such claim are not aware of the wider meaning of Turk, Hindu, Rome, Ethiop and etc. in Persian poetry and their metaphor/imagery. That is why for example Nezami Ganjavi uses the term Turk for say Layla in Layla o Majnun or calls Alexander a Turk (Ruler in this sense) with a Roman hat. Overall, this sort of metaphor/imagery is one century older than Nezami and has been used in Persian poetry. These are explained in the book here: [23][24] [25][26]

specially in sections: Persian poetry images and symbols: Turk, Hindu, Rum, Zang/Habash 169
Which Turks are described in Persian Poetry? 206
Incorrect argument: Nizami Praises Seljuq Turks (or Turks) so he was half Turkic 221

but here we provided a short summary.

Turk, Hindu, Zang, Ethiop, Rum in Persian poetry

Note much more detail is given in the article we mentioned, specially with regards to Zang, Turk, Ethiop, Rum, Hindu as well, but here we just bring some excerpts about Turk

To Summarize, according to Professr Annemarie Schimme::

“ Over the preceding chapters we have observed that Persian poetry is imbued to a certain extent with images that evoke the external interplay of Beauty and Love, or the tension between legalism and love, between intellect and inspired madness. As with Mahmud and Ayaz, we may also discern this tendency in another favorite combination that arose in historical and social reality but served mostly as a poetical image whose original context was soon forgotten: the contrast between Turk and Hindu.’Turks enjoyed an important role as soldiers in the Abbasid Empire beginning in the mid-ninth century, and former military slaves soon rose to become rulers (sultans) in their own right, especially on the eastern fringes of Iran and in their homeland, Transoxania.

Indeed the idea of the Turk as the beloved first emerged, it seems, in the days of Mahmud of Ghazna, whose love for Ayaz of the Oymaq tribe was a model for the delight one could take in one’s love for a Turk. The Turk was considered as beautiful as the moon, even though he might be cruel. Soon the Turkish type of beauty became prominent both in pictures and in poetical descriptions: a round face with narrow eyes and a minute mouth. The most famous expression of an Indo-Persian writer’s infatuation with a “Turk”is Amir Khusrau’s verse:

His tongue is Turkish, and I don’t know Turkish— how nice it would be if his tongue were in my mouth!

”

Note Amir Khusrau knew Turkish actually and his father was a Turk from the Lachin tribe. His saying "I don't know Turkish" must not be taken literally here. This is a good example of Persian symbolic poetry.

Again quoting Schimmel:

“ The Hindu was the slave of the Turkish rulers, and for this reason poets liked the idea that they would lovingly become Hindu slaves if only their Turkish beloved would be kind to them—an idea paradoxically elaborated in Hafiz’s often-quoted Ghazal about the “Turk of Shiraz”(see below).

The word Turk came to designate, in India as in parts of Europe, the Muslim in general, and the positive picture of the moonlike Turkish beloved often also has a tinge of cruelty to it. Poets developed a large stock of metaphors about the pillaging, drunken “Turk”who gallops through the countryside, shooting arrows with his eyelashes to wound his admirers: perhaps he plays polo with the severed head of a victim who enjoys being treated like that, and he plunders (yaghma) every place. Such negative images—without the positive aspect—can be found, for instance, in satires by ‘Ubayd-i Zakani. But when reading these descriptions one must always keep in mind that the beloved in traditional Persian poetry is indeed cruel and does not care for his lover, and that the lover, in turn, seems to relish all the wounds inflicted on him—for the beloved’s cruelty is better than outright indifference. The mystics too made use of the Turk-Hindu contrast. Rumi saw the whole world as a dark Hindustan that must be destroyed “in Turkish style”so that the soul may finally be freed from material fetters. And Turk and Hindu appear in “the Hindustan of clay and water and the Turkestan that is the spiritual world”.

As Saturn is the “Hindu of the sky,”Mars, the martial planet, is rightly called the “Turk of the sky.”

But in the service of the beloved both are lowly slaves, as Bayram Khan, a Turcoman general in Mughal service, sings:

For your castle, old Saturn is the doorkeeper;

For your Hindu curls the Turk of the sky is a Circassian slave!

Much later another poet from India would complain:

From grieving for you I have black fortune and wet eyes—

I own [the whole area of] black [fertile) soil from India to the Oxus!

The contrast of Turk and Hindu was certainly strengthened by the realities of Muslim history at the turn of the first millenium, but the many possible interpretations of both terms made them a favorite for poets throughout the centuries. With these possibilities in mind one gets closer to

the secret of Hafiz’s famous (and often misinterpreted) verse:

If that Turk of Shiraz would take my heart in his hand,

I would give for his Hindu mole Bukhara and Samarqand.

The Shirazi Turk has a black—Hindu—mole, and for this mole, which is traditionally seen as a black slave, the poet is willing to sacrifice the most of beautiful cities of the Turkish empire. Besides this grand exaggeration in which all values seem to be reversed, the verse contains three names of cities (Shiraz, Bukhara, Samarqand), as well as three parts of the body (hand, mole, heart), and furthermore plays on the contrast of giving and taking, so that a whole chain of rhetorical figures is incorporated into these seemingly simple lines which express the poet’s hope for some kindness from his beloved. But the whole beauty of the verse is inevitably lost in translation, especially in translations by those unaware of the delightful wordplay which the poet—effortlessly, as it seems—puts before his readers. The Turk also appears, though rarely, in other connections. On a few occasions the aggressive riders from the steppes are contrasted with the complacent, urban Tajiks, and sometimes a poet collects a veritable “league of nations”around his friend’s face:

“The Turk of your eye carries away the heart from the Arab and the

Soul from the Persian; the Abyssinian mole on your face makes the Hindu a slave!”

In the eighteenth century Qani’the historian of Sind, considered that Byzantines, Europeans, and Indians were all variously destroyed by his beloved’s face, his down, and his lip—each of which corresponds to a color: white, black, and red.

Besides the Turk and the Hindu one finds the juxtaposition of Rum and Habash-Byzantium and Ethiopia—to allude to white and black, but in this connection the meaningful symbolism that lies behind Turk and Hindu is lacking. The Ethiopian or Negro, Zangi, is usually remembered for his curly hair, as Sa’di says in the Gulistan: The world is more confused than a Negro’s hair.

A similar combination of the Daylamites—mountain-dwellers near the Caspian Sea—with curly, “broken”hair occurs in early Persian poetry. From the late sixteenth century onward the role of the Turk as dangerous beloved was taken over at least in part by the Firangs—the “Franks”—that is, the Europeans and in particular the Portuguese, who from 1498 had begun to settle on the southern and western coast of India and had plundered affluent ports, like Thatta in the Indus Delta, most cruelly. They thus could replace the pillaging Turk, and the “European prison”became a new image in Indo-Persian poetry. This prison sometimes seems rather colorful, and the Europeans are generally connected with colors and pictures, for European paintings were brought to Mughal India beginning in the days of emperor Akbar and were copied by indigenous artists with amazing skill: hence the new combinations in color imagery in later poetry. But the Turk and the Hindu still survive in folk poetry, even in lullabies.

”

And again quoting Professor Schimmel:

“ The Hindu in Persian poetry is used a symbol for ugliness, black, of evil omen, mean servant of Turkish emperors, the nafs, the base soul which on other occasions is to compared to an unclean black dog. Yet, even the nafs if successfully educated – can become useful, comparable to the little Hindu-slave whose perfect loyalty will be recognized by any Shah. Turk is from Ghaznavid times onwards equivalent with the beloved; the word conveys the idea of strength, radiance, victory, sometimes cruelty, but always beauty; ..These stories in which the Turkish warrior-not endowed with too much intelligence-is slightly ridiculed, are by far outweighed by those allusions (not stories) in which the Turk is contrasted to the Hindu as the representative of the luminous world of spirit and love, against the dark world of the body and matter ”

Also as Professor Annmarrie Schimmel alluded to:

“ Besides the Turk and the Hindu one finds the juxtaposition of Rum and Habash-Byzantium and Ethiopia—to allude to white and black. ”

Here are two from the Persian poet Rumi:

According to Annemarrie Schimmel:

“ Rumi’s mother tongue was Persian, but he had learned, during his stay in Konya, enough Turkish and Greek to use it, now and then in his verses.

...

“You are a Turkish moon and I, although I am not a Turk,
I know this little, that in Turkish the word for water is su”
...

“I am sometimes Turk, sometimes Hindu, sometimes Rumi and sometimes Negro,
O Soul, from your image is my approval and denial”
.. “Everyone in whose heart is the love for Tabriz,
becomes – even though he be a Hindu – he becomes a rose cheeked inhabitant of Taraz (i.e. Turk)”

”

In the above examples we have shown how Turk, Hindu, Zangi/Habash, Rum is used for description and symbols of slavery, rulership, slave (Hindu), ruler (Turk), trees, birds, flowers, stars, climes, complexions, colors (yellow, white, black), animals (the eye, face), planets, day (Rum, Turk) and night (Hindu, Habash/Zang), languages, tears, hair, face, various moods and feelings without taking any ethnic meaning.

Thus the multitude of examples given from Persian literature from the above books and articles does not denote ethnicity, especially when comparing and contrasting.

We note some examples that shows multiple of contradiction if we are to take them literary.

Attar:

Attar is a well known Persian poet and philosopher and has had tremendous influence on Sufism and mysticism. So much so that Rumi considers himself to be in the niche of a street while he considered Attar to have travelled through the Seven Cities of Love.

Attar says:

کی توانم گفت که هندوی توام
هندوی خاک سگ کوی تو ام

If we are to take this literally, then Attar is actually an Indian (Hindu) and he was not Iranian. And here will quote again from Schimmel who quotes Attar:

“ The classical locus is perhaps in 371:

بوسه چو داد ترک من
هندوی او شدم بجان
«Since my Turk gave me a kiss I became from the bottom of my heart his Hindu...»

”

Thus if we are to take this literally, then Attar was a Turk or had a Turk who gave him a kiss and his heart became a Hindu.

Here again we have Attar: «not a Hindu-yi badkhu, of bad character, in the service of his beloved but an Abessinian who bears his mark»
در بندگیش نه هندویم بدخو
هستم حبشی که داغ او دارم

Thus now Attar is a Ethiopian (Abessinian).

ترک فلک چاکر شود
آنرا که شود هندوی او
«The Turk of the Heaven (i.e. Mars) becomes the servant of Him,
who became His (i.e. the beloved’s) Hindu.

Now heaven is a Turk, for who is a servant to those that became his Hindu.

هست ترک و من بجان هندوی او
لاجرم با تیغ در کار آمدست

هست ترک و من بجان هندوی او
لاجرم با تیغ در کار آمدست
« He is a Turk and I from the bottom of my heart his Hindu, necessarily he has come to work with his sword.» (129)

Thus as we can see if we are to take Attar’s imagery and symbolism literally, then there would be arguments between Ethiopians and Indian nationalists about the ethnicity of Attar.

Abu Esmai’l Abdallah Al-Ansari Al-Heravi (Khwaja Abdullah Ansari of Herat):

He was born in Herat and is considered one of the outstanding Persian writers and mystics. Khwaja Abdullah Ansari was a descendant of the companion of the Prophet of Islam, Abi Ayub Ansari. This companion of the Prophet or one of his early descendants migrated to Herat and eventually the family became Persianized.

The Pir of Herat, Khwajah Ansari writes: ای شب تو کیستی زنگی سیاهی و من ختنی زادهی چون ماهی ای شب تو بر خرابههای تاریک چون بومی و من بر تخت روزگار اسکندر رومی.

(Dastgerdi, Wahid. “Resa’il Jaami’ ‘Aref Qarn Chaharom Hejri: Khwaja Abdullah Ansari”, Forooghi Publishers, 1349/1970, 2nd edition. p 60)

Translation: Oh Night, What are? A black Zangi, and I am of Khotanese descent (look like) a moon (beautiful).
Oh Night, you are upon the dark ruins like an owl and I am on the throne of the age of Eskandar-e-Rumi (Alexander the Greek).

Thus if we take this literally, then the well known Ansari, a descendant of the compantion of the Prophet of Islam, would be of Khotanese descent. Of course the contrast between Dark/African/Zang and Khotanese is a well known contrast used by many Persian poets.

Amir Khusraw:

Amir Khusraw, according to Annmarrie Schimmel, was born to a Turkish father and an Indian mother and is one of the most important Persian poets of India. Athough ethnically, he was not Iranian, but rather Indian/Turkic, nevertheless, culturally he was Iranian.

Schimmel quotes this verse from Amir Khusraw and then further explains:

“ “The tongue of my friend is Turkish

And I know no Turkish –

Amir Khusrau’s own father was of Turkish extraction and the great mystic guru in Delhi Nizamuddin Auliya affectionately called the poet Turki Allah ‘God’s Turk’. However the word Turk was traditionally used to also mean a beautiful, fair-complexioned, lively, sometimes also cruel beloved, compared to which the miserable lover felt himself to be but a lowly, humble, swarthy Hindu slave. The literary counterpart turk-hindu, which can also mean ‘black-white’, was in use for centuries in Persian literature, and had has its counterpart in reality on the subcontinent since the days of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. Mahmud was of Turkic lineage, and he invaded India no fewer than seventeen times between 999 and 1030. As a result the Turks were established as a military force, and they also formed the ruling class, under whose auspices the theologians and lawyers henceforth had to work”

”

Thus if one was to take this verse out of context, Amir Khusraw who knew Turkish (note his praise of India) did not know any Turkish, although he said: “And there are the numerous languages of India which, when imported, develop more beautifully than it was possible in their native country – is not the Persian of India much superior to that of Khurasan and Sistan? Do not people learn the finest Turkish here?” (Annemarie Schimmel, Turk and Hindu: A Poetical Image and Its Application to Historical Fact in Speros Vryonis, Jr., ed., Islam and Cultural Change in the Middle Ages (Undena Publications, 1975), posthumously honoring G.E. von Grunebaum)

We should note something here about the cultural identity of person like Amir Khusraw, Blban (one of his patrons) and the Turco-Mongols that settled in India. Schimmel points out:”In fact as much as early rulers felt themselves to be Turks, they conntected their Turkish origin not with Turkish tribal history but rather with the Turan of Shahnameh: in the second generation their children bear the name of Firdosi’s heroes, and their Turkish lineage is ivariably traced back to Afrasiyab—weather we read Barani in the fourteenth century or the Urdu master poet Ghalib in the nineteenth century. The poets, and through them probably most of the educated class, felt themselves to be the last outpost tied to the civilized world by the threat of Iranianism. The imagery of poetry remained exclusively Persian.”( Annemarie Schimmel, Turk and Hindu: A Poetical Image and Its Application to Historical Fact)

As Canfield also notes:”The Mughals, Persianized Turks who had invaded from Central Asiaand claimed descent from both Timur and Genghis strengthened the Persianate culture of Muslim India.”(Robert L. Canfield, Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1991) Khaqani:

Khaqani

Afzal a-din Badil Ibrahim who received the penname from the Shirvanshah Khaqan ‘Azam Abul’Mufazzar Khaqan-i Akbar Manuchehr b. Faridun and was also known as Hessan al-Ajam Khaqani (the Persian Hassān) may be regarded as the second most important literary figure of the Islamic Caucasia after Nezami Ganjavi. In actually, when it comes to certain forms like the Qasida, he would be the greatest poet of the area.

Here are some verses that Khaqani Shirvani literally claims to be a Hindu (that is if we read it literally):

گر دلم سوز سموم باديه
پس مفرح کز لب و خالش کنم
کمترين هندوي او خاقاني است
گر پذيرد نام مثقالش کنم
(خاقانی)

خاقانی است هندوی آن هندوانه زلف
و آن زنگیانه خال سیاه مدورش
(خاقانی)

Thus at least twice Khaqani is claiming to be a Hindu here. But these verses are obviously not taken literally. Or for example, in his famous “Aivaan Mada’en”, Khaqani remarks: اینست همان درگه کورا ز شهان بدی
دیلم ملک بابل، هندو شه ترکستان
(خاقانی) This is that same kingly court, which had from its great Kings
(relative to it) a Daylamite was a king of Babylon, A Hindu the King of Turkistan

Rumi: According to Annemarrie Schimmel: “Rumi’s mother tongue was Persian, but he had learned, during his stay in Konya, enough Turkish and Greek to use it, now and then in his verses.” Here are two contradicting verses from Rumi: اي تُرک ِ ماه‌چهره، چه گردد که صبح، تو
آيي به حجره‌ي ِ من و گويي که: گـُل برو!
تو ماه ِ ترکي و من اگر ترک نيستم،
دانم من اين قَدَر که به ترکي است، آب سُو
آب ِ حيات ِ تو گر از اين بنده تيره شد،
تُرکي مکن به کُشتَنَم‌ام اي تُرک ِ تُرک‌خو!
Translation:

“You are a Turkish moon and I, although I am not a Turk,
I know this little, that in Turkish the word for water is su”

گه تركم و گه هندو گه رومی و گه زنگی
از نقش تو است ای جان اقرارم و انكارم

Translation: “I am sometimes Turk, sometimes Hindu, sometimes Rumi and sometimes Negro,
O Soul, from your image is my approval and denial”

“Everyone in whose heart is the love for Tabriz, becomes – even though he be a Hindu – he becomes a rose cheeked inhabitant of Taraz (i.e. Turk)”(Schimmel, Triumphal Sun)

Note Taraz is a city in central Asia known for its beauties. All these contradictory verses have symbolic meaning and should not be taken out of their context.

In the case of Rumi, he has also left compositions and his followers have written about him. Here is an interesting Sufic view on the role of Turks according to Rumi in history.

Nizami:

Finally we discuss some imagery from Nizami before discussing misinterpretation of his verses in the next chapter. It should be noted that the misinterpretation has gone as far as assigning Turkish ethnicity to Layli (in Layli o Majnoon) and to Shirin (in Khusraw o Shirin) despite the fact that their names are Arabic and Persian respectively; Shirin was a Christian originally of probably Aramean origin, but later on she became known by poets as an Armenian princess. But these shall be discussed in the next chapter.

As Schimmel has already noted:

“ By the end of the 12th century, the symbol Hindu for black is used commonly by Nizami: — The Indian princess — described with the famous contrast-pair as

«gazelle with Turkish (i.e. killing) eyes, from Hindu origin» آهوی ترک چشم هندو زاد

is that of Saturday which is ruled by Saturn which is poetically called the هندوی باریک بین or هندوی سپهر

and has, according to astrological tradition, black colour. But Nizami has also compared the crow to the Indian: زاغ جز هندوی نسب نباشد
دزدی از هندوان عجب نباشد
« The crow is surely of Hindu origin,
and to steal is not astonishing in Hindus » (HP 112)

ترکی از نسل رومیان نسبش
قرة العین هندوان لقبش
« A Turk from Byzantine origin,
whose surname is «the object of pleasure to the Hindus»

”

Here are some other examples.

In praise of one of the rulers:

همه ترکان چین بادند هندوش
مباد از چینیان چینی بر ابروش

Translation:

May all the Turks of China be his Hindu (slave),
May no frown come upon his brows from the Chinese

We note that Chin in Persian poetry (Shahnameh and Panj Ganj) is actually Western China and parts of Central Asia that were ruled by Khaqan. That is why the Khaqan of Gok Turks in the Shahnameh is called the Khaqan of Chin.

Here is another example from Nizami: سیاهان حبش ترکان چینی
چو شب با ماه کرده همنشینی

translation: Siyaahaan Habash (The blacks of Ethiopia), Torkaan Chini (the Turks of China),
Cho Shab (like the night) baa maah (with the moon) kardeh hamneshi (have gathered together): The blacks of Ethiopia, the Turks of China, like the night with the moon have gathered together.

Note here that the Siyaahaan Habash (blacks of Ehtiopia) are the color of the night while the Torkan Chini are the moon (and the stars).

Another example: Here is one where the Kurd’s daughter is of Hindu Mole, Indian nature/created and Turkish eye and face.

کرد را بود دختری با جمال
لعبتی ترک چشم و هندوخال
مهی ترک رخساره هندو سرشت
ز هندوستان داده شه را بهشت

The Kurd had a daughter with beautiful face
A lovely beauty with Turkish eyes and Indian mole
A bride of Hindu components and Turkish face
From Hindustan has given the king a paradise

When the King of India offers his daughter to Alexander the Great, Nezami Ganjavi writes this description of her in his Eskandarnama:

مهی ترک رخساره هندو سرشت
ز هندوستان داده شه را بهشت
نه هندو که ترک خطائی به نام
به دزدیدن دل چون هندو تمام
ز رومی رخ هندوی گوی او
شه رومیان گشته هندوی او

A geat beauty of Hindu origin with Turkish face
It has made Hindustan (India) a Paradise for the King
Not a Hindu, but a Khatai Turk in name
But when it comes to stealing hearts, as adept as a Hindu
From her Roman face and Hindu (sweet) talks
The King of Rome (Alexander) has became her Hindu (Slave)

Another example: A verse from Shirin in Khusraw o Shirin:

و گر چشمم ز ترکی تنگی‌ای کرد
به عذر آمد چو هندوی جوانمرد

Author’s translation: If my eye because of Turkishness (cruelty) has narrowed,
Came apologizing the chivalrous Hindu
(Here in my opinion Nizami is describing the blackness of the eye beautifully)

Here the whiteness of the eye is the Turk and the blackness of the eye is the Hindu, furthermore, Turks in Persian poetry are known for Tang-Cheshmi (narrow eyedness) due to the fact that the Turks described in Persian poetry are the original Asiatic Turks and not the linguistically Turkified people of later Azerbaijan, Caucasia and Anatolia. We shall discuss this in the next section. Unfortunately ethnic-biased misinterpretations by has used such symbolic imagery to claim that Shirin and also Layli in Layli o Majnoon to be Turkish. Despite the fact that the image of Shirin is known in Persian poetry and both Shirin and Mahin Banu are Persian names, and the historical Shirin was Aramean while the Shirin of Nizami Ganjavi is popularized as a Christian Armenian (note the many places where Shirin reveres the One God) princess and regarded as such by most scholars. And Layli was from Arabia and Nizami Ganjavi refers to the foreignness of the tale.

We now quote some verses from the translation of Haft Paykar with regards to Persian imagery. Original Persian of some of these verses are brought here:

“The Slav king’s daughter, Nasrin-Nush
A Chinese Turk in Grecian Dress”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 51-52)

Thus we can see that if we take the verse literally, Slavic king had a daughter who was a Chinese Turk in Grecian Dress. But the verse makes perfect sense given the brief overview that was given on Persian poetic symbols, imagery and allusion.

“A fair Turk from Greek stock it seemed
The Joy of Hindus was its name”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Pakyar, pg 99)

Thus we can see the symbols Rum, Hindu and Turk all at play in a two verses.

We note that when the Persian Sassanid King Bahram enters the black dome which is identified with the kingdom of India:

“When Bahram please sought, he set
His eyes on those seven portraits
On Saturday from Shammasi temple went
In Abbassid black to pitch his tent;
Entered the musk-hued dome and gave
His greetings to the Indian maid”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Pakyar, pg 105)

“See what a Turkish raid heaven made,
What game with such a prince it played
It banished me from Iram’s green
Made my black lot a legend seem”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 108)

“A queen came forth from her palace dome
Greek troops before Ethiops behind
Her Greeks and Blacks, like two-hued dawn,
Set Ethiops troops against those of Rum (in reality Greece=Rum)”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 108)

While still in the black dome (associated with the kingdom of India) he meets a lady by the name Turk-taz (Turkish attack, Turkish raid). This is reminiscent of this verse of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari of Herat:

عشق آمد و دل بکرد غارت
ای دل تو به جان بر این بشارت
ترکی عجب است عشق، دانی
کز ترک عجیب نیست غارت

Here is another use of this in the Haft Paykar:

“My love”, said I, “What will you? Fame
You surely have; what is your name?”
She said: “A lissome Turk I am,
Turktaz the beautiful my name
In harmony and accord, I said
Our names are to each other wed
How strange that Turktaz your name
For mine-Turktaazi-is the same
Rise; let us make a Turkish raid
Cast Hindus aloes on the flame;
Take life from the Magian cup
With it, on lovers sweetmeas sup”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, 119-120)

“I’ll favor you, at life’s own cost
If You’re a Turk, I am your black”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 128)

(Here Hindu or Ehtiop was probably translated as Black)

“Without the light’s radiance, like a shade,
A Turk, far from that Turkish raid”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 131)

“The Chinese-adorned bride of Rum
Said ‘Lord of Rum, Taraz, Chin”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 133)

In the tale of the Greek’s daughter in the Yellow dome we read:

“Each newly purchased maid she’d hail
As ‘Rumi’queen and Turkish belle”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 134)

“Although her Turkish wiles enflamed,
He kept his passion tightly reined”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 137)

In the Turquoise Dome “In Egypt dwelt a man, Maahaan
More beautiful than the full moon,
Like Egypt’s Joseph, fair of face;
A thousand Turks his Hindu Slave”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 175)

“Till the nights Ethiop rushed day’s Turks,
The king ceased not his joyful Sport”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 216)

Chinese King apologizing to Bahram: “I’m still his humble slave; of Chin
At home, but Ehtiop to him”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 257)

We note all these symbolic allusions and imagery are part of Persian poetry and have been used by many Persian poets including Hafez, Sa’adi, Sanai, Attar, Khaqani and Nizami Ganjavi. Unfortunately due to lack of knowledge of Persian language and literature, and also due to political reasons, the USSR tried to misinterpret some of the verses with the word Turk in order to assign a Turkic ethnicity to Nizami. The ultimate goal was what Stalin tried to portray, that Nizami Ganjavi was forced to write in Persian and was a victim of Persian Chauvinism! We shall deal with this issue in the next chapter but this section has overall proved that the context of the verse and its meanings must be understood appropriately and Nizami Ganjavi who was not an ethno-cent eristic has used these symbols like many other Persian poets have.

Which Turks are described in Persian poetry

This section of my article shows clearly by Turks, it did not mean Turkified Azerbaijanis and Anatolians, but rather the features of Central Asiatic Turks. I gave a lot of examples from Nezami where these Turks are described as Cheshm-e-Tang ("Narrow-eyed" or "small eyes", meaning oriental eyes in Persian).

Nizami Ganjavi mentions this fact at least four times with respect to Turks. Here are wto:

ز بس که آورده ام در چشمها نور
ز ترکان تنگ چشمي کرده ام دور

“I brought so much light into this world, that I cast away narrow-eyedness from Turks”

Another one:

وگر چشمم ز ترکی تنگی کرد
به عذر آمد چو هندوی جوانمرد
If my eye because of Turkishness has narrowed,
Came apologizing the chivalrous Hindu

We have also quoted Prof. Schimmel who has said:

“ Soon the Turkish type of beauty became prominent both in pictures and in poetical descriptions: a round face with narrow eyes and a minute mouth. ”

Iraj Anvar, the translator of forty eight ghazals from Rumi also mentions this

“ "It indicates people from the North, with high cheek bones and almond shaped eyes, considered to be the most beautiful people”. ”

Much more quotes from other Persian poets such as Hafez, Sa'adi, Rumi, Sanai and etc. are brought with this regard.

Nizami and praises of various peoples does not have to do with ethnicity

One of the arguments used to ascribe Turkic ethnicity to Nizami Ganjavi is that he supposedly praises Turkic rulers and thus he has Turkic background. The argument has several flaws on the onset.

The first flaw is that praising qualities of one group does not mean the author is from that group. For example Xenophon the Greek writer and host of other Greeks (including Plato) have praised Cyrus the Great of Persia. But these do not make Plato to be an author of Persian background. Indeed good qualities of Persians are praised by many Greek historians including even Herotodus. Or for example, Western European writers have praised ancient Greeks, ancient Chinese or etc. Shakespear has plays about Romans and praises of their good qualities. It does not make Shakespear a Roman. Thus the argument is flawed from the onset.

The second flaw is that we have already shown how Turk, Hindu, Zangi/Habash, Rum is used for description and symbols of slavery, rulership, slave (Hindu), ruler (Turk), trees, birds, flowers, stars, climes, complexions, colors (yellow, white, black), animals (the eye, face), planets, day (Rum, Turk) and night (Hindu, Habash/Zang), languages, tears, hair, face, various moods and feelings without taking any ethnic. (Note see our comments under the fifth flaw of the argument where Nezami also has chastising comments about Turks as well).

The three flaw is that many other Persian poets besides Nizami including Hafez, Sa’adi, Attar and etc. have used the term Turk for a beautiful beloved, ruler, light and spiritual and etc. This was part of the Persian poetic imagery used by many Persian poets throughout centuries. Later on European types took this place in Persian poetry. In the 20th century for example, the ideal type of beauty in many non-European countries was the blond hair and blue eye Nordic type Women. These do not make any of these people as Nordic.

The fourth flaw is that many Persians, especially Persian Sunnis have praised the Seljuqids including the historian Ravandi and their Vizier Nizam al-Molk. Indeed the courts of such dynasties as Ghaznavids and Seljuqids were full of Iranians and they patronized many Persian poets. Or they commissioned many Persian poets who indeed bestowed praise upon them.

Rene Grousset states: "..renewed the Seljuk attempt to found a great Turko-Persian empire in eastern Iran..", "It is to be noted that the Seljuks, those Turkomans who became sultans of Persia, did not Turkify Persia-no doubt because they did not wish to do so. On the contrary, it was they who voluntarily became Persians and who, in the manner of the great old Sassanid kings, strove to protect the Iranian populations from the plundering of Ghuzz bands and save Iranian culture from the Turkoman menace" (Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161,164)

So praising by itself does not prove that Nizami’s father who he was orphaned from at an early age was of Turkic ancestry! The Seljuqids initial rise indeed was welcomed by many Iranian Sunnis. We already have quoted the Persian historians such as Ravandi and Nizam al-Molk and mentioned how the Seljuqids brought stability to places where many local kingdoms used to feud. One episode that has lead for misinterpretation is when the old lady talks about the lack of justice to Sultan Sanjar of the Seljuqs:

“ دولت ترکان چون بلندی گرفت

مملکت از داد پسندی گرفت
Translation: “The rise of the empire of Turks (Seljuqs) was due to their justice
Since thou fosterest injustice, thou are not Turk, thou art a plundering slave (Hindu).”

”

If one reads the whole story, as shall be brought here, one can see that this is an old lady crying for justice and indeed she has criticized the Seljuq rulers. The empire of Turks here is a reference to the Seljuqs. The second couplet is simply a comparison between ruler (Turk) and Hindu (slave) and is a common Persian imagery. The old lady has called rulers (Turks) that do injustice, as Hindus (slaves/thieves). This was obviously due to the position of these two groups in the Islamic world and we have already discussed this symbolism in the last chapter. As we already mentioned, the dislodging of the Shi’ite Buyids from Baghdad was welcome by Iranian Sunnis and the rise of the empire of Turks (Seljuqs) was praised. C.E. Bosworth brings an interesting praise of the Seljuqs by their Persian historian, Rawandi:

“ Saljuqs achieved some prestige in the eyes of the Orthodox by overthrowing Shi’i Buyid rule in Western Iran. Sunni writes even came to give an ideological justification for the Turks’political and military domination of the Middle East. The Persian historian of the Saljuqs, Rawandi, dedicated his Rahat al-Sudur to one of the Saljuq Sultans of Rum, Ghiyath al-Din Kay Khusraw, and speaks of a hatif, a hidden, supernatural voice, which spoke from the Ka’ba in Mecca to the Imam Abu Hanifa and promised him that as long as the sword remained in the hands of the Turks, his faith (sc. that of the Hanafi madhhab) would not perish. Rawandi himself adds the pious doxology, “Praise be to God, He is exalted, that the defenders of Islam are mighty and that the followers of the Hanafi rite are happy and In the lands of the Arabs, Persians, Byzantines and Russians, the sword is in the hand of the Turks, and fear of their sword is firmly implanted in all hearts! ”

We also noted that in general, the rise of the Seljuqs brought an era of stability. As noted by Ehsan Yarshater:“Last night it was though I saw myself in the desert of China, and God arose in the form of clothing with divinity, in the forms of Turks”

Note while Alexandar was a roman, in another verse of Nezami he takes the symbolic qualities of a Hindu. When the King of India offers his daughter to Alexander the Great, Nezami Ganjavi writes this description of her in his Eskandarnama:

“ مهی ترک رخساره هندو سرشت

ز هندوستان داده شه را بهشت
نه هندو که ترک خطائی به نام
به دزدیدن دل چون هندو تمام
ز رومی رخ هندوی گوی او
شه رومیان گشته هندوی او

A geat beauty of Hindu origin with Turkish face
It has made Hindustan (India) a Paradise for the King
Not a Hindu, but a Khatai Turk in name
But when it comes to stealing hearts, as adept as a Hindu
From her Roman face and Hindu (sweet) talks
The King of Rome (Alexander) has became her Hindu (Slave)

”

Thus when describing Alexandar as a conquerer, he is likened to a Turk (conquerer) and when he falls involve with the daughter of the ruler of India, he becomes the Hindu (slave) of that Indian.

On the other hand, Alexander’s thought and words during an encounter with Turks and their Khaqan is also versified in another portion:

“ به نفرین ترکان زبان برگشاد

که بی فتنه ترکی ز مادر نزاد
ز چینی بجز چین ابرو مخواه
ندارند پیمان مردم نگاه
سخن راست گفتند پیشینیان
که عهد و وفا نیست در چینیان
همه تنگ چشمی پسنیده-اند
فراخی به چشم کسان دیده-اند
وگر نه پس از آنچنان آشتی
ره خشمناکی چه برداشتی
در آن دوستی جستن اول چه بود
وزین دشمنی کردن آخر چه سود
مرا دل یکی بود و پیمان یکی
درستی فراوان و قول اندکی
خبر نی که مهر شما کین بود
دل ترک چین پر خم و چین بود
اگر ترک چینی وفاد داشتی
جهان زیر چین قبا داشتی

From English translation of the Sharaf-Nama by Henry Wilberforce-Clarke was published in 1881 under the title Sikandar Nama e Bara and is available online:

Opened his tongue in execration of the Turkáns,
Saying:—“Without (hidden) calamity no Turk is born of his mother.

“Seek not from the Chíní aught save the frown on the eye-brow (the vexation of the heart):
“They observe not the treaty of men.

“True speech uttered the ancients;
“Treaty-faith exists not among the men of Chín.

“No one seeks manliness from the Chíní;
“For, save his form, that pertaining to man is not theirs.

“They have all chosen narrow-eyedness (shamelessness);
“They have beheld (experienced) openness of the eyes (shamefacedness) in other persons.

“Otherwise, after such amity,
“Why tookest thou up the path of hatred?

“First, in that friendship-seeking,—what was there?
“At last, in this hostility-displaying,—what advantage?

“Mine,—the heart was one, and covenant one;
“Truthfulness great; treachery little

“Not (mine),—the intelligence that your love was hate;
“That the heart of the soldier of Chín was full of twist and turn.

“If the soldier of Chín had kept faith,
“He would (like the faith-keeping Sikandar) have kept the world beneath the fold (the skirt) of his garment

”

Here is another translation using the above:

“ Opened his tongue in execration of the Turks, Saying:—

“Without (hidden) Fitnah (calamity, discord, rebellion) no Turk is born of his mother.

“Seek not from the Chíní aught save the frown on the eye-brow (the vexation of the heart):

“They observe not the treaty of men.

“True speech uttered the ancients;

“Treaty-faith exists not among the men of Chín.

“No one seeks manliness from the Chíní;

“For, save his form, that pertaining to man is not theirs.

“They have all chosen narrow-eyedness (shamelessness);

“They have beheld (experienced) openness of the eyes (shamefacedness) in other persons.

“Otherwise, after such amity,

“Why tookest thou up the path of hatred?

“First, in that friendship-seeking,—what was there?

“At last, in this hostility-displaying,—what advantage?

“Mine,—the heart was one, and covenant one;

“Truthfulness great; treachery little (none).

“Not (mine),—the intelligence that your love was hate;

“That the heart of the Turk of Chín was full of twist and turn.

“If the Turk of Chín had kept faith,

“He would (like the faith-keeping Sikandar) have kept the world beneath the fold (the skirt) of his garment.

”

Note in the above verses Chini means Turk also and not Chinese. Since in the Shahnameh, the Khaqan of GokTurks was called Khaqan of Chin and Chin in ancient Persian literature references NW China and parts of Central Asia. The above verses are certainly not positive and unlike Alexander who is symbolically called a Turk (ruler, conquerer), here we have direct reference to Turks as an ethnic group.

Here is another instance of Alexander describing Turks as one poison to be used against another poison (Russians):

“ ز کوه خزر تا به دریای چین

همه ترک بر ترک بینم زمین
اگر چه نشد ترک با روم خویش
هم از رومشان کینه با روس بیش
به پیکان ترکان این مرحله
توان ریخت بر پای روس آبله
بسا زهر کو در تن آرد شکست
به زهری دگر بایدش باز بست
.. شنیدم که از گرگ روباه گیر
به بانگ سگان رست روباه پیر
دو گرگ جوان تخم کین کاشتند
پی روبه پیر برداشتند
دهی بود در وی سگانی بزرگ
همه تشنه‌ی خون روباه و گرگ
یکی بانگ زد روبه چاره ساز
که بند از دهان سگان کرد باز
سگان ده آواز برداشتند
که روباه را گرگ پنداشتند
زبانگ سگان کامد از دوردست
رمیدند گرگان و روباه رست
سگالنده‌ی کاردان وقت کار
ز دشمن به دشمن شود رستگار
اگر چه مرا با چنین برگ و ساز
به هم پشتی کس نیاید نیاز
در چاره بر چاره گر بسته نیست
همه کار با تیغ پیوسته نیست

From English translation of the Sharaf-Nama by Henry Wilberforce-Clarke was published in 1881 under the title Sikandar Nama e Bara and is available online:

“From the mountain of Khizr (Khizrán in Turkistán) to the river (Jand) of Chín
“I behold the land—all Turk on Turk.
“Although the Turks were not allied (in friendship) with the men of Rúm,
“With the men of Russia their rage even greater than with the men of Rúm:
“By the sharp darts of the Turks of this halting-place (Sikandar’s camp)
“One can scatter the blisters (of flight) on the feet of the Russians.
“Often, the poison which brings distress to the body,—
“By another poison it is proper to obstruct.
“I have heard that from the wolf, the fox-seizer,
“The old fox escaped through the noise of dogs:—
“Two young wolves sowed the seed of malice;
“They took up the pursuit of the old fox.
“A village there was; in it large dogs,—
“All thirsty for the blood of the fox and the wolf.
“The fox, remedy-deviser, expressed a cry
“Which opened the fastening from the mouth of the dogs.
“The village-dogs took up the cry;
“For they thought the fox a wolf.
“From the noise of the dogs, which came from afar,
“The wolves were terrified and the fox escaped.
“The meditator, work-knowing, at the time of action,
“Becomes free from the enemy (the Russians) by the enemy (the Turks).
“Although—with these arms and weapons,—mine
“Is no need of anyone’s aid,
“Not closed is the door of remedy to the remedy-deviser;
“Every matter is not connected with the sword.”

”

Here is another verse from Nizami Ganjavi with negative connotations:

“ ز بس کاورده‏ام در چشم‏ها نور

ز ترکان تنگ‏چشمی کرده‏ام دور.
Translation:

I have brought so much light into the eyes
I distanced narrow-eyedness from Turks

”

Here Nezami calls the Qifchaq, a major Turkish tribe, as savages and Alexander builds a walled gate in order to protect people (Sharafnama) who are plundered by them:

“ که از بیم قفچاق وحشی سرشت

درین مرز تخمی نیاریم کشت

Due to the savage nature of the Qifchaq
We cannot cultivate the seeds we sow

”

When the Khaqan of Turks attacks Iran during the reign of Bahram in Haft Paykar or Bahram Nama, Nizami Ganjavi writes in praise of the Sassanid King:

“ تیغ از اینسان و تیر از انسان بود

شاید از خصم ازو هراسان بود
ترک از این ترکتاز ناگه او
وآنچنان زخم سخت بر ره او
همه را در بهانه گاه گریز
تیغها کند گشت و تکها تیز

آهن شه چو سخت جوشی کرد
لشگر ترک سست کوشی کرد
شه نمودار فتح را به شناخت
تیغ می‌راند و تیر می‌انداخت
درهم افکندشان به صدمه تیغ
گفتی او باد بود و ایشان میغ
.. لشگر ترک را ز دشنه تیز
تا به جیحون رسید گرد گریز

And if with stroke oblique he terrified,
he cleft the man asunder at the waist.
Of this kind was (his) sword, of that, (his) shaft—
‘tis likely that the foe would be dismayed.
The Turks from this his sudden Turk-like raid,
and wounds so deadly on the path he took

Inclined to flight; the swords of all of them became (all) blunted, and their racing keen.
When the king’s sword was brandished on all sides,
the Turkish troops relaxed in (their) attempts.
The king discerning signs of victory, drove (at the foe his) sword, and shot (his) shafts.
By the shock of (his) sword he broke their ranks: he was the wind, you’d say, and they were clouds.
Through the sharp dagger’s (work) the dust of flight
reached the Turks army to the Oxus stream

”

Another usage of the word in Nizami’s literature is “Turki” as an act/verb:

“ مکن ترکی ای ترک چینی نگار

بیا ساعتی چین در ابرو میار
Translation: Do not Turki (as a verb) Oh Turkic beauty with Chinese decorations
Display not frown on thy eye-brow, come for a moment to gather

”

Turki as a verb here means rough, acting in Turkic manner and etc. Here is another instance of negative usage where Nezami composes (these verses will also be described in detail but Nezami versified these and calls each character of the letter of Sherwanshah as blessed):

“ ترکی صفت وفای ما نیست

ترکانه سخن سزای ما نیست
آن که ز نسب بلند زاید
او را سخن بلند آید

Our faithfulness it not like Turks
Turkish-way of speech (or speeches meant for Turkish Kings) does not suit us
That who comes from a high ancestry
High and eloquence is befitting for him

”

(Note the above four verses are from Nezami who takes a poetic interpretation of the letter of Shirvanshah and praises every word of the letter as a blossoming garden, which shows his agreement with the letter).

Or common words like Turktazi (Turkish Plunder) and association of plundering with Turks.

“ فرس میخواست بر شیرین دواند

به ترکی غارت از ترکی ستاند

He was looking for a horse to follow towards Shirin
In a Turkish manner (Turk being used as plunder), sought Plunder from a Turk (being used as a beautiful)

غارتی از ترک نبردست کس
رخت به هندو نسپردست کس

No one has plundered Turks
No one has given up his belongings to a Hindu

”

(using common imagery about Turks taking plunder and Hindus as thief/beggars)

Thus the wide array of usage (from positive to negative) was used as a tool in Persian poetry and does not say anything about Nizami’s ancestry. It was used by previous Persian poets before Nezami and had become a poetic tool. One cannot call Hafez a Turk just because of the verse: “If that Turk from Shiraz were to capture my heart. I would give away Samarkand and Bokhara for her Hindu mole”

And simple logic dictates just because Greeks like Plato, Xenophon, Herotodus have both praises Persians and also used negative feeling as well, it does not mean they were Persian!

The sixth flaw why the argument also falls apart because Nizami Ganjavi has also praised Romans, Persians (while having nothing negative from any positive character), Zangis and Hindus. He has also praised Zoroastrianism’s sense of Justice in Khusraw o Shirin (and says Muslims should learn as we shall see), calls himself the successor and inheritor of Ferdowsi, praises the eloquence of the Persian Dehqan (An important class from the Sassanid era), and etc. For example on the Persian Dehqan (which some authorities like Behruz Servatiyan claim is Nizami Ganjavi himself), Nizami says: In Leili o Majnoon: در حال و هوای ایران باستان و “دهقانان”آن دوران است. (لیلی و مجنون): دهقان فصیحِ پارسی‏زاد
از حال عرب چنین کند یاد.
In Khosrow o Shirin:

در ستایش از همین ایران کهن (خسرو و شیرین): چنین گفت آن سخنگوی کهن‏زاد
که بودش داستان‏های کهن یاد
کهن‏کاران سخن پاکیزه گفتند
سخن بگذار مروارید سفتند
سخن‏های کهن زالی مطراست
وگر زال زر است انگار عنقاست.
In Sharafnameh:

درین فصل فرخ ز نو تا کهن
ز تاریخ دهقان سرایم سخن.

همان پارسی گوی دانای پیر
چنین گفت و شد گفت او دلپذیر

Or on the Zangi (black) says: بیا ساقی آن می‌که رومی وشست
به من ده که طبعم چو زنگی خوشست
مگر با من این بی محابا پلنگ
چو رومی و زنگی نباشد دو رنگ

Translation Bring Saqi that wine that is Rumi Faced (White)
Give me some of that wine, since my nature is cheerful that of the Zangi (Black, Ethiopian).

One can imagine if Nizami used Turk instead of Zangi in the above, then ethno-nationalist groups would use it to claim that Nizami was Turkish. Where-as we can see again, these comparisons are part of Persian literature (and World literature in general) and are not tied to ethnicity. We should also note that Nizami Ganjavi was a strict Muslim and did not drink wine. For example during his one visit to the court, the Sultan ordered all wine out of the court. Wine was used as a symbol in much of Sufic Persian poetry and to deal with this symbol here is outside the scope of this article.

Or in praise of the land of Iran, Nizami Ganjavi proclaims: همه عالم تن است و ایران دل
نیست گوینده زین قیاس خجل
چون که ایران دل زمین باشد
دل ز تن به بود، یقین باشد
زان ولایت که مهتران دارند
بهترین جای بهتران دارند

Translated by Julie Scott Meisami:

The world’s a body, Iran its heart,
No shame to him who says such a word
Iran, the world’s most precious heart,
excels the body, there is no doubt.
Among the realms that kings posses,
the best domain goes to the best.

Thus Nizami Ganjavi considers Iran the best land, and the most precious heart of the world and he has no shame in making such a proclamation. Alexander, Shirin or Layli and the usage of “Turk” for them or the term “Hindu” for one of Khusraw Parviz’s messenger are all imageries used by Nizami.

In one of his famous Ghazals, Nezami considers himself the dust of the feet of Believers, Armenians, Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews.

این خرابات مغان است در آن رندانند
شاهد و شمع و شراب و شکر و نای و سرود
هرچه در جملهی آفاق در آنجا حاضر
مؤمن و ارمنی و گبر و نصارا و یهود
گر تو خواهی که دم از صحبت ایشان بزنی
خاک پای همه شو تا که بیابی مقصود

My Translation: This is the ruin tavern of the Magians, and in it are love-rebels (Rend is a difficult word to translate due to its multiple meanings) for God
Witnesses, Candles, Wine, Sugar, Reed and Beautiful Music
Whatever that exists in the horizon is present there
Muslims, Armenians, Zoroastrians, Christrians and Jews
If you want to be allowed in the ruin of the Magian (divine wisdom)
Become a dust upon the feet of all of these people, so that you may reach the goal.
(Zanjani, Barat. “Ahwal o Athar o SharH Makhzan ol_Asraar Nezami Ganjavi”, Tehran University Publications, 2005, pg 18)

Thus as described, Turk, Hindu, Zangi/Habash, Rum are used for descriptions and symbols of slavery, rulership, slave (Hindu), ruler (Turk), trees, birds, flowers, stars, climes, complexions, colors (yellow, white, black), animals (the eye, face), planets, day(Rum, Turk) and night(Hindu, Habash/Zang), languages, tears, hair, face, various moods and feelings without taking any ethnic. Nizami like many Persian poets before him has used these symbols (with their vast range of positive and negative meanings) to decorate his poetry and make his allusions more appealing. There are negative/positive usage of these terms but Nizami was employing symbols of Persian poetry.

So in conclusion, Nizami’s usage of these symbols and images are just in the steps of other Persian poets before him and are not his own innovations to Persian literature. They encompass both positive and negative meanings and again not related to ethnicity per se, but have to do with the employment of these symbolic and imagery tools in Persian poetry. Finally Nizami’s praise of Rum, Zang and Arabs, becoming a dust upon the feet of Armenians(It should be noted that no modern pan-Turkist nationalist (widely present ideaology in Turkey, Republic of Azerbaijan and some other regions) is ready to become a dust upon the feet of an Armenian.), Jews, Zoroastrians are also not necessarily any sort of ethnic or religious identification either.

Eldiguzids-Feudal lords (Atabekan) of Azerbaijan is not a nation-sate as such concepts did not exist

Another argument used to claim Nezami as a Turk was that he lived under the Eldiguzids or (“Atabeks (feudal lords) of Azerbaijan” used by later historians) for almost all of his life. The argument despite being very poor is sometimes repeated. It is as silly as to claim Homer was a Turk because he lived in modern Turkey or Ferdowsi was a Turk because the Ghaznavids controlled Tus or Fakhr al-Din Asad Gorgani (the writer of Vis o Ramin) was a Turk because the Seljuqs ruled Iran or that a certain Parsi scholar from India is British because the British ruled India. Despite this, some further clarifications are made.

First the name Azerbaijan in the 12th century denoted mainly the area below the Aras River. The etymology of the name is Iranian, and the forms Nezami uses for this name in the Eskandarnama(آذربادگان/آذرآبادگان) are in the exact form of Shahnameh and another form he uses is in the exact form of the Persian love story Vis o Ramin (آذربایگان). So this name is not related in any way or form to Turkic cultures in the 12th century. The ethnonym Azerbaijani was only chosen in the late 19th/early 20th century and became accepted in 1930s for Turkic speaking people who speak the regional (Azerbaijani) version of the Oghuz language. So the term Azerbaijan in its 12th century form is independent of the ethnic term Azerbaijani which was chosen much later. The ethnic term Azerbaijani for example was not even chosen when the formation of the Azerbaijani Turkic speaking group took place in the 14th-16th century.

A source very close to Nezami Ganjavi’s is the history of Jalal al-Din Mangubirti (reigned in 1220-1231) written by a high official of his court Shihab al-Din al-Nasawi (d. 1249). He fled with his king, the Khwarzmshah Jalal al-Din Mangubiri before the Mongols to Tabriz and from there to Mughan. He was able to escape in the last battle of the Khwarzmshah with the Mongols in 1231 and passed away in Aleppo in 1249.

We note the many times this book whose author spend time and lived in the area differentiates between Arran and Azerbaijan.

Nasawi, Shahab al-Din, “The adventures of Jalal al-Din Mangubirti”, Bongah Publishers, 1344 (1964).

“اتابک سعد ابن زنگی سلطان پارس و اتابک ازبک بن محمد صاحب اران و آذربایجان را طمع در ملک عراق مستحکم شد"(صفحه 22)

Translation: Atabek Sa’ad ibn Zangi, the Sultan of Pars (modern Fars Province and surrounding areas) and Atabek Uzbek ibn Muhammad, the Sahib (ruler) of Arran and Azerbaijan strengthened their desire to capture ‘Arak

"و چون سلطان جلال الدین آذربیگان و اران را بگرفت"(صفحه 24)

Translation: And since the Sultan Jalal al-Din took Azerbaygan and Arran”

"بعد از آن که اتابک از حدود همدان گریخته و جان برده, و فرموده که رسم خطبه و سکه در آران و آذربایجان به نام سلطان کند"(صفحه 26)

After when Atabek fled the area of Hamadan and kept his life, he ordered that the Khutba (Friday Prayer) and the coins in Arran and Azerbaijan be in the name of the Sultan.

"و این قیاس در سایر خراسان و خوارزم و مازندران و اران و آذربیجان و غور و غزنی و بامیان و سیستان تا حدود هند مطرد است.."(ص 82)

“And this account is also valid in Khorasan and Mazandaan and Arran and Azerbaijan and Ghur and Ghazni and Bamiyan and Sistan till India”

The term Arran has always been overwhelmingly distinguished from Armenia and Azerbaijan in the course of its long history. Although some authors have contradictorily confused Armenia, Arran and Azerbaijan but this has not been the case for most medieval authors. Indeed the current author has examined 20+ maps and has not found a single map that claims the territory of Azerbaijan as above the Aras prior to the 20th century. Several historians also attest to the fact that the name Azerbaijan was chosen for political reasons in the 20th century.

Vasily Barthold states:

“ Shirvan is not used that way, to encompass the territory of the now day Azerbaijan Republic. Shirvan is "not that big" with the main city of Shemakha, cities like Ganja and others were never part of Shirvan, and whenever it is necessary to choose a name that will encompass all regions of the republic of Azerbaijan, the name Aran can be chosen. But the term Azerbaijan was chosen because when the Azerbaijan republic was created, it was assumed that this and the Persian Azerbaijan will be one entity, because the population of both has a big similarity. On this basis, the word Azerbaijan was chosen. Of course right now when the word Azerbaijan is used it has two meanings as Persian Azerbaijan and as a republic, its confusing and a questions rises as to which Azerbaijan is being talked about. ”

Vladimir Minorsky states: The territory of the present-day Soviet republic of Azarbayjan roughly corresponds to the ancient Caucasian Albania (in Armenian Alovan-k', or Alvan-k', in Arabic Arran > al-Ran)

Vladimir Minorsky states:

“ Historically the territory of the republic corresponds to the Albania of the classical authors (Strabo, xi, 4; Ptolemy, v, 11), or in Armenian Alvan-k, and in Arabic Arran. The part of the republic lying north of the Kur (Kura) formed the kingdom of Sharwan (later Shirwan). After the collapse of the Imperial Russian army Baku was protectively occupied by the Allies (General Dunsterville, 17 August-14 September 1918) on behalf of Russia . The Turkish troops under Nuri Pasha occupied Baku on 15 September 1918 and reorganized the former province under the name of Azarbayd̲j̲ān—as it was explained, in view of the similarity of its Turkish-speaking population with the Turkish-speaking population of the Persian province of Ādharbaydjān. ”

For example:

“ Although Azerbaijan was a geographical entity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the term was only used to identify the province in northwest Persia. The Safavids, at one time, for revenue purposes, included some of the lands north of the Arax river as part of the province of Azerbaijan. This practice gradually fell out of use after the fall of Safavids. To Mirza Jamal and Mirza Adigozal Beg (comment: two Caucasian Turcophone writers), as well as other eighteen century and nineteenth-century authors, Azerbaijan referred to the region located south of the Arax river ”

George Bournoutian, “History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi’s Tarikh-e Qarabagh.” Mazda Publishers, 1994)

Be that it may (as this is not the main point of the article), what is seen is that Nasawi, who travelled to the area, distinguishes Arran from Azerbaijan. Also Nezami Ganjavi mentions Arran, Sherwan, Armenia and Azarabadegan, thus the name Arran and Sherwan were in use at that time and the area of Sherwan under Shirwanshahs and the area of Arran, was not denoted as Azerbaijan.

We already mentioned that Nezami Ganjavi also praises his patrons as Kings of Iran and Kings of Molk-e-Ajam (Persia). Thus this by itself shows that Nezami saw his region as part of the Iranian cultural region.

Second flaw with the argument is that “Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan” or in English Atabeks of Azerbaijan or more precisely “Feudal-Lords of Azerbaijan” was simply a title. The term Azerbaijan is no more than a geographical designation used by later historians to distinguish between various minor rulers who are under nominal Seljuq ruler but ruled autonomously and sometimes even controlled the dynasty. Also there were other Atabek (feudal lord) dynasties in Mosul, Shaam (Syria), Luristan, Fars, Maragheh and etc.

Indeed, Sa’adi of Shiraz does not become a Turk because he lived and was patronized by Atabek Sa’ad ibn Zangi. Ferdowsi does not become a Turk because he lived under the Ghaznavids and Nizam al-Molk or Ghazali do not become Turks because they lived under the Seljuqs. None of these regions were ethnically Turkic at the time, especially in their urban centers. The reason later historian called the ruling family “Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan” rather than Arran is that Azerbaijan is the more important and wider land and these two and more were under the control of these rulers (although acknowledging Seljuq supremacy but effectively ruling as the main power). And the reason they don’t use “Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan, Jebal, Arran” because it is too long. But there is no coin or map or text from the era of Ildiguzids which calls them “Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan”. The term Eldiguzids is more popular as it is in Encyclopedia of Islam, but Iranica which uses Persian terms and started with “A” (trying to be comprehensive as possible), has opted for “Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan”. It should also be noted that the Eldiguzids origin is Kypchak Turk which is different than the Oghuz Turks whose Turkish dialect is now prevalent in Azerbaijan, Anatolia and Arran/Sherwan.

And we point out Azerbaijan is an Iranian name, there was an old Iranian languages (denoted by Azari/Fahlavi in the area) and the ethnonym Azerbaijani for Turkic speakers is a much later phenomenon and the general ethnonym for Turkic speakers was only accepted in the 1930s in the USSR. The ethnic minded theorists who try to detach Nezami from Iranian civilization, should recognize that the concept of nation-state did not exist back then. While the greatest territory of the Eldiguzids was most Azerbaijan (hence the name given to them later as “Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan but excluding the areas of Maragha), the population of Urban areas was Iranian and Christian Armenians and other groups. A best proof of this is the city of Tabriz and the book Safina Tabriz from the Ilkhanid era which we alluded to earlier. It was shown in this book that not a single manuscript is in Turkish and the local language (called Zaban-e-Tabrizi or the Tabrizi tongue) was an Iranic/Persian dialect. Another proof is the Nozhat al-Majales by Jamal Khalil Shirvani and mentioning 24+ Persian poets from Ganja alone. This even after 100 years after the demise of Eldiguzids, places like Tabriz were not Turkified in speech.

Third flaw with this argument is that just like the Saljuqs (whom sometimes had tight control and sometimes were controlled by the regional lords specially the Eldiguzids), the Eldiguzids were Persianate in culture and language. The best proof of this is that not a single verse or line in Turkish has existed from their court where-as one can discern hundreds of thousands of Persian poetry from their court. Even the name of famous architects like Ajami Naxchavani (the Persian Naxchvani) shows that the Eldiguzids were much like the Seljuqids and Ghaznavids, and did not patronize or do anything for Turkic culture. So they cannot be really considered “Turkic” in the cultural sense and their ethnicity like the Seljuqs would have become diluted due to intermarriages with high class dynasties (some possibly Christian). Ethnically, many of their viziers were Persian as well as the urban Muslim centers which were Iranian and Iranian speaking and the flood of Turkomen nomads were not yet settled at that time (which takes many generations where-as the Turkomen nomads came after the Seljuq invasion and in reality Nizami’s ancestry is recorded before the Seljuq invasion).

Nezami Ganjavi himself praises the Eldiguzids as the King of the Persian lands which obviously shows that the area was associated with Iranian people and culture:

در آن بخشش که رحمت عام کردند
دو صاحب را محمد نام کردند
یکی ختم نبوت گشته ذاتش
یکی ختم ممالک بر حیاتش
یکی برج عرب را تا ابد ماه
یکی ملک عجم را جاودان شاه

In that day that they bestowed mercy upon all,
Two great ones were given the name Muhammad,
One who’s pure essence was the seal of prophecy,
The other who is the Kingdom’s Seal, in his own days
One whose house/zodiac is moon of the Arabs
The other who is the everlasting Shah of Realm of Persians

In praising the rulers of Shirwan (who sometimes extended their rule beyond Shirwan), Nizami again mentions:

این نامه نغز گفته بهتر
طاووس جوانه جفته بهتر
خاصه ملکی چو شاه شروان
شروان چه که شهریار ایران
This book is better to be written
A young peacock is better to have a mate
Specially for a king like the Shah of Shirwan
Not only Shirwan, but the Shahriyar (Prince, Ruler) of all Iran

Nizami Ganjavi calls upon the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH &HP):

سوی عجم ران منشین در عرب
زرده روز اینک و شبدیز شب
ملک برآرای و جهان تازه کن
هردو جهان را پر از آوازه کن

Do not stay in Arabia, come to Persia
Here are the light steeds of night and day

So the area at that time was considered part of the Persian ethnic and cultural region. He has used the term Molk-e-Ajam (Persia) and Iran for his land and both Azerbaijan and the urban cities of Trans-Caucasia were ethnically Iranic at the time.

The Persian poet Khaqani(1126-1198) has used "Iran" thirty times in his Diwan.

از هند رفته در عجم،
ایران زمین کرده ارم

From India he has gone to ‘Ajam (Persia),
has made Iran a blessed Garden like Iram

So in summary, there was no nation-state in the 12th century, the bulk of the population living under feudal dynasties who are called by historians as Atabekan-e-Azerbaijan, Atabekan-e-Mosul, Atabekan-e-Shaam, Atabekan-e-Fars, Atabekan-eMaragheh, Atabekan-e-Luristan, Atabekan-e-Yazd and etc. were ethnically non-Turkic and the bulk in Iranian plateu and Muslim urban cities in Trans-Cauacasia were Iranian. The urban population of Azerbaijan was not Turkic at the time, as can be seen clearly by the books Safina of Tabriz and Nozhat al-Majales. The name Azerbaijan itself is Iranian and has been part of Iranian history, the Turkification of it came much later although the Turcophone population there today have also become connected to Iran due to many reasons. One needs to define the term(culturally, geographically, ethnically) as it was in the 12th century and not redefine it based on definitions of 19th/20th century centuries. Culturally, the Muslim culture of the area was part of the greater Iranian world as mentioned by both Khaqani and Nezami for the designation of their land. Thus this argument is flawed as claiming an Armenian author who lived in Ganja during the Shaddadid era was a Kurd because Shaddadids were Kurds or that Sa’adi was a Turk because he lived under Atabek Sa’ad ibn Zangi.

Lili o Majnoon

For a detail of this see the section in my longer article. But to summarize:

A claim is made that in Lili o Majnoon, Nezami wanted to write Turkish and was upset at the Shirvanshah. This is false because:

1) The Shirwanshahs were not Turks , so obviously if Nezami wanted to write Turkish it would be a for a Turkish ruler.

2) There does not exist a single verse of Turkish from Nezami or any other poet from Nezami's lifetime from the Caucasus, so to from verses to romantic epic poetry itself is a giant leap. However for example, a book like Nozhat al-Majales has 114 poets from Arran, Sherwan and Azerbaijan of that era. Obviously if Nezami was Turkic or wanted to write Turkic, he would have written say ghazals, quatrains and etc., but not a single poet from that era has written a single verse of Turkish.

3) Nezami Ganjavi praises every word of the letter of Shirwanshah and call it a blossoming garden. He was upset at the barrenness of the story, and has praised the Shirwanshah throughout the book. But also says that due to the barrenness of the story, no one has approached it before. Also the words used by Shirwanshah were insulting, but Nezami Ganjavi praises every word of the Shirwanshah's letter. He did not live under the Shirwanshah's rule and if he wanted, and felt insulted as the USSR politicized sources claimed, he would have stopped right there and not praised the letter, and dedicated his story to a Turkic rule (if he was as claimed Turkic). The whole versification was done by Nezami and we do not know what was in the letter. Said Nafisi for example says that this is a way to praise the descent of the Shirwanshahs who were not Turks, so they did not break faith like Mahmud of Ghazna(legend of Ferdowsi and Mahmud) nor did not want speech that is turkish-like.

4) The word used by Nezami is Torkaaneh Sokhan (Turkish way of speech or speech for Turkish Kings (Mahmoud)) as opposed to Sokhan-e- Boland (high speech). It does not use Turkish language (Sokhan-e-Tork or Zaban-e-Torki).

6) There is not a single verse of Turkish from any writer or poet during the era of Nezami from the Caucusus. Had there been even one verse, then we can claim there existed a Turkish literature tradition. As opposed to this, there are hundreds of thousands of Persian verses from various poets at same time from the courts of Shirwanshahs, Eldiguzids, Seljuqs and etc.

7) Having the ability of writing in Turkish (assuming the invalid interpretation) does not make one a Turk.

An example of person influenced by USSR source is given here by a Turkish scholar of Turkish literature. For example Mehmet Kalpakli (first author) and Walter Andrews (second author) in the “Nizami’s Layla and Majnun “in the Turkish Manner” in Kamran Talattof and Jerome W. Clinton. The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.) has translated: “Torkhana Sokhan Sezaayeh maa nist” as”so writing in the Turkish manner does not suit us”. There is no verb here about writing, but what is mentioned is Torkaaneh Sokhan (Turkish-way of speech=harsh words, vulgar speech) which is constrasted with high speech in the next line. Also in their translation, the four crucial translations of the lines before this line and the important line that contrasted Turkish-mannered speech to eloquent speech and high birth to Turkish characteristics/(acting in Turkish characteristics) were not brought.

To their credit, Kalpalki does mention Nezami as a Persian poet: "The story of Layla and Majnun by Ottoman times was a tale told often appearing in numerous poetic-narrative versions, including rendition by famous Persian poets Nizami (1140-1202) and Jami (1414-1492)."(Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, Mehmet Kalpaklı, "Ottoman Lyric Poetry", Published by University of Washington, 2006. pp 70).

Obviously these are not scholars of Persian literature.

Scholars who explicitly invalidated this claim

Ivan Mikhailovich Steblin-Kamesky

The Russian philologist Ivan Mikhailovich Steblin-Kamensky, Professor and the Dean of the Oriental Department of Saint Petersburg University comments

(“Oriental Department is ready to cooperate with the West”, Saint Petersburg University newspaper, № 24—25 (3648—49), 1 November 2003”). http://www.spbumag.nw.ru/2003/24/1.shtml): Мы готовили таких специалистов, но, как показывает наше с ними общение, там очень много националистических тенденций, научных фальсификаций. Видимо, это связано с первыми годами самостоятельности. В их трудах присутствует националистическое начало, нет объективного взгляда, научного понимания проблем, хода исторического развития. Подчас – откровенная фальсификация. Например, Низами, памятник которому воздвигнут на Каменноостровском проспекте, объявляется великим азербайджанским поэтом. Хотя он по-азербайджански даже не говорил. А обосновывают это тем, что он жил на территории нынешнего Азербайджана – но ведь Низами писал свои стихи и поэмы на персидском языке! Translation: " We trained such specialists, but, as shown by our communication with them, there are a lot of nationalistic tendencies there and academic fraud. Apparently it's related to the first years of independence. Their works include nationalist beginnings. Objective perspective, scientific understanding of the problems and timeline of historical developments are lacking. Sometimes there is an outright falsification. For example, Nizami, the monument of whom was erected at Kamennoostrovsk boulevard, is proclaimed Great Azerbaijani poet. Although he did not even speak Azeri. They justify this by saying that he lived in the territory of current Azerbaijan, but Nizami wrote his poems in Persian language!”

Abbas Zaryab Khoi

Note if Turkish scholar Mehmet Kalakli who is not an expert on Persian literature is quoted, then Abbas Zaryab Khoi who has written for Iranica and thought at Berkeley University is also a good source.

Here we translate what Dr. Abbas Zaryab Khoi

has stated:

“ The writer of the newspaper Azerbaijan(Newspaper under the Pishevari regime which was setup by the USSR) has misinterpreted the lines: Torki Sefat Vafaayeh Maa Nist – Torkaaneh Sokhan Sezaayeh Maa nist and wants to argue that that Nizami wanted to write in Turkish and the Shirvanshah forbid him and instead told him: Torki Sefat-i Vafaayeh Maa Nist – Torkaaneh Sokhon Sezaayeh Maa nist - An koo Ze Nasab Boland Zaayad – Oo raa Sokhon Boland Baayad.

But the writer is deeply mistaken, because if from the word “Torki” the meaning that is to be derived is language, then it has nothing to do with faithful characteristic (Sefat-e-Vafaaye) of Shirvanshah, so that he would write in his letter to Nizami: “Torki Sefat-e Vafaayeh Maa nist”(Our faithfulness is not of Turkish characteristics) . The meaning from “Torki” in this line is an infinitive (verb found from noun) like Torki-Gari (To do Turkish stuff) and Tork Boodan (to act/become Turkish), and this expression has an old tradition in Persian. For example “Torki Tamaam Shod”(Torki has finished means acting like Turkish has finished) which means that harj o marj (confusion, wildness and unruliness) has finished and Torki-Gari (To do Turkish stuff) is equivalent to cruelness, harshness and this meaning is used by Sanai(translator: from a poem which criticizes the Turkish rulers. Sanai is a famous Persian poet who lived before Nizami and influenced him):

Do you see those unwise who Torki(Translator: used as an infinitive/verb)
May their grave be tight and dark like the eyes of Turks

Thus the first part of this couplet means this: Torki is an infinitive(verb derived from noun), and Torki-Gari (To do Turkish) and unfaithfulness is not the characteristic of our faith. And in some of the manuscripts it has come down as “Torki Sefati, vafaayeh maa nist” and Vahid Dastgerdi, may God bless him, in his corrected edition of Lili o Majnoon, brings forth this interpretation and points to the story of Mahmud Ghazna who was unfaithful to Ferdowsi. And what is clear is that at that time, Turks were known for unfaithfulness and covenant-breaking.

And such a phrase is found in the poetry of many great poets. For example Asadi Tusi(Translator: famous Persian poet who lived before Nizami) states:

(vafaa naayad az tork hargez padid)
Faithfulness will never appear amongst Turks

(Az Iranian joz vafaa kas nadid)
And from Iranians, there is nothing but faithfulness

And Sanai(Translator: Another famous Persian poet who lived before Nizami) states:

(Maa khod ze to in cheshm nadaarim aziraak),
We ourselves do not expect anything from you because

(Torki to o Hargez Nabovad Tork vafaadaar)
You are a Turk and a Turk is never faithful

And those that want to see more expressions like these can look at the book of “sayings and wise quotes” by the great scholar Dehkhoda under “Atrak al-Torook wa law Kaana Abuk”(Forget being Turkish even if your forefathers were Turkish).

And the second part of the couplet: “Torkaaneh Sokhan sezaayeh maa nist” (Turkish-like talk is not befitting for us) means that ineloquence and vulgarity is not befitting for us, because at that time, Turks were known for vulgarity and unmannered words, and the proof of this is given the next: “An kaz nasab boland zaayad”(That who is born from a high birth),“oo raa Sokhan boland baayad” (Elequent speech then are suited/befitting for him).

Thus as we see, he has compared Torkaaneh-Sokhan(Turkish-like/Turkish-manner discourse/ speech/talk) to high/eloquence discourse/speech and thus Torkaaneh-Sokhan means ineloquence, unmannerly and vulgar speech, and the interpretation of “Torkaaneh Sokhan” never means “Torki Sokhan Goftan” (To speak/write in Turkish language). (Abbas Zaryab Khoi,Ayandeh Magazine, Esfand Maah (February 21-March 21), 1324 (1946), pages 780-781.)

”

Vahid Dastgerdi

Since Professor. Zaryab Khoi has mentioned Vahid Dastgerdi, it is interesting to see what this commentator states. We note that basically all modern interpretations of symbolic and difficult verses are based upon or have been influenced by Dastgerdi’s extensive commentary. His extensive commentary on the verses were the first of their kind with regards to Nezami. Dastgerdi mentions:

"معنی بیت اینست که وفای ما چون ترکان و عهد ما چون سلطان محمود ترک نیست که شکسته شود پس آنگونه سخن که سزای پادشاهان ترکست برای ما ناسزاوار است."

Translation: "The meaning of this verses is that our fidelity is not like the Turks and our faithfulness is not like that of Sultan Mahmud the Turk. Our fidelity and commitment will not be broken, so words that are befitting for Turkish kings is not befitting for us."

Behruz Servatiyan

In his Leyli o Majnoon, published in 2008 he clearly states

Translation:

“ These verses emanate from a feeling of excessive racial pride from Nezami and Akhsatan relative to Turks. Normally a wise sage like Nezami would not make such comments, but he did it knowingly probably under ethnic emotions while being fully aware that the Seljuqids were ruling Iran.

They mean:

Our manners and fidelity is not Turkish and we are not unfaithful like Turks and thus Turkish-type speech and thoughtless words are not befitting to us.

Akhsatan is saying through the verses of Nezami: “I am shah Akhsatan and I am not a Turk like Mahmud the Gazna who broke his vow with Ferdowsi and did not fulfill his commitment. I am an Iranian and I fulfill my vow and will justly reward your effort and undertaking. The person who is of high birth deserves high speech and decorate Lili o Majnoon eloquently, with your poetic versatility. The offering high speech for someone of high birth and race seem in my opinion (Behruz Servatiyan) to be a low thought.

”

Full translation of Introduction and end of Lili o Majnoon

(This is probably the first translation in English)

The Reason for Composing the Book

It was a felicitous and happy day / I was enjoying like King Kai-Qubâd

My crescent eyebrows were undone / My Diwan of Nezami was open

The Mirror of Fortune was in front of me / And Good Luck was combing my hair

Morning was making bouquets of roses / And with its breath it was making my day auspicious

My butterfly of heart was holding a candle / I was the Nightingale in the garden, and the garden intoxicated

I was carrying my standard to the Apex of Words / In the Jewel-box of Art I had my pen

Beak of Pen was engaged in piercing ruby / My francolin of tongue was making fine tunes

I was thinking: it is time to do some work / Good Luck is my comrade, Fortune is my friend

How long should I choose to stay in empty cage? / And sit unengaged in the world affairs

Time was giving the Rich good time / It was keeping it distance from the Empty-handed

A dog with thin and empty flanks / Is not picked for watch and cannot earn any bread

In accordance with the World you can make your fortune / Those compatible with the World can win it

One can hold his head up / Who is compatible with all like the air

Like a mirror wherever they are / They would erase the lies

Any temperament which is seeking wrong / Is like a wrong note in dissonance

Oh Fortune, if you are gracious / You would beg me to do something

I was throwing my lot to this / And a lucky star was passing then

When someone is accepted this is it / When Fortune is giving treasure, this is it

Right away a courier came from the road / And a letter from His Kingship he brought

With his beautiful handwriting / His Majesty has written me ten, fifteen or more eloquent lines

Each word of the letter like a blooming garden / It was more glowing that a night lamp

Saying: “O Privy to Our Circle of Service / O Magic-Word of the World! O Nezami!

With the sauce of your early-rising breath / Raise another Magic with your words

In the Arena of the Wondrous Words / Exhibit the eloquence that you possess

I want you to recite a story like a pearl / In the memory of Majnun’s love affair

Like the Virgin Leyli if you can / Produce some virgin words in the literature

So that I can read and say: behold this sugar / I can shake my head and say: behold this crown! More than thousand books of love / Have been decorated so far

This story is the king of all stories / It is worth if you spend you effort on it

In Persian and Arabic ornaments / Beautify and dress this new bride fresh

You know that I am that expert / Who recognizes the new couplets from the old

While you can mint new pure gold coins of wondrous words / Leave out the business of fake coins Watch that from the jewel-box of thoughts / In whose necklace you are putting pearl

Verses misinterpreted: Literal translation:

Our fidelity does not have Turkic manner /

Turkish-like(=vulgar/harsh) talk do not befit us

Or:

(since) Our fidelity is not like that of Turks –

(thus) Speech for Turks (Turkish Kings) is not befitting for us

One who is of a high birth / He deserves the high praises/words

When my ears found the rings of King(when I became a servant of the King)/ From heart to mind I lost sense

No courage to reject his request / No sight to find my way to this treasure

I was perplexed in that embarrassment / Because of my old age and frail nature

No privy to tell them my secret / And explain my story in detail

My son, Mohammad Nezami / Who is dear to me like soul to my body

He took this copy of the story in hand dear like his heart / Like a shadow he sat next down to me

From his kindness he gave some kisses on my feet / Saying: “O you who beat drums in the sky

When you retold the story of Khosrow and Shirin / You brought happiness to so many hearts Now you must say the story of Leyli and Majnun / So that the Priceless Pearls become twin

This eloquent book is better be told / The young peacock is better be a couple

Especially a king like King of Sharvan / Why Sharvan? He is the King of Iran

He gives blessing and he gives station / He raises people and he encourages poets

He has requested this book from you with his letter / Please sit and prepare your pen”

I told him: “Your words are very true / O my Mirror-faced and Iron-resolved!

But what can I do, the weather is double / Thought is wide but my chest is tight

When corridors of tale are narrow / Words become limp in their traffic

The field of words must be wide / So that talent can have a good ride

This story, even though, well-known / No joyful rendering for it is possible

The instruments of story are joy and luxury / But this story has excuse for both

On the subject of infatuation and chain and bond / Bare words would be boring

And if decorations beyond the limits are imposed on it / Would make the face of this story sore

In a stage that I don’t know the ways / It is obvious how much I can show my talent

There is no garden, no royal feast in this story / No songs, no wine, no pleasure

On the dry dunes and hard hills in desert / How long can one talk about sorrow?

The story must be about joy / So couplets can play and dance in the story

This is the reason that from the beginning / No one has ventured around it for its boredom

Any poet has dismissed its composition / Before they reached the end, they abandoned it

Since King of the World has requested gently / “Compose this story in my name!”

Now despite this narrow field of maneuver / I will take it so high in delicacy

That when they recite it for His Majesty / He would cast un-pierced pearls on the road

If its readers are depressed / They would fall in love otherwise they are dead

Then that worthy dear son of mine / Because of whom doors of this treasure are open

The only child from my first marriage / The only tulip of my morning wine

Told me, “O! who your words are my equals / That is they are like my brothers

In composing this swift story / Do not have hesitation in your thoughts

Wherever Love has set up a feast table / This story is like a salt-shaker

Even though it has all the savors / It has raw kabab on its table

When its pearl is pieced on your hand / The story would be cooked by you rendering

It is a lovely beauty with nice appearance / But it lacks any make-up and decoration

Nobody has cast pearl on it what it is worth / That is why it has been left bare-face

It is soul, and if nobody works one’s soul on it / This will not wear a rented dress [of insufficient work]

The soul could be decorated only by soul / Nobody has spent one’s dear soul on this story

Your breath gives life to the whole World / This dear soul of mine is your privy

You start the rendering of this story / Yours truly will pray and the Fortune will help”

When I heard the heartening of my beloved son / I gave my heart and conquered the battle

I persisted in finding pearls / I dug mines and opened alchemy

My talent was seeking a short path / Because it was worried about the road length

There was no path shorter that this / Nothing more agile that this method

This is a meter light but easy flowing / The fish in this sea are not dead but live

There has been many stories with this sweetness / But none has the freshness of this

No diver from this sea of mind / Has ever brought up a pearl so special

Each couplet of this book is like a line of pearls / Empty of any fault and filled with many arts In seeking this elegant product / There was no a hair to slip

I would say something and my heart would reply / I was scratching and the spring was giving water

Whatever I earned with my mind / I spent on decorating this story

These more that four thousand couplets / Were composed in less than four months

Had any other commitments were held up / It would had finished in a fortnight

On the lovely appearance of this Free Bride / Prosperous be those who say ‘Prosperous!’

It was decorated in the best possible way / In the last night of Rajab in Thi, Fa, Dal

The explicit year this book carries on it / Would be Eight Four after Five Hundred

I polished and decorated this bride with the best excellence / And I sat her on the camel-litter

So that nobody could find their ways to her / Except for the eyes of His Majesty

Some Analysis

Note Nezami explicitly praises the letter and states: "With his beautiful handwriting / His Majesty has written me ten, fifteen or more eloquent lines

Each word of the letter like a blooming garden / It was more glowing that a night lamp"

Yet people claim Nezami was upset at the king! And they use this verse: "When my ears found the rings of King / From heart o brain left my sense
No courage to reject his request / No sight to find my way to this treasure
I was perplexed in that embarrassment / Because of my old age and frail nature"

But they do not seem to follow the reasoning:

As noted by the Encyclopedia of Islam:

“ In 584/1188 Niẓāmī of Gand̲j̲a composed at the request of the Shirwān-Shāh Akhsitān the mathnawī Laylī u Madjnūn in the metre hazadj-i musaddas-i akhrab-i maḳbūḍ-i maḥdhūf with about 5,000 bayt s. This was the third part of the set of poems known as the Ḵh̲amsa [q.v.]. The theme was chosen for the first time as the subject of a Persian narrative poem, but the precedent of the treatment of a similar subject of Arabic origin existed in ʿAyyūḳī's Warḳa u Gulshāh. Niẓāmī states in the introduction to his poem that he accepted the assignment with some hesitation. At first, he doubted whether this tale of madness and wanderings through the wilderness would be suitable for a royal court (ed. Moscow 1965, 41 ff.). He adapted the disconnected stories to fit the requirements of a Persian romance. They were joined together into a coherent narrative which describes the development of a frantic love affair from the scene of the first meeting of the two lovers till the death of Mad̲j̲nūn at the grave of Laylī. In some respects, the Bedouin setting of the original has been changed under the influence of urban conditions more familiar to the poet and his audience: the young lovers become acquainted at school; the generous Nawfal is a prince in the Iranian style rather than an Arab official. Niẓāmī added a second pair of lovers, Zayn and Zaynab, in whom the love between the main characters is reflected. It is Zayn who in a dream sees Mad̲j̲nūn and Laylī united in paradise at the end of the romance.

Several other features mark this new adaptation of the romance. Specimens of nature poetry were used to emphasise, symbolically, important points in the development of the plot: a description of a palm bush in spring where Laylī sits in the flower of her youth; of the night at the moment of Madjnūn's deepest despair; of autumn at the time of Laylī's death. Much attention is given to Madjnūn's rôle as a poet. In several places, g̲h̲azal s are quoted in the text, which in metre and rhyme are adjusted to the prosodic characteristics of the mat̲h̲nawī . It is quite evident that, to Niẓāmī, the subject matter was not least interesting because of its emblematic possibilities. His poem is, therefore, a didactic work as well as a narrative. The former quality is noticeable in the frequent asides containing reflections on such themes as ascetism, the vanity of this world, death and, of course, love in its various aspects, including its transformation into mystical love. Didacticism is also the main element of the introduction and the epilogue. (Pellat, Ch.; Bruijn, J.T.P. de; Flemming, B.; Haywood, J.A. "Mad̲j̲nūn Laylā." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2009. Brill Online.)

”

As Dr. Seyed-Gohrab also mentions:

“ As in the ‘Udhrite love poetry, the entire plot of the romance revolves around the lover, on an unremitting quest for his unattainable love. Nizami is aware of the legend and doubts whether this modest Bedouin tale would be suitable for the Iranian court. In chapter five of the introduction to the romance, the author refers to the legend as an aya whose tafsir is sorrowful. The word aya means both a ‘Koran verse,’ and a ‘sign’ or ‘wonder,’ as well as ‘paragon’ and ‘masterpiece.’ Nizami says that legend needs a tafsir, ‘Koran exegesis,’ ‘explanation,’ or ‘commentary’. Such commentaries include details of the events that led to the revelation of the verse in question, an elaboration of the ‘story’ of the Koran, but may also extend to pious sentiments and esoteric interpretation. Thus Nizami is using a religious metaphor: as a verse of the Koran needs a commentary, the Arabic tale needs an elaboration. He is also warning his readers that such a sorrowful—and serious—theme does not entirely suit the highly conventional and polite style required of court literature:

Although this tale (aya) enjoys celebrity,
a cheerful interpretation (tafsir) is far from it.
The tools of discourse are joy and amorous delight,
discourse thrives by these two means.
The discourse on a naked person,
who is enamoured, fettered and in bondage, is sorrowful.
If one was to adorn the tale to excess,
this would distort the face of the story;
But when I know not the way at some stage,
clearly I shall then add some conceits.
(11. 53-7)

When Shirwanshah Abu l-Muzaffar Akhsitan commissioned Nizami to versify Majnun’s tragic love story, the poet found himself in a quandary. The writer of love-stories about the pompous and powerful pre-Islamic Iranian kings such as Khusrau Parwiz II is suddenly ordered to write a romance about a distraught and naked Arab boy. Nizami skillfully uses the sad nature of the legend to whet the reader’s curiosity about how he will narrate this tragic but simple romance. Grief, as MJ. Toolan notes, is perhaps the most “powerful trigger,” and strangeness, an element which attracts the reader to know the unknown. The poet refers frequently to the Arab traditions and way of life to remind us of the story’s foreign origin. Moreover, he promises the reader that despite the thin plot of the story, he will bring his poem to a dramatic perfection so that “unpierced pearls” will flow from the reader’s eyes (5:64—5). With his profound knowledge of the human psyche, Nizami knows how to draw emotional effect by reshaping this strange and shallow story.

Nizami was at first reluctant to versify this tale. It was his four-teen-years-old son Muhammad, who encouraged his father to undertake the task:

When you composed Khusrau and Shirin,
you cheered the hearts of the people.
You have to compose Layli and Majnun
so that the precious pearl has a pair.
This book is better to be written,
a young peacock is better to have a mate. (. . .)
Wherever love-tales are to be read,
this tale will serve as salt for them. (11. 43-5, 71)

Although Majnun was to some extent a popular figure before Nizami’s time, his popularity increased dramatically after the appearance of Nizami’s romance. By collecting information from both secular and mystical sources about Majnun, Nizami portrayed such a vivid picture of this legendary lover that all subsequent poets were inspired by him, many of them imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. As we shall see in the following chapters, the poet uses various characteristics deriving from ‘Udhrite love poetry and weaves them into his own Persian culture. In other words, Nizami Persianises the poem by adding several techniques borrowed from the Persian epic tradition, such as the portrayal of characters, the relationship between characters, description of time and setting, etc.

”

And even 19th century English source confirm this.

“ The prince of the neighbouring Shirvan, Akhsitan, also named Manuchahar, with the surname of Jelal-ud-din Abul- Muzaffer, wishes him to elaborate the love-story of the celebrated pair Laila and Mejnun. This prince, with whom begins a new dynasty for Shirvan, had assembled around him a complete poetical city, to which he gave a king as supreme head. From his origin, which reached back to the old kingly dynasties of Persia, he regarded himself as the representative of the Persian nationality, and of the Persian spirit, and wished at least to animate his not very wide spread dominion by making it the protector of Persian literature. The charge of the prince to Nizami had probably no other ground than to draw also to his court from his quiet seclusion the poet who was already so renowned that he was able to say of himself:

I have brought to such refinement my enchanting poesy,
That my name is—" The mirror of the world to come ; "

and so to complete his poetical circle.

The task enjoined upon him by no means at first corresponded with Nizami's inclination. The subject proposed was indeed a worthy one; the exalted taskmaster thus expresses himself about it:

Loove-tales there are more than a thousand,

Which have been embellished by the tip of the pen ;

But this is the King of all love-stories :

See what thou canst make of it by the cunning of thine art !

But the subject appears to Nizami too dry to be manufactured into a great poem. The desolate Arabian wilderness for his theatre, two simple children of the desert as his heroes, nothing but an unhappy passion—this might well daunt the poet of Khosru and Shirin, which, in everything, place, persons, and treatment, presented the greatest variety and grandeur. He says :

The entrance-court of the story is too contracted ;

It would lame the poetry to be ever going backwards and forward !

The race-ground of poetry ought to be spacious,
If it is to show off the ability of the rider.

Although the verse of the Koran may deserve tobe well known,
The commentary upon it may be far from delightful.
The fascinations of poetry are its cheerfulness and blandishments;
From these two sources is derived its harmony.
On a journey in which I know not the way,
How can I know what pleasant spots I shall meet with ?
There may be neither gardens, nor royal banquets,
Nor music, nor wine, nor aught to wish for ;
Only arid sands and rugged mountains,
Till poetry at last becometh an aversion.

But the persuasion of his son Mohammed, at that time fourteen years old, and regard to the princely sender concurred to overcome the reluctance of the poet, and he took to the labour. Here was evinced how Nizami, once roused, was able to exhibit an extraordinary activity.

”

And this is mentioned by other sources as well.

We already noted that Nizami Ganjavi praised the composition of the Shirvanshah and praised every word of that letter as a blossoming garden. So he had nothing but praise for the Shirvanshah and his letter. Nizami Ganjavi’s complaint is about the nature of the story of Layli o Majnoon, as shown in the above verses and he makes himself explicitly clear. It is not about the Shirvanshah.

Colin Turner who also translated the poem states in his foreward:

“ The Persian poet Nizami was commissioned to write Layla and Majnun by the Caucasian ruler, Shirvanshah in AD 1188. In his original preface to the poem, Nizami explains that the messenger from Shirvanshah arrived and gave him a letter written in the Kings own hand. Extolling Nizami as ‘the universal magician of eloquence’, Shirvanshah asked the poet to write a romantic epic based on a simple Arab folktale: the age old tale of Majun, the ‘love-mad’ poet, and Layla, the celebrated desert beauty. Since the dawn of Islam some five hundred years before, the legend of Layla and Majnun had been a popular theme of love songs, sonnets and orders of the Bedouins in Arabia. Majnun was associated with a real-life character, Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, who probably lived in the second half of the seventh century AD in the desert of Najd in the Arabian peninsula. By Nizami’s time there were many variations on the Majnun theme circulating throughout the region, and no doubt Shirvanshah approached Nizami with a view to the creation of something ‘special’.

Initially, Nizami was loate to accept the commission, as he felt the story offered ‘neither gardens nor royal pageants nor festivities, neither streams nor wine nor happiness’, all of which are staples of classical Persian poetry. But eventually, at his son’s insistence, he relented. Less than four months later, Nizami’s Layla and Majnun, which comprises in the original some 8000 lines of verse, was completed

”

This is also mentioned by Dr. Gohrab:

“ “Neẓāmi initially doubted that this simple story about the agony and pain of an Arab boy wandering in rough mountains and burning deserts would be a suitable subject for his cultured audience. It was his son who persuaded him to undertake the project, saying: “wherever tales of love are read, this will add spice to them. ”

Thus scholars concur that Nizami’s complaint was about the nature of the story and not some nation-building interpretation of the 20th century about wanting to write in Turkic! but being forced to write in Persian for a King that did not even know Turkic! Such nation-building and wrong interpretation of a 12th century medieval author who has written Ghazals, Qasida, Quatrains and Mathnawis all in Persian are a product of USSR nation building.

What Nizami complains about are his old age, and the barrenness of the story of Layli o Majnoon. He feels restricted because of the raw and barren landscape of the original Bedouin tale. He even complains about this:

There is neither garden nor kingly banquet, no bow-string, nor wine nor blandishment. How long can one fare on dry sands and rugged mountains, talking about sorrow?

Despite this complaint, the poet places his initial scene in the Arabian Desert but adorns the grounds tastefully, giving additional meaning to the desert, cave and mountain, and including several fantastic sceneries which are purely the product of his imagination and his poetic eloquence. (Translation taken from: Dr. Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Layla and Majnun: Madness and Mystic Longing, Dr. Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Brill Studies in Middle Eastern literature, Jun 2003, pg 313-314).

So it was the nature of the story that made Nezami reluctant as he himself has stated. Plus Nezami has two more sections in the praise of the Sherwanshah, laments his death in the Eskandarnama and the ends the book with the praise of Shirwanshah.

O God, from the face of this World-holder (Shirvanshah)
Cast away all harm and disorder
Whatever door he knocks, you be his helper
Wherever he goes, you be his helper
Be a helper to all his elders
And give him victory over all his enemies

Part of the article

According to those who have tried to misinterpret the verses of Nizami Ganjavi (and this was the section quoted by Stalin who did not even have a proper understanding of Persian), the following couplets are meant to make the unfounded claim that Nizami wanted to write Turkish but was prohibited:

ترکی)ترکانه) صفت وفای ما نیست
ترکانه سخن سزای ما نیست
آن کز نسب بلند زاید
او را سخن بلند باید
Verses misinterpreted:

Literal translation:

Our fidelity does not have Turkic manner /
Turkish-like (Turkish-mannered=Harsh/Vulgar) talk do not befit us

One who is of a high birth / He deserves the high praises/words

Or:

(since) Our fidelity is not like that of Turks
(thus) Speech for Turks (Turkish Kings) is not befitting for us

One who is of a high birth / He deserves the high praises/words

According to ethnic-minded misinterpreters who have not examined these lines carefully, the bolded portion: “Means that Shirvanshah wrote to Nizami that do not write in Turkish! And Nizami was upset”

Unfortunately they have not looked at the whole section and have not understood the meaning of the verses above. First let us analyze this whole section from beginning. We note at the end of the section, Nizami Ganjavi mentions he finished the work in four months and if he did not have other duties, he would have done it in fourteen days. We do not doubt this claim of Nizami Ganjavi, since he was indeed جادوی سخن “Jadooy-Sokhan” (having magical discourse). Thus Nizami Ganjavi wrote this section(the introduction after praise of God) after he had finished the book. That is this section is the last or one of the last sections to be written despite coming into the intro. The reason it is put in the introduction is because it is a section about composing the book.

Next, in the beginning of this section, it starts with the fact that Nizami Ganjavi while in happy state (شاد=shad) and in a Kay-Qobadi state (he refers to it as Neshaat-e- Kay-Qobaadi, Kay-Qobaad being an important king in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi and Nizami Ganjavi comparing his state of happiness to that of Kay-Qobaad, which again shows the influence of Shahnameh), received a letter from the Shirvan Shah.

He refers to the letter from Shirvanshah as a composition (satr=سطر) (composition/paragraphs and not poetry). Thus we do not have the original letter of Shirvanshah and all the verses/poetry were composed by Nezami and of course the style/quality of the verses which are in the meter of the poem(the meter Nezami chose) show this. How true is Nizami’s poetic verses to the letter of Shirvanshah and how much of it is poetic interpretation? We will never now. But, we do know that Nizami Ganjavi describes the letter as “naghz” (very pleasing, eloquent, excellent) and he states that each and every single word of it is like a blossomed garden whose light is brighter than the flames lit at night:
هر حرفی از او شکفته باغی
افروختهتر ز شب چراغی

So Nizami Ganjavi was very pleased with the words of the Shah and praises the letter. He considers this letter like night flames which light up the dark and he considers each word as a pleasant blossoming garden. So this by itself invalidates the false claim that Nizami Ganjavi was upset at the letter of the Shirvnanshah.

As per the verses which Nizami Ganjavi composed (the Shirvanshah did not compose any verses, he wrote a letter in prose, just like Nizami Ganjavi’s son did not compose any verses and Nizami talked through him) and was misinterpreted by the USSR:

ترکی صفت وفای مانیست
ترکانه سخن سزای ما نیست (دستگردی)
آن کز نسب بلند زاید
او را سخن بلند باید

ترکانه صفت وفای ما نیست
ترکانه سخن سزای ما نیست (زنجانی)
آن کز نسب بلند زاید
او را سخن بلند باید

Translation:

Our fidelity does not have Turkic manner
Turkish-like (Turkish-mannered=Harsh/Vulgar) talk do not befit us

One who is of a high birth / He deserves the high praises/words

Or:

(since) Our fidelity is not like that of Turks –
(thus) Speech for Turks (Turkish Kings) is not befitting for us

One who is of a high birth / He deserves the high praises/words

... In our opinion these verses have a simple explanation based on what Vahid Dastgerdi has said. We note that according to a very popular legend (which was known by Nezami and also mentioned by him in other verses (see our section on Nezami and Ferdowsi)), after Ferdowsi was not properly rewarded and Mahmud Ghaznavi broke his vow, and showed his infidelity and lack of faithfulness, Ferdowsi escapes Khorasan and goes in exile and writes a Hajw-Nama or a versified lampoon for Sultan Mahmud. The Hajw-Nama or versified lampoon makes fun of Mahmud, criticizes him and belittles him by using harsh and near vulgar language. This Hajw-Nama is exactly what is meant by “Torkaaneh Sokhan” which can mean “Turkish-mannered speech” or “Speech befitting for Turks”. It has absolutely no relation with Turkish language as explained previously since there was no concept of Turkish literature at the time nor were the Shirwanshahs whom Nezami praises Turks.

Let us analyze these verses in even more detail. The word Vafa/Wafa (faithfulness/fidelity) is said to be lacking among Turks in these verses composed by Nizami. This is not only mentioned by Nizami Ganjavi, but many other Persian poets. For example Sanai Ghaznavi, who Nizami Ganjavi modeled his Makhzan al-Asrar after also mentions:

ما خود ز تو این چشم نداریم ازیراک
تو ترکي و هرگز نبود ترک وفادار
(سنائی)

Translation of Sanai:

We ourselves do not expect anything from you because
You are a Turk and a Turk is never faithful.

We also have Asadi Tusi, who migrated from Tus to Azerbaijan and was a well known poet of the region who Nizami was familiar with. Asadi Tusi also says in one his poems where he is comparing Iranians to Turks:

وفا نايد از ترک هرگز پديد
وز ايرانيان جز وفا کس نديد
(اسدی طوسی)

Asadi Tusi expresses the same opinion:

Faithfulness will never appear amongst Turks
And from Iranians, there is nothing but faithfulness

The verse is in the poem where the Iranian warrior Garshasp addresses the Turks:

مزن زشت بیغاره از ایرانزمین
که یک شهر او به ز ماچین و چین
به هر شه بر از بخت چیز آن بود
که او در جهان شاه ایران بود
به ایران شود باژ یکسر شهان
نشد باژ او هیچ جای از جهان
از ایران جز آزاده هرگز نخاست
خرید از شما بنده هر کس که خواست
ز ما پیشتان نیست بنده کسی
و هست از شما بنده ما را بسی
وفا ناید از ترک هرگز پدید
وز ایرانیان جز وفا کس ندید

Nizami Ganjavi was familiar with Asadi Tusi’s work and has mentioned his name directly in the Haft Paykar. Thus Shirwanshahs who were Iranians are naturally faithful according to the poet and overall Iranians saw themselves as faithful relative to Turks.

And there is also an old Eskandarnama (not to be confused with the one by Nizami Ganjavi) where this is mentioned:

و شاه ندانست که ترکان را وفا نباشد. (اسکندر نامه ٔ قدیم نسخه ٔ سعید نفیسی
(بنگرید: لغتنامه دهخدا زیر واژه «ترک»)

Translation: And the King did not know that Turks lacked faithfulness.

Without understand other Persian poets, including Sanai, Ferdowsi, Khaqani, Asadi Tusi, Gorgani and others, knowledge of Nizami Ganjavi and his verses will also be deficient. Thus by that time, it was accepted in Persian poetry that Turks lacked faith. This was used in two contexts. One in the context of Mahmud of Ghazna and the other in the context of symbols of beauty who lacked faith.

Numerous other examples can be given, but the best example is Nizami Ganjavi himself who repeats the lack of faithfulness amongst Turks through the mouth of Alexander the Great. Nizami Ganjavi talks about the lack of faithfulness in Turks through the mouth of Alexander (who complains about the Khaqan of Turks/Chin):

به نفرین ترکان زبان برگشاد
که بی فتنه ترکی ز مادر نزاد
ز چینی به جز چین ابرو مخواه
ندارند پیمان مردم نگاه
سخن راست گفتند پیشینیان
که عهد و وفا نیست در چینیان
همه تنگ چشمی پسنیده-اند
فراخی به چشم کسان دیده-اند
وگر نه پس از آنچنان آشتی
ره خشمناکی چه برداشتی
در آن دوستی جستن اول چه بود
وزین دشمنی کردن آخر چه سود
مرا دل یکی بود و پیمان یکی
درستی فراوان و قول اندکی
خبر نی که مهر شما کین بود
دل ترک چین پر خم و چین بود
اگر ترک چینی وفا داشتی
جهان زیر چین قبا داشتی

Opened his tongue in execration of the Turks, Saying:—“Without (hidden) Fitnah (calamity, discord, rebellion) no Turk is born of his mother.
“Seek not from the Chíní aught save the frown on the eye-brow (the vexation of the heart): “They observe not the treaty of men.
“True speech uttered the ancients;
“Treaty-faith exists not among the men of Chín.
“No one seeks manliness from the Chíní;
“For, save his form, that pertaining to man is not theirs.
“They have all chosen narrow-eyedness (shamelessness);
“They have beheld (experienced) openness of the eyes (shamefacedness) in other persons.
“Otherwise, after such amity,
“Why tookest thou up the path of hatred?
“First, in that friendship-seeking,—what was there?
“At last, in this hostility-displaying,—what advantage?
“Mine,—the heart was one, and covenant one;
“Truthfulness great; treachery little (none).

“Not (mine),—the intelligence that your love was hate;

“That the heart of the Turk of Chín was full of twist and turn.
“If the Turk of Chín had kept faith,
“He would (like the faith-keeping Sikandar) have kept the world beneath the fold (the skirt) of his garment.
So the first part of the couplet clearly shows that lack of faithfulness amongst Turks was common attribution amongst Persian poets and writers. Nizami Ganjavi also used the same words as other Persian poets who regarded Turks as lacking fidelity at the time. Vahid Dastgerdi believes that the lack of faithfulness of Turks in Persian literature is due to Mahmud’s treatment of Ferdowsi. These verses were also of course composed by Nezami himself since the Shirwanshah did not compose the verses of poetry in the poetic rhythm of Lili o Majnoon. For example words such as: کای محرم حلقهی نظامی
جادو سخن جهان نظامی
از چاشنی دم سحرخیز
سحری دگر ز سخن برانگیز
Are clearly words of Nezami as are the rest of the intro. If Sherwanshah could have composed the above four verses, he would not need any court poets.

As per Turki being used as an infinitive, we note here that Nizami Ganjavi and Sanai both use it:

مکن ترکی ای ترک چینی نگار
بیا ساعتی چین در ابرو میار
(نظامی)
Do not Turki oh Turk of Chinese art
Stay for a while, do not furrow your brow
(Nezami)
می نبیند آن سفیهانی که ترکی کرده اند
همچو چشم تنگ ترکان، گور ایشان تنگ باد
(سنائی)
Do you see those idiots that have Turkied (a verb here)
May their grave be narrow, like the eyes of Turks
(Sanai)

As per the second part of the first couple, it is significant to note the following verses from Khaqani Shirvani which connects the words “Torkaan”(Turks) and “Torkaneh”:

آشنای دل بیگانه مشو
آب و نان از در بیگانه مخور
نان ترکان مخور و بر سرخوان
با ادب نان خور و ترکانه مخور
)خاقانی(

Do not be friendly to that stranger
Do not drink the water and eat the bread of that stranger
Do not eat the bread of the Turks (Torkaan) and at the food table
Eat with manners and do not eat Torkaneh (in the Turkish-way)

We note the in the above, Torkaaneh (Turkish-like/Turkish-mannered) is used as a synonym with vulgar and used as antonym of manners. So Turkaneh does not mean Turkish but Turkish-like/Turkish-mannered/Turkish-behaving. Just like Divaaneh in Persian does not mean “Daemon” but rather crazy. Or Shahaaneh does not mean King but it means grand and royal. In other words, “sit in a Kingly fashion” or in this case, “Eat with manners and not in a Turkish-type fashion”.

Or else to eat with manners and “not to eat Turkish” does not make any sense. That is Torkaaneh-Khordan (eating the Turkish-way) is used as an opposite to baa adab khordan (to eat with manners). This is the way Nizami Ganjavi uses Torkaaneh Sokhan (Turkish-manner/Turkish-like speech) as opposed to Sokhan-e-Boland (eloquent/high speech).

That is exactly how the verse by Nizami Ganjavi goes:

ترکی/ترکانه صفت وفای ما نیست
ترکانه سخن سزای ما نیست
آن کز نسب بلند زاید
او را سخن بلند باید

“Torkaaneh Sokhon” (Turkish-like speech) does not mean “Zaban-e-Torki” (Turkish language) but rather vulgarity or harsh words as observed also by Professor Zaryab Khoi. “Nasab e Boland” (high birth) is contrasted to Turkish characteristics / unfaithfulness and high words is contrasted to Torkaneh (Turkish-way) (Vulgar/Non-Eloquent/harsh) words. Shirwanshahs who claimed descent from Sassanids most likely considered Turks of lower descent. Later on, Seljuqs, Ghaznavids and other dynasties of Turkic origin that were Persianized also claimed Sassanid descent. The verse by Khaqani explains the verse by Nizami and shows how the word “Torkaaneh” has been used by contemporary poets of Nizami.

Here is another verse again by Khaqani using Torkaaneh which connects with the verb Torki kardan:

خون خوری ترکانه کاین از دوستی است
خون مخور ، ترکی مکن ، تازان مشو
کشتیم پس خویشتن نادان کنی
این همه دانا مکش ، نادان مشو
(خاقانی)

You drink blood Torkaaneh (Turkish-manner/Turkish-like) and say this is from friendship,
Do not drink blood, do not do Turki (used as verb here), do not be violent
You killed me and then claim you did not know
Do not kill so many knowledgeable people, do not be stupid

We note Nizami Ganjavi says nothing about “Zaban-e-Torki” (Turkish language) or Sokhan-e-Torki (Turkish speech) here. But “Torkaaneh Sokhan” (Turkish-way of speech and not Turkish speech) means vulgar/low/harsh speech and the proof is brought by both the Khaqani verses(a contemporary of Nizami and they knew each other) and also the next verse by Nizami Ganjavi himself where it is contrasted to “Sokhan Boland” (high speech/words). As can be seen both of these negative meanings(in this context) were common in Persian poetry and Nizami Ganjavi used them. Of course if Nizami Ganjavi was Turkic(like Alisher Navai) or had any Turkic national consciousness or cared for any sort of ethno-nationalism, he would not have versified these couplets which were negative and would have dedicated Leyli o Majnoon to another king.

Indeed any king would have been proud to have such a work in his honor and would have compensated Nezami accordingly.

It is this author’s belief that the Shirvanshah letter really did not contain of these details and these verses were versified by Nizami. Obviously their high poetic style establishes this fact. Rather, the Shirvanshah’s letter asked for Lili o Majnoon to be versified and it would have obviously been in Persian without asking since they were Persianiazed Kings (who claimed descent from Sassanids), they knew about the stories Arabic origin and there is not a single verse of Turkic from the area let alone a romantic epic. Also Nezami Ganjavi had never done a romantic Arabic epic neither has there been a romantic Arabic epic been produced from Persian lands in such a fashion.

That is Nizami had no imitative of his own to versify this story, but rather he was commissioned to do so and of course naturally the Shirvanshah’s who were not Turks would not even order someone not to write Turkish, since it was common knowledge they had a Persian identity and Nezami knew them well enough to send his son to their court. Nizami, who was aware of their claimed Sassanid origin (praises them as descendents of Bahram), was also aware that these Kings were not Turkish in terms of genealogy and background as he has called them bahram-nejad (descendants of Bahram) and incidentally Khaqani Shirvani also calls them Bahramian (from the family of Bahram and the Encyclopedia of Islam also claims they claimed descent from either Bahram Gur or Khusraw Anushirawan).

Let us examine the verses before and after the misinterpreted verse to clearly demonstrate that the verses have a clear meaning and no conspiracy theories which were created by the USSR.

شاه همه حرفهاست این حرف
شاید که در او کنی سخن صرف
در زیور پارسی و تازی
این تازه عروس را طرازی
دانی که من آن سخن شناسم
کابیات نو از کهن شناسم
تا ده دهی غرایبت هست
ده پنج زنی رها کن از دست
بنگر که ز حقه تفکر
در مرسله که می‌کشی در
ترکانه صفت وفای ما نیست
ترکانه سخن سزای ما نیست
آن کز نسب بلند زاید
او را سخن بلند باید

This story is the king of all stories
and it is suitable if you spend your speech on it.

In Persian and Arabic ornaments
Beautify and dress this new bride fresh

you know that I am a literary expert and I know new
couplets from the old ones and imitations

While you have pure gold(10/10) as your wondrous (=rhymes/couplets)
dispose of the valueless metal (5/10) from your hand(= the inelegant and ineloquent speech )

look that from your jewel box of thought, in whose
necklace you are linking pearls

Our promises/faithfulness/fidelity are not of Turkish characteristics(Turkish-way)

Torkaaneh (Turkish-way/Turkish-like=ineloquent/low/uncouth/unmannerly/vulgar) Sokhan(speech) are not befitting to us.
Or:
Speech meant for Turkish kings are not befitting for us

The person who is born of high birth
Elequent and high speech is what he deserves

We note that Nizami wrote the story in Persian and not “Persian and Arabic”. Persian and Arabic here are not languages as misinterpreted by USSR authors (and unfortunately this misinterpretation from USSR sources have crept into some articles by Turkish author). One could argue for a language if it was “Persian or Arabic”. But here it is “Persian and Arabic”. We note the fact that the stories origin is Arabic, its manuscripts were probably in Arabic and Nezami for the first time rendered it in Persian.

This would make it unique in its own aspect, since no one before ever tried to write this poem in Persian. Nezami too also says that no one had touched this story due to its barrenness. So Nezami was breaking new grounds by writing this story of Arabic origin into Persian and decorating under Persian symbols and ornaments. That is he states:

This is the reason that from the beginning
No one has ventured around it for its boredom
Any poet has dismissed its composition
Before they reached the end, they abandoned it

So what does Persian and Arabic ornaments mean? Since it is not language (if it was Persian or Arabic one could remotely argue for such a case), then we must look at the nature of the final masterpiece and its ornamentation. We know Nezami Ganjavi wrote the introduction on the reason for composing the poem after he had finished versifying the story.

Professor Gohrab states

“ In composing his romance, Neẓāmi used many of the Arabic anecdotes and considered several key elements of theʿUḏri genre. He refers explicitly to his sources seventeen times, at the beginning of each episode, but none of the sources can be identified with certainty: these references are probably a narrative device to emphasize the romance’s outlandish origin to his Persian readers (Seyed-Gohrab, 2003, pp. 55-57). Neẓāmi adds a strong Persian flavor to the legend. For example, the Nowfal episode is developed into a completely different event, hardly resembling the original Arabic account. The Arabic sources portray Nowfal as an official, but Neẓāmi’s Nowfal is a chivalrous Persian chieftain (javānmard) ready to risk his life to bring the two lovers together. Neẓāmi threads the scattered anecdotes about Majnun’s love into a finely woven narrative with a dramatic climax. Persian verse romances are commonly about princes, and characters are usually related to courtly circles. Likewise, Neẓāmi portrays the lovers as aristocrats. He also urbanizes the Bedouin legend: Majnun does not meet Leyli in the desert amongst the camels, but at school with other children. Other Persian motifs added to the story are the childless king, who desires an heir; nature poetry, especially about gardens in spring and autumn, and sunset and sunrise; the story of an ascetic living in a cave; the account of the king of Marv and his dogs; the Zeyd and Zeynab episode; Majnun’s supplication to the heavenly bodies and God; his kingship over animals, and his didactic conversations with several characters. ”

And in his book, he states:

“ Although Majnun was to some extent a popular figure before Nizami’s time, his popularity increased dramatically after the appearance of Nizami’s romance. By collecting information from both secular and mystical sources about Majnun, Nizami portrayed such a vivid picture of this legendary lover that all subsequent poets were inspired by him, many of them imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. As we shall see in the following chapters, the poet uses various characteristics deriving from ‘Udhrite love poetry and weaves them into his own Persian culture. In other words, Nizami Persianises the poem by adding several techniques borrowed from the Persian epic tradition, such as the portrayal of characters, the relationship between characters, description of time and setting, etc. ”

This is also mentioned by the Encyclopedia of Islam:

“ He adapted the disconnected stories to fit the requirements of a Persian romance ”

In reality the story was well known in Persian and Arabic literatures and sources. But Nizami Ganjavi consciously Persianized it and brought it to a Persian setting and was the first romantic epic poet to compose this story in Persian. At the same time the story has its Arabic motifs and Nezami used many Arabic anecdotes as mentioned by Dr. Gohrab. Thus the story became a mixture of Arabic and Persian symbols and imagery and the final ornamentation and décor came through by such a mixture. We should mention that when it comes to the actual Persian language which Nezami wrote the story in, he uses the term “Dari” rather than Persian. This is just like Qatran Tabrizi who calls his Iranian language as Parsi and that of the Khorasani-Persian as “Dari”.

Thus “Parsi o Tazi”(Persian and Arabic) should not be taken as a language as much cultural Iranianization of the story. Because Dari or more formally as Ferdowsi calls it “Parsiye-Dari” was the literary Persian while “Parsi” to Nezami was the local Persian dialect of the region. We should also note for example Nizami mentions his sources for Bahram-Nama (Arabic, Persian books, Bukhari, Tabari (books or possibly dialects)) and Haft Paykar(Pahlavi, Shahnameh, Hebrew, Nasrani(Christian) sources/dialects).

Arab migrants to the area (including the Persianized and Persian speaking Shirvanshahs of Arab origin that had through intermarriage with Iranian royal families forgotten their Arab origin and claimed Sassanid origin) had brought the Lili o Majnoon folklore (which was from pre-Islamic Arabia) with them. It was even known in Khorasan. Already, two centuries before Nizami, one of the first great Persian poets Rudaki has mentioned it. Although the story was relatively known, it was still considered a foreign tale in some sense. Nizami Ganjavi brought it to its highest level by being the first Persian to compose it as a romantic epic. But before him, due to its popularity in local folklore, it is called as a king of stories. And that is why Nizami’s son actually brings him a manuscript which shows that Nizami had a copy of it (in Arabic most likely) and shows the story was known. Nezami was the first Persian poet to write an epic in the Persian style for this story. Thus these verses of Nezami and his poetic interpretation of the letter of the Shirvanshah are easily understood without any conspiracy theories.

After praising this story as the king of stories, the verses of Nizami through the mouth of the Shirvanshahs asks Nizami to utilize these jewels(stories)/ornaments(Arab origin story and anecdotes and Persian symbols/imagery/romantic epic) and bring out a new version with his magical speech (Jadooyeh Sokhan) . At the same time, he was told, he should not copy or imitate couplets and old sources, since the King is praised as literary expert by Nizami and is expecting his magical discourse. Instead Nizami should show his magic discourse, spend effort on the story and dispose of valueless and ineloquent speech. And he will be rewarded for his eloquent and high speech unlike the legend of Ferdowsi who was not rewarded for the monumental Shahnameh and Ferdowsi thus bestowed Mahmud the versified lampoon which he deserved due to Mahmud’s breaking his covenant. But since the King (Shirvanshah) is of high birth, an Iranian and is faithful, he deserves eloquent speech and not harsh/vulgar words/speech (which is reference to the satirizing poem of Ferdowsi about Mahmud)..

Persianization of Story, Arabic and Persian ornaments

This story is the king of all stories

and it is suitable if you spend your speech on it.

In Persian and Arabic ornaments

Beautify and dress this new bride fresh

you know that I am a literary expert and I know new

couplets from the old ones and imitations

While you have pure gold(10/10) as your wondrous (=rhymes/couplets)

dispose of the valueless metal (5/10) from your hand(= the inelegant and ineloquent speech )

look that from your jewel box of thought, in whose

necklace you are linking pearls

Our promises/faithfulness/fidelity are not of Turkish characteristics(Turkish-way)

Torkaaneh (Turkish-way/Turkish-like=ineloquent/low/uncouth/unmannerly/vulgar) Sokhan(speech) are not befitting to us.
Or:

Speech meant for Turkish kings are not befitting for us

The person who is born of high birth

Elequent and high speech is what he deserves

We note that Nizami wrote the story in Persian and not “Persian and Arabic”. Persian and Arabic here are not languages as misinterpreted by USSR authors (and unfortunately this misinterpretation from USSR sources have crept into some articles by Turkish author). One could argue for a language if it was “Persian or Arabic”. But here it is “Persian and Arabic”. We note the fact that the stories origin is Arabic, its manuscripts were probably in Arabic and Nezami for the first time rendered it in Persian.

This would make it unique in its own aspect, since no one before ever tried to write this poem in Persian. Nezami too also says that no one had touched this story due to its barrenness. So Nezami was breaking new grounds by writing this story of Arabic origin into Persian and decorating under Persian symbols and ornaments. That is he states:

This is the reason that from the beginning

No one has ventured around it for its boredom

Any poet has dismissed its composition

Before they reached the end, they abandoned it

So what does Persian and Arabic ornaments mean? Since it is not language (if it was Persian or Arabic one could remotely argue for such a case), then we must look at the nature of the final masterpiece and its ornamentation. We know Nezami Ganjavi wrote the introduction on the reason for composing the poem after he had finished versifying the story.

Professor Gohrab states:

“ In composing his romance, Neẓāmi used many of the Arabic anecdotes and considered several key elements of theʿUḏri genre. He refers explicitly to his sources seventeen times, at the beginning of each episode, but none of the sources can be identified with certainty: these references are probably a narrative device to emphasize the romance’s outlandish origin to his Persian readers (Seyed-Gohrab, 2003, pp. 55-57). Neẓāmi adds a strong Persian flavor to the legend. For example, the Nowfal episode is developed into a completely different event, hardly resembling the original Arabic account. The Arabic sources portray Nowfal as an official, but Neẓāmi’s Nowfal is a chivalrous Persian chieftain (javānmard) ready to risk his life to bring the two lovers together. Neẓāmi threads the scattered anecdotes about Majnun’s love into a finely woven narrative with a dramatic climax. Persian verse romances are commonly about princes, and characters are usually related to courtly circles. Likewise, Neẓāmi portrays the lovers as aristocrats. He also urbanizes the Bedouin legend: Majnun does not meet Leyli in the desert amongst the camels, but at school with other children. Other Persian motifs added to the story are the childless king, who desires an heir; nature poetry, especially about gardens in spring and autumn, and sunset and sunrise; the story of an ascetic living in a cave; the account of the king of Marv and his dogs; the Zeyd and Zeynab episode; Majnun’s supplication to the heavenly bodies and God; his kingship over animals, and his didactic conversations with several characters. ”

And in his book, he states:

“ Although Majnun was to some extent a popular figure before Nizami’s time, his popularity increased dramatically after the appearance of Nizami’s romance. By collecting information from both secular and mystical sources about Majnun, Nizami portrayed such a vivid picture of this legendary lover that all subsequent poets were inspired by him, many of them imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. As we shall see in the following chapters, the poet uses various characteristics deriving from ‘Udhrite love poetry and weaves them into his own Persian culture. In other words, Nizami Persianises the poem by adding several techniques borrowed from the Persian epic tradition, such as the portrayal of characters, the relationship between characters, description of time and setting, etc. ”

This is also mentioned by the Encyclopedia of Islam:

“ He adapted the disconnected stories to fit the requirements of a Persian romance ”

In reality the story was well known in Persian and Arabic literatures and sources. But Nizami Ganjavi consciously Persianized it and brought it to a Persian setting and was the first romantic epic poet to compose this story in Persian. At the same time the story has its Arabic motifs and Nezami used many Arabic anecdotes as mentioned by Dr. Gohrab. Thus the story became a mixture of Arabic and Persian symbols and imagery and the final ornamentation and décor came through by such a mixture. We should mention that when it comes to the actual Persian language which Nezami wrote the story in, he uses the term “Dari” rather than Persian. This is just like Qatran Tabrizi who calls his Iranian language as Parsi and that of the Khorasani-Persian as “Dari”.

Thus “Parsi o Tazi”(Persian and Arabic) should not be taken as a language as much cultural Iranianization of the story. Because Dari or more formally as Ferdowsi calls it “Parsiye-Dari” was the literary Persian while “Parsi” to Nezami was the local Persian dialect of the region. We should also note for example Nizami mentions his sources for Bahram-Nama (Arabic, Persian books, Bukhari, Tabari (books or possibly dialects)) and Haft Paykar(Pahlavi, Shahnameh, Hebrew, Nasrani(Christian) sources/dialects).

Arab migrants to the area (including the Persianized and Persian speaking Shirvanshahs of Arab origin that had through intermarriage with Iranian royal families forgotten their Arab origin and claimed Sassanid origin) had brought the Lili o Majnoon folklore (which was from pre-Islamic Arabia) with them. It was even known in Khorasan. Already, two centuries before Nizami, one of the first great Persian poets Rudaki has mentioned it. Although the story was relatively known, it was still considered a foreign tale in some sense. Nizami Ganjavi brought it to its highest level by being the first Persian to compose it as a romantic epic. But before him, due to its popularity in local folklore, it is called as a king of stories. And that is why Nizami’s son actually brings him a manuscript which shows that Nizami had a copy of it (in Arabic most likely) and shows the story was known. Nezami was the first Persian poet to write an epic in the Persian style for this story. Thus these verses of Nezami and his poetic interpretation of the letter of the Shirvanshah are easily understood without any conspiracy theories.

After praising this story as the king of stories, the verses of Nizami through the mouth of the Shirvanshahs asks Nizami to utilize these jewels(stories)/ornaments(Arab origin story and anecdotes and Persian symbols/imagery/romantic epic) and bring out a new version with his magical speech (Jadooyeh Sokhan) . At the same time, he was told, he should not copy or imitate couplets and old sources, since the King is praised as literary expert by Nizami and is expecting his magical discourse. Instead Nizami should show his magic discourse, spend effort on the story and dispose of valueless and ineloquent speech. And he will be rewarded for his eloquent and high speech unlike the legend of Ferdowsi who was not rewarded for the monumental Shahnameh and Ferdowsi thus bestowed Mahmud the versified lampoon which he deserved due to Mahmud’s breaking his covenant. But since the King (Shirvanshah) is of high birth, an Iranian and is faithful, he deserves eloquent speech and not harsh/vulgar words/speech (which is reference to the satirizing poem of Ferdowsi about Mahmud)..

Further invalidation to the claim is the actual Persianization of the story as mentioned:

This is mentioned by the Encyclopedia of Islam:

“ He adapted the disconnected stories to fit the requirements of a Persian romance ”

As Iranica states:

“ In composing his romance, Neẓāmi used many of the Arabic anecdotes and considered several key elements of theʿUḏri genre. He refers explicitly to his sources seventeen times, at the beginning of each episode, but none of the sources can be identified with certainty: these references are probably a narrative device to emphasize the romance’s outlandish origin to his Persian readers (Seyed-Gohrab, 2003, pp. 55-57). Neẓāmi adds a strong Persian flavor to the legend. For example, the Nowfal episode is developed into a completely different event, hardly resembling the original Arabic account. The Arabic sources portray Nowfal as an official, but Neẓāmi’s Nowfal is a chivalrous Persian chieftain (javānmard) ready to risk his life to bring the two lovers together. Neẓāmi threads the scattered anecdotes about Majnun’s love into a finely woven narrative with a dramatic climax. Persian verse romances are commonly about princes, and characters are usually related to courtly circles. Likewise, Neẓāmi portrays the lovers as aristocrats. He also urbanizes the Bedouin legend: Majnun does not meet Leyli in the desert amongst the camels, but at school with other children. Other Persian motifs added to the story are the childless king, who desires an heir; nature poetry, especially about gardens in spring and autumn, and sunset and sunrise; the story of an ascetic living in a cave; the account of the king of Marv and his dogs; the Zeyd and Zeynab episode; Majnun’s supplication to the heavenly bodies and God; his kingship over animals, and his didactic conversations with several characters. ”

And in his book, he states:

“ Although Majnun was to some extent a popular figure before Nizami’s time, his popularity increased dramatically after the appearance of Nizami’s romance. By collecting information from both secular and mystical sources about Majnun, Nizami portrayed such a vivid picture of this legendary lover that all subsequent poets were inspired by him, many of them imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. As we shall see in the following chapters, the poet uses various characteristics deriving from ‘Udhrite love poetry and weaves them into his own Persian culture. In other words, Nizami Persianises the poem by adding several techniques borrowed from the Persian epic tradition, such as the portrayal of characters, the relationship between characters, description of time and setting, etc. ”

Another very misleading reading! Bidartarak

Some political auhhor has also distorted some of the ending chapter specially this part:

Listen from these adviser, God’s Helper
Listen two three words, in the morning
Look at the world, and see what it has left
And how many Kings have left it
Thus be aware of the world, and cautious of it
Since it is best that you are well kept in this world
You are [already] an awakened King in running affair
Become a little more aware if you can
Your justice and giving gifts has no end
If you give more, it will not lessen

They claimed that the word "little more aware" is actually "Be an aware Turk"!

Here, the ethnic-ideologists have made a big mistake in reading and understanding the line in bold face. The Persian word causing this misreading is بیدارترک ‘bidartarak’ which consists of ‘bidartar’, the comparative adjective of ‘bidar’ (awake/aware), plus ‘ak’, a suffix denoting gentle or kind or diminutive address like ‘delbarak’ meaning little or lovely sweetheart; but they have read it as ‘bidar tork’(awakened Turk!)!. Bidar-tork does not make much sense here and this reading will cause a disconnect from the first part of the line: You are [already] an awake/aware king in running affairs, become an awakened Turk if you can. What is the relation between being an aware king and becoming an aware Turk? Moreover, this reading will produce an unacceptable pause or ‘sakteh’ in the meter of the poem which would be a major fault in the meter, far from a grand master of Nezami’s caliber. The meter of the epic Layli o Majnoon is مفعول مفاعلن فعولن (maful o mafaaelon faulon) but the wrong reading would make it مفعال مفاعل فعولن (mefal o mafaaelo faulon). The reason for this mistake by the ethno-ideologists (assuming it was unintentional) is that in Persian script, like in Arabic, the short vowels are not written and diacritic signs are used to clarify when required. So ترک (‘TRK’) could be read differently including تُرک (tork=Turk), تَرک (tark=leave) or تَرَک (tarak=crack). The correct reading requires education and familiarity with the language and the context.

Even the Moscow-Baku edition(unlike the even more politically editor of Varliq) uses the term Bidaratarak which obviously is the correct reading and does not create the major fault in the meter. See: خمسه-نظامی: بر اساس چاپ مسکو – باکو (نشر هرمس) – 1385-1386 Nezami – Khamsa- The Moscow-Baku edition, Hermes Publisher, 1385-1386

Note this verse is not in the Hamidian and Dastgerdi edition, but anyhow the Moscow edition even reads it correctly and it is bidartarak. I am not sure who actually read it Bidar Tork but they were obviously not aware of the meter of the poem and Persian poetry.

And Nezami used such terms as Khoshtarak, Bidartarak and Pishtarak, Delak and etc:

من که درین منزلشان مانده ام
مرحله ای پیشترک رانده ام
نظامی.
پیشترک زین که کسی داشتم
شمع شب افروز بسی داشتم

نظامی.

فر خوشترک ران که صحرا خوشست
عنان درمکش بارگی دلککشست
نظامی.

This is common in classical Persian poetry and perhaps one the best example of this is a poem by Khaqani who lived in the same region and was acquainted with Nezami:

این گربه چشمک این سگک غوری غرک
سگسارک مخنثک و زشت کافرک
با من پلنگ سارک و روباه طبعک است
این خوک گردنک سگک دمنه گوهرک
بوده سگ رمنده و اکنون به بخت من
شیرک شده است و گرگک و از هر دو بدترک (note this is badtarak and not bad turk!)
خنبک زند چو بوزنه، جنبک زند چو خرس
این بوزنینه ریشک پهنانه منظرک
خرگوشک است خنثی زن و مرد در دو وقت
هم حیض و هم زناش، گهی ماده گه نرک
این پشم سگ که ... سگش خوانم از صفت
چو ... سگ برهنگک و سرخ پیکرک
چون یوزک قمی جهد از دم آهوان
با دوستان رود گفتار در برک
گرد غزالکان و گوزنان بزم شاه
فحلی کند چو گور خرک گرد مادرک
گر دست و پاش چون سگک کهف بشکنی
هم برنگردد از دمشان این سبک سرک
بی‌نام هم کنونش چو بید سترک خصی
این بد گهر شکالک و توسن رگ استرک
خاقانیا گله مکن او از سگان کیست
خود صیدکی کند سگک استخوان خورک
سگ عفعفک کند چو بدو نانکی دهی
دم لابگک کند بنشیند پس درک
میزان حکمتی و تو را بر دل است زخم
زین شوله فعل عقربک شوم نشترک
هم شوله بود کو پس شوال زخم زد
بر تارک مبارک پور طغان یزک

Nizami's praise of the Shirvanshah

But after giving many advices on kingship, he says that he is looking for an excuse (Bahaaneh) to have a conversation (in order to show his admiration) with the King in his presence and a King like the Shirvanshah is already Great and does not need his advise and then ends the book with the praise of the Shirvanshah.

زاینجمله فسانه ها که گویم
با تو به سخن بهانه جویم
گرنه دل تو جهان خداوند
محتاج نشد به جنس این پند
زانجا که تراست رهنمائی
ناید ز تو جز صواب رائی
درع تو به زیر چرخ گردان
بس باد دعای نیک مردان
حرز تو به وقت شادکامی
بس باشد همت نظامی
یا رب ز جمال این جهاندار
آشوب و گزند را نهان دار
هر در که زند تو ساز کارش
هرجا که رود تو باش یارش
بادا همه اولیاش منصور
و اعداش چنانکه هست مقهور
این نامه که نامدار وی باد
بر دولت وی خجسته پی باد
هم فاتحه‌ایش هست مسعود
هم عاقبتیش باد محمود

These tales (advises he just gave) that I just told you I wanted to seek an excuse to speak to you
Although the heart of yours, O lord of the World
Does not require any of such advises
Because you are already well guided
Nothing comes from you, except Good commands
… O God, from the face of this World-holder (Shirvanshah)
Cast away all harm and disorder
Whatever door he knocks, you be his helper
Wherever he goes, you be his helper
Be a helper to all his elders
And give him victory over all his enemies

Thus we can see Nizami has had nothing but praise for the Shirvanshah. From the start, he praises every word of the Shirvanshah’s composition till the last line of the poem, he praises the Shirvanshah.

Finally, we note that in the Eskandarnama{cquote|Moreover, in Sharafnama, Chap. 41, vv. 3-23, the author laments the death of the Sharvanshah Akhsatan (the dedicatee of Leyli o Majnoon) and addresses words of advice to his (unnamed) successor. This suggests that Nezami originally planned to dedicate the Eskandar-nama, like Leyli o Majnoon, to one of the kings of Sharvan. But that dynasty evidently lost power over Ganja by the time the poems were completed, and in their final form they are dedicated to the malek of Ahar, Nosrat al-Din Bishkin b. Mohammad. This ruler is mentioned in the introduction to Sharafnama, Chap. 10, vv. 11-12, where the poet makes a pun on his name Bishkin (“whose hatred is more”(in Persian)), though some of the manuscripts have a superscription claiming (wrongly) that the verses evoke Bishkin’s overlord, the atabeg Nosrat al-Din Abu Bakr.}}

Whatever the historical and political situation was, what is undeniable is the lament over the death of the Shirvanshah Akhsatan and again shows the great bond between him and Nizami Ganjavi. Obviously a poet like Nezami, if he was not a friend of Akhsatan would not lament over his death but would rejoice. Neither of course would he constantly praise him in his Leyli o Majnoon, praise his letters and dedicate an epic to him.

In the Eskandarnama also, Nezami shows that Persian language is his own language and he wrote it in it naturally:

چو دلداری خضرم آمد به گوش
دماغ مرا تازه گردید هوش
پذیرا سخن بود شد جایگیر
سخن گز دل آید بود دلپذیر
چون در من گرفت آن نصیحت گری
زبان برگشادم به در دری

When the consolation of (the prophet) Khizr came to my ear,
Sense made my brain more fresh.
The word (of counsel) was accepted; it became place-seizing;
The speech which comes from the heart is heart-pleasing.
When this counselling took hold on (affected) me,
I opened my tongue with a pearl of the Dari language.

So when he opened his tongue after being divinely inspired, Nezami opened it in the pearl of Dari (the refined form of Persian). Had he any desire to write Turkish or it was his natural tongue, then after being inspired, he would have written in Turkish. Or for example his speech to his son and his son’s speech to him are all in Persian. No where does Nezami mention that he knows even Turkish.

Conclusion of Layli and Majnun misreadings

So let us conclude this part of the section:

1) During the time of Nizami Ganjavi, there is not a single extant Turkish verse from the area. Azeri Turkish literature was not present in the Caucasus or Azerbaijan and the first sample of Turkish comes around 200 years after Nizami Ganjavi. Not only Nizami Ganjavi, but not a single extant Turkish verse exists from that area during that era. On the other hand, a book such as Nozhat al-Majales shows everyday people used Persian in the Khanaqahs (Sufi prayer house) and non-court poets, even normal folks composed Persian poetry. The Safinayeh Tabrizi shows that Tabriz (the major capital of Ilkhanids) had its own Iranic language called “Zaban-i Tabrizi” and Khorasani-Dari Persian was its cultural language. Thus Nezami Ganjavi besides being Iranian, lived in a completely Persianate cultural environment as exemplified by Nozhat al-Majales.

2) Shirwanshahs were not Turkic origin and did not know Turkic. Had there existed even a Turkic literary tradition (which not a single verse exists from that time in the Caucasus and would have to go many stages to eventually lead to a romantic epic), Nezami would have written something Turkic for a Turkic-language ruler. As mentioned the Seljuqs, Eldiguzids, Ahmadilis and etc. were Persianized in culture and manner. But at least these rulers had Turkic ancestry unlike the Shirwanshahs who were not of Turkic ancestry. The Shirwanshah were proud of their claimed Sassanid descent (nasab-i boland (high birth) as opposed to Turkaaneh-Sefat (Turkic-way-characteristics)). So naturally, writing in Turkic for a non-Turkic ruler who does not understand such a language makes no logical sense. So besides not being able to differentiate between the words “Torkaaneh” and “Torki”, the nationalist-ideological authors have no context for their wild conspiracy theories.

3) The Shirvanshah’s letter to Nizami was in composition and Nizami Ganjavi versified it and the verses about the unfaithfulness of Turks and Turkish-way talk (Vulgar as opposed to Sokhan e Boland) have been mentioned by other Persian poets as well as Nizami Ganjavi. These were versified by Nizami and were his thoughts(even assuming the Shirvanshah wrote the verses, Nizami praises every word in the letter as a blossoming garden and brighter than flames lit at night and thus has the same opinions), as were the words of his son, which were again versified by Nizami Ganjavi. In the Khusraw and Shirin also, when the King speaks, it is all Nezami’s versification and interpretation of their words. Neither the Sherwanshah nor the Ildiguzids versified a single verse in any of Nezami’s work.

Nizami Ganjavi praises the Shirvanshah both in Layli o Majnoon and in the Eskandarnama. He praises the Shirvanshah’s son, advises the Shirvanshah’s son to read the Shahnameh and most significantly, he entrusts the well being of his own son to the son of Shirvanshah. That is amongst all the kings and rulers of his area, he chose to entrust his son to the Persianized Shirvanshah who considered themselves descendants of Sassanids and were not Turks. Although this does not mean Nizami Ganjavi preferred any ruler over another (since he was a recluse), but the fact that he entrusts his son to the Shirvanshah’s court (despite not being a court poet) fundamentally rejects any sort of conspiracy theory that Nizami was forced (!!!) to write in Persian for the Shirvanshah! Similarly his lament about Axsatan. The two verses are clear. Since the Shirwanshahs were not Turks and were of high birth and did not break their vow, they deserved high words and praises. Not the versified lampoon that was written for Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi after he broke his vow. Sherwanshah would not break their vow do deserve such lampoon (Torkaaneh Sokhan).

4) The only complaint from Nezami is not about anything in the letter of the Shirwanshah which he calls a blossoming garden more brighter than a night flame, but about confidence in his ability to write an epic for the theme and the nature of the story itself. Due to his old age and also due to the fact that the story according to Nezami is dry, barren, lacks joy and hence is not suited for court poetry

I was perplexed in that embarrassment
Because of my old age and frail nature
…. There is neither garden nor kingly banquet,
no bow-string, nor wine nor blandishment.
How long can one fare on dry sands
and rugged mountains, talking about sorrow?
…

Although this tale (aya) enjoys celebrity,
a cheerful interpretation (tafsir) is far from it.
The tools of discourse are joy and amorous delight,
discourse thrives by these two means.
The discourse on a naked person,
who is enamoured, fettered and in bondage, is sorrowful.
If one was to adorn the tale to excess,
this would distort the face of the story;
But when I know not the way at some stage,
clearly I shall then add some conceits.

The idea that the Shirvanshah forced Nizami to write in Persian is false and was created by the USSR (Stalin’s quote already mentioned). The Nozhat al-Majales mentioned earlier which has 114 poets from the area and does not have a single Turkish quatrain and all of its authors work are in Persian (many of them from normal Sufis and every day people). 24 of these authors are from Ganja (including Nezami). Interestingly enough, not one USSR source has mentioned such a grand book.

Obviously it would shatter all the false nation-building theories as 114 Persian poets from the area, many of them ordinary folks would not serve the USSR type nation-building. The Shirvanshahs did not know Turkish to begin with. Had Nizami Ganjavi known Turkish (not proven even though it was the language of some of the rulers and it may be desirable to learn the language of the ruling class as many non-Turcophone Iranians learned Turkish during the rule of the Turcophone Safavid dynasty) and desired to write Turkic, he would have written for a king that actually knew Turkish and not the Shirvanshahs. He would have been the first Turkish poet of the area, had he written even a single verse in Turkish, but not a single biography mentions even a verse of Turkish from that era or from Nizami Ganjavi. Finally, we denote the great Shahnameh imagery (e.g. Halat Kayqobadi in this section) used all over by Nizami Ganjavi while not a single Turkic folklore image is used by him. The clear Iranian character of Nezami Ganjavi is more than obvious and had there not been such a massive political attempt by the USSR, there would be no need for the present article.

What to do if fringe view comes in

Mehmet Kalpakli (first author) and Walter Andrews (second author) in the “Nizami’s Layla and Majnun “in the Turkish Manner” in Kamran Talattof and Jerome W. Clinton. The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.) has translated: “Torkana Sokhan Sezaayeh maa nist ” as ” so writing in the Turkish manner does not suit us”. There is no verb here about writing, but what is mentioned is Torkaaneh Sokhan (Turkish-way of speech=harsh words, vulgar speech) which is contrasted with high speech in the next line. Also in their translation, the four crucial translations of the lines before this line and the important line that contrasted Turkish-mannered speech to eloquent speech and high birth to Turkish characteristics/(acting in Turkish characteristics) were not brought. Furthermore Kalpakli goes on: "But he also goes on to say what language he does not want the poet to use — apparently alluding to Mahmmúd of Gazna's legendary cheapness in the matter of Ferdawsi: torki sefät vafá-ye má nist torkána sokhan sazá-ye má nist

Not in the Turkish way do we keep a promise so writing in the Turkish manner doesn't suit us

This couplet seems to indicate that the Sharvanshah could have asked Nizami to write in Turkish and that the poet could have done this. But alas — or fortunately, depending on your point of view — the ruler preferred Persian. So a vastly influential tale was born, and the first complete Turkish version of the story had to wait for almost three hundred years."

Note Professor Kamran Talatoff totally discounts this view and the view of this Turkish scholar (Kalpalki) is incorrect. I did ask Dr. Kamran Talatoff also about this issue and he said: Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and concerns with me. It seems that many of these former soviet republics have been trying to make history and construct cultural background in the process of their attempt for nation building. The official websites of the Republic of Azerbaijan featured Nezami as one their own many years ago. This happened at the time when our own officials did not care much about our cultural heritage.. Thus the editors invited article was printed as it was. It should be noted that based on my own e-mail with Dr. Kamran Talatoff has no doubt about the Iranian background and heritage of Nezami.

To their credit, Professor Kalpalki does mention Nezami as a Persian poet: "The story of Layla and Majnun by Ottoman times was a tale told often appearing in numerous poetic-narrative versions, including rendition by famous Persian poets Nizami (1140-1202) and Jami (1414-1492)."(Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, Mehmet Kalpaklı, "Ottoman Lyric Poetry", Published by University of Washington, 2006. pp 70).

However the key to point out is that the author claims Sharvanshah could have asked Nezami to write Turkish which is false. Since the Sharvanshah were not Turks and not a single verse of Turkish exists from the time of Nezami by any writer/poet from Arran and Sherwan. Also Kalpakli states:"This couplet seems to indicate that the Sharvanshah could have asked Nizami to write in Turkish and that the poet could have done this."

So he is not sure "seems to indicate"

So his whole idea is a fringe. However one can mention (if after mediation), Kalpalki(first author) and Andrews who state that nezami si a famous Persian poet claim that the introduction of Layli o Majnoon seems to indiate that Sharvanshah could have asked Nezami to write Turkish, and the poet could have done this. However, the Russian scholar Ivan Mikhailovich Steblin-Kamensky, a major Iranologist states that Nezami Ganjavi knew no Azeri, and Abbas Zaryab Khoi take a very different interperetation were the: the meaning of this verses is that our fidelity is not like the Turks and our faithfulness is not like that of Sultan Mahmud the Turk. Our fidelity and commitment will not be broken, so words that are befitting for Turkish kings is not befitting for us.

Also if such a fringe view is brought and note "seems to indicate" means the authors ae not sure but the authors we brought are very sure. then quotes like these should be present in the article in an ouward form and cquoted..

Igor M. Diakonov states:

“ "There were slight problems with Nizami - first of all he was not Azeri but Persian (Iranian) poet, and though he lived in presently Azerbaijani city of Ganja, which, like many cities in the region, had Iranian population in Middle Ages. Russian:Перед войной отгремел юбилей армянского эпоса Давида Сасунского (дата которого вообще-то неизвестна) – хвостик этого я захватил в 1939 г. во время экспедиции на раскопки Кармир-блура. А сейчас в Азербайджане готовился юбилей великого поэта Низами. С Низами была некоторая небольшая неловкость: во-первых, он был не азербайджанский, а персидский (иранский) поэт, хотя жил он в ныне азербайджанском городе Гяндже, которая, как и большинство здешних городов, имела в Средние века иранское.". ”

The Russian philologist Ivan Mikhailovich Steblin-Kamensky, Professor and the Dean of the Oriental Department of Saint Petersburg University comments:

“ "Мы готовили таких специалистов, но, как показывает наше с ними общение, там очень много националистических тенденций, научных фальсификаций. Видимо, это связано с первыми годами самостоятельности. В их трудах присутствует националистическое начало, нет объективного взгляда, научного понимания проблем, хода исторического развития. Подчас – откровенная фальсификация. Например, Низами, памятник которому воздвигнут на Каменноостровском проспекте, объявляется великим азербайджанским поэтом. Хотя он по-азербайджански даже не говорил. А обосновывают это тем, что он жил на территории нынешнего Азербайджана – но ведь Низами писал свои стихи и поэмы на персидском языке! Translation:We trained such specialists, but, as shown by our communication with them, there are a lot of nationalistic tendencies there and academic fraud. Apparently it's related to the first years of independence. Their works include nationalist beginnings. Objective perspective, scientific understanding of the problems and timeline of historical developments are lacking. Sometimes there is an outright falsification. For example, Nizami, the monument of whom was erected at Kamennoostrovsk boulevard, is proclaimed Great Azerbaijani poet. Although he did not even speak Azeri. They justify this by saying that he lived in the territory of current Azerbaijan, but Nizami wrote his poems in Persian language!". ”

Viktor Shnirelman writes in his important book in 2003:

“ К этому времени отмеченные иранский и армянский факторы способствовали быстрой азербайджанизации исторических героев и исторических политических образований на территории Азербайджана. В частности, в 1938 г. Низами в связи с его 800-летним юбилеем был объявлен гениальным азербайджанским поэтом (История, 1939. С. 88-91). На самом деле он был персидским поэтом, что и неудивительно, так как городское население в те годы было представлено персами (Дьяконов, 1995. С. 731). В свое время это признавалось всеми энциклопедическими словарями, выходившими в России, и лишь Большая Советская Энциклопедия впервые в 1939 г. объявила Низами "великим азербайджанским поэтом" (Ср. Брокгауз и Ефрон, 1897. С. 58; Гранат, 1917. С. 195; БСЭ, 1939. С. 94).

Translation from Russian:

By that time, already mentioned Iranian and Armenian factors contributed to the rapid azerbaijanization of historical heroes and historical political entities on the territory of Azerbaijan. In particular, in 1938, Nizami in connection with his 800-year anniversary was declared a genius(marvelous) Azerbaijani poet (History, 1939. Pp 88-91). In fact, he was a Persian poet, which is not surprising, because the urban population in those years was Persian (Dyakonov, 1995. page. 731). At one time it was recognized by all Encyclopedic Dictionaries of published in Russia, and only the Big Soviet Encyclopedia for the first time in 1939, announced Nizami as a "Great Azerbaijani poet (Sr. Brockhaus and Efron, 1897. page. 58; Garnet, 1917. page. 195 ; BSE, 1939. p. 94).

”

Ethiopia verse

Another misinterpretation of a verse by those claiming of Turkish origin occurs in the Haft Paykar. Specifically the verses:

The Ethiop scorns my Turkish wares,
rejects the fine foods I prepare.
(Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance. N Ganjavi, JS Meisami (translator) New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. page 28)

Commentary by Dr. Julia Meysami: “The Ethiop scorns my Turkish wares: literally, ‘The Ethiops (of this region) reject my Turkish delicacies,’ that is, in this dark and savage region my fine words go unappreciated.” (Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance. N Ganjavi, JS Meisami (translator) New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. page 281)

Wilson: This Ethiopia likes not Turkish wares hence it will have not palatable curds

This misinterpretation is again brought to allege that Nizami wanted to write Turkish but no one would appreciate it. This misinterpretation fits with Stalin’s idea that Nizami was forced to write in Persian and so this misinterpretation was continued. The misinterpretation has to do with the section: “In praise of discourse, and a Few Words of Wisdom” of the Haft Paykar. We will bring the original Persian and then a translation by Dr. Julia Meysami. We shall also discuss the translation of Wilson of the disputed verse. By bringing the whole section, we demonstrate that the section has nothing to do with Nizami Ganjavi wanting to write in Turkish as misinterpreted by scholars who were following Stalin’s opinion.

English Translation by Professor Julia Meysami:

In Praise of Discourse, and a Few Words of Wisdom

That which at once is new and old

is discourse; let its tale be told.

The mother ‘Be!’ hath never born,

than discourse, any better son;

Say not the eloquent are dead;

‘neath waves of speech they’ve disappeared.

But should you mention one by name,

fish-like, he’ll raise his head again.

Discourse—like to a flawless soul—

the keys to unseen treasure holds.

It knows the story yet unheard,

and reads the yet unwritten word.

Look round: of all that God has made,

what else, save discourse, does not fade?

The sole memorial of mankind

is discourse; all the rest is wind.

Strive, from the worlds of mineral,

plant, animal, and rational,

To learn what in creation lives

that to eternity survives?

He who his own self truly knows,

triumphant over this life goes.

Who knows not his design must die;

but who can read it, lives for aye.

When once you know yourself aright,

though gone, you shall not pass from sight.

Those who life’s mysteries ignore

come in through this, go out that door.

Doors cleaned of smoke, windows of grime:

yet none can see—what use the sun?

Each with himself is well content;

no one will his own garden tend.

All offer clever pretexts; nor

will any say, ‘My milk is sour.’

Wise men, who have great knowledge gained

don’t bend their minds to empty sums;

The man of substance plans ahead;

when substance lacks, ‘tis as I’ve said.

But such a man, though sharp, no doubt,

requires a guard; there’s thieves about!

The Chinese merchant, loading musk,

guards it with gum* against the thief.

The hoopoe, ‘neath the eagle’s wing,

in flight leaves other birds behind.

The famed are not immune to sin;

only the base are free from stain.

In search of grain, the clever bird

falls in the trap with both feet snared.

He who’s a glutton like the earth

takes from it but a stomach’s worth;

Though all its stores be well devoured

and plundered, not a grain falls short;

For all you gather, grain by grain,

you one by one give back again.

If, candle-like, you’d seek a crown

of gold, tears will your laughter drown.

That draught of pearls and rubies made

brings little joy, but tears unstayed.

Each person has a hidden friend,

a confidant, that help will lend:

‘Tis wisdom, from which succour comes;

he has all things who wisdom owns.

Who gives not wisdom its just due,

though man in form, his nature true

Is demon-like; angelic men

are those with wisdom—wondrous thing!

All was decreed when Time began;

men strive today, but reap no gain.

Strive to improve your nature; sloth

leads but to Hell; to Heaven, work.

He who’s imprisoned by his deeds,

if he’s not good, he will be bad.

To think the worst of others; that’s

the habit of the bad man; but

Who thinks the best of others, wins:

goodness is from good conduct born.

Live such that, if a thorn appears,

you will not reap your foes’ sharp jeers;

Lest this one say, ‘His faults have shown,’

or that, ‘His just reward has come.’

If no one takes your hand, at least

at your death he won’t stamp his feet

In joy. Who treats you well is best;

not he who’s by your sorrow pleased.

Don’t eat in front of those who fast,

or else, make sure they join your feast.

Don’t weigh your gold before the poor,

lest they twist, snake-like, with desire.

Though New Year’s breeze may gently waft,

best not light lamps before its draft.

Man does not live to eat his fill,

but that he may seek sense and skill

A dog is nobler than the man

whose eyes, ass-like, for fodder scan,

Then strive to serve mankind; ‘tis so

your nature will adorn the world.

One who’s good-tempered, like the rose,

smells sweetly everywhere he goes.

Have you not heard the wise man tell,

‘He dreameth best who sleepeth well’?

He who’s bad-tempered at his birth

will be that way until his death;

But he who’s with good temper born

will meet a good and happy end.

Don’t take things hard; for many a one

like you, the coarse earth’s fed and slain.

What use to deck out earth, when ye

who bear earth’s form, half ashes be.

If someone says, ‘Pure reason must

rise from man, and man’s from dust

Say, ‘From the thorny rose there comes

rose-water; life from the snake-stone.’

Strive with the world; its wiles abhor;

don’t pitch your tent in dragon’s maw.

Seek not the dragon’s friendship; for

the dragon does all men devour.

A dog may wear a patched cloak; but

its currish nature’s not forgot.

When friends fall out and quarrel, see

how speedily their foes agree.

Like flies o’er black and white they flock,

make black seem white and white look black.

‘Tis better to avoid such thieves,

and cut this fourfold purse away.

In times when pious men are base,

the Josephs wolves, the ascetics dazed

With drink, one only ‘scapes from peril

by doing, or approving, evil.

May God forbid His servants place

such bonds as these upon their legs.

They kindle fires for Hell’s sake,

seek naphtha, and pour talc away.

Rise; let us stamp out all sedition;

observe obedience’s condition.

How long seek gold to answer dearth?

How long be bound by sky and earth?

The harsh wind rends the tulip’s robes

in search of bits of bloody dross;

Since wormwood bears no golden coin,

the wind does not assail its form.

Don’t, like the cloud, bear treasure on

your head; rise o’er it, like the sun,

That, when earth’s moistened by the cloud,

your sun-like kiss turn it to gold.

Scatter your gold upon the sun;

break sun-like rubies with a stone.

‘Tis wrong gold makes your eyes shine bright,

for wisdom’s the world’s true delight. ‘Gold’is two letters, unconnected;

how should you boast of something scattered?

Don’t fill your heart with gold, like earth,

lest, like ‘gold’, you be scattered forth.

Those beauties that have golden forms

are by blue mourning robes adorned.

Each scale which deals with gold is stoned

before a thousand doors. Assume

That, with great effort, you’ve obtained

of wealth, lawful or not, some grains:

Some reckless rogue steals them away

and lives, while their collector dies.

To spend gold brings rejoicing; but

‘tis pain and fear to lay it up.

‘Tis loving gold, not its expense,

that kills the self with pain immense.

See how the fool who seeks a stone

sets friends at war, one against one.

‘Tis best to quit this earthly ruin,

which brings you nought but fear and pain.

How long be porter for the world,

hiding gold’s burden in the earth?

Though you may own three porters loads,

you’ll gain but the four porters’abode.

‘Tis earth and air that are your foes:

unfriendly earth, air full of woes.

The thorn torn from the date-palm’s crown

will serve the cooking fire to turn.

Thick noodle soup will better fill

the stomach, than rose-petals will.

Pull out your teeth; don’t eat your fill;

then you’ll be worthy as the pearl.

See, with its thousand teeth, the comb

can dress the beard of anyone.

Before you taste time’s remedy,

a thousand poisoned draughts you’ll see.

From this world’s butcher-shop you’ll gain

no portion without causing pain.

A hundred hearts are rent in twain

before a fat haunch is obtained.

A thousand necks are cast aside

in favour of a fattened thigh.

One sets his foot upon a treasure,

another toils for trifling measure.

Since none achieves his goal, ‘tis best

to have none, than for many quest.

The man who late his goal achieves

finds joy in his long-travelled life.

Long life is best, for one will find

his goal perfected through long time.

The slow-born ruby long endures;

the swift-come tulip swiftly goes.

How long, like candles, brightly glow?

Consume yourself, your self to show.

Cast off these hoofs of beast-like greed;

from this clay vat pull out your head.

Cut off this seven-rooted branch;

these four-nailed horseshoes,* too, renounce.

Don’t pass o’er this straw-covered pit

like stones and straw that cover it.

Like lightning, die while flashing bright;

rude health’s eclipsed by virtuous life.

Do as your masters teach, if you

are a disciple; follow true

The path that leads to wisdom; put,

with perfect faith, your trust in God.

I, who untie a hundred knots,

possess a village, dwell without.

If from the road a guest should come,

who then will lay the feast for him?

Reason knows well of what I speak;

by this allusion, what I seek.

I don’t despair, despite my want;

I blame but those who earn complaint.

The Ethiop scorns my Turkish wares,

rejects the fine foods I prepare.

When I was raw as unripe grapes

in this, old nature’s cooking-place,

Time pressed me like a grape unripe,

to make collyrium for the sight.*

Since I grew ripe, I’ve suffered

from the stings of bees, just as the wine

That’s poured upon the earth is lost.

Is not the grape’s worth more than that?

I tread the path on which I’m driven,

the name of ‘frozen water’given;

They say that water, frozen cold,

is not water, but a spring of gold;

They err: still water silver forms,

as silvery ice of this informs.

Whene’er did silver like gold seem?

they’re different as the moon and sun.

Sim without ya is miss (that’s brass),

especially when they’re reversed.

Observe my iron, inlaid with gold,

its silvery work in speech unfold.

Ironmongers would wear golden robes

who iron at silver’s prices sold.

Woe to the goldsmith when, assayed,

his gold is less than silver weighed.

The world’s harsh treason chafes me: luck’s

the source of fortune, wisdom’s not.

That keen assessor who knows coin

owns not a half-grain, while the man

Who can’t tell cotton plants from flax,

nor ships and shoes from sealing-wax,

With finest stuffs fills up his hoard:

with loads of silks, and chests of gold.

If this is gold and silver’s case,

why should one then fear idleness?

How long should we this ruin grieve,

and draw up water in a sieve?

All from the antechamber call;

one day our turn will come withal.

Others, like me, this tale have told,

and, at the end, have found repose.

It was my task to grasp it firm,

lest sleep should seize me in my turn.

The traveller must have supplies,

and flee the perilous places. I

Walk on; my donkey does not follow; I

can’t believe that on some morrow

I too will leave; I’ll only know

when I have passed beyond that door.

How long, in ignorance, shall I

go on; string pearls with closed eyes?

Forget your eyes, and silence keep;

be confidant of secrets deep.

All that you know—know this, and heed—

you take in error, or misread.

The flood has swept the road away;

discard your spade; see how the sky

Digs pits for men within the earth;

the earth recks not such spades as yours.

Consider: when you first were born,

what did you have of what you own?

From day and night you’ll bear away

what you brought with you that first day.

Your neck weighed down with borrowed gems

from earth and sea: how can you then

Dance with the sphere? repay your loan;

let but you arid an empty mount

Remain. Without a grain of this

world’s burden, go where’er you wish.

Before your crown’s pulled from the throne,

you must cast off what wealth you own.

One day a hundred blossoms must fall

to the ground ‘neath envy’s dust.

I, like the rose, of weapons shorn,

have also fled from envy’s thorn;

Donned a patched cloak, in hope this might

scatter pure talc on flames of spite;

For even so is the road travelled

that passes through this place of peril.

When I’ve bid this old inn farewell,

say to the sphere, ‘Do what you will.’

How long, Nizami, dwell in bonds?

Arise! send forth your voice in song;

Devote your soul to Unity,

and gain, fore’er, Felicity.

Let us first recall some examples from Nizami Ganjavi and other Persian poets with regards to imagery in Persian poetry:

Nizami:

تا نزد بر ختن طلایه زنگ
شه ز شادی نکرد میدان تنگ

“Till the nights Ethiop rushed day’s Turks,
The king ceased not his joyful Sport”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 216)

سیاهان حبش ترکان چینی
چو شب با ماه کرده همنشینی

Author’s translation: Siyaahaan Habash (The blacks of Ethiopia), Torkaan Chini (the Turks of China)
Cho Shab (like the night) baa maah (with the moon) kardeh hamneshini (have gathered together).

Note that the Siyaahaan Habash (blacks of Ehtiopia) are the color of the night while the Torkan Chini are the moon (and the stars).

ناسود ز چاره باز جستن
زنگی ختنی نشد به شستن

Was not relieved from seeking other solution
An Ehtiopian will not be Khotanese (a place in classical Turkistan) by washing

چو صبح از رخ روز برقع گشاد
ختن بر حبش داغ جزیت نهاد

When the morning cast away the cover from day’s face
Khotan (light) upon Habash (darkness) imposed a painful cost

من همان سفته گوش حلقه کشم
با خود از چین و با تو از حبشم

I’m still his humble slave; of China
at home, but Ethiop with you.

ناز تو گر به جان بود بکشم
گر تو از خلخی من از حبشم

Your wile, if it costs life, I shall bear
If you are from Khallukh (a city in Turkestan) (light), I am from Ethiop (dark)
(signifying opposites here)
“In Egypt dwelt a man, Maahaan
More beautiful than the full moon,
Like Egypt’s Joseph, fair of face;
A thousand Turks his Hindu Slave”
(Julia Meysami, Haft Paykar, pg 175)

Thus as we can see the contrast between light, pleasing (Turk) and Habash (Dark) is a common affair in Nizami’s poetry. But this is not limited to Nizami and many other Persian poets have used such a symbolism and we provide some more examples:

سنبل سیاه بر سمن مزن
لشکر حبش بر ختن مزن
(خواجو)

چون ترک من سپاه حبش بر ختن زد
از مشگ سوده سلسله بر نسترن زد
(خواجو)

Khaju Kermani: Since my Turk brings upon Khotan (Turkestan) the army of Habash(Ethiop)):

چون لشکر حبش شب بر روم حمله کرد
(مولوی)
روی تاجیکانه-ات بنمای تا داغ حبش
آسمان بر چهره ترکان یغمایی کشد
(سعدی)
خورشید روم پرور و ماه حبش نگار
(خاقانی)
چون خیل ترک که بر لشگر حبش تازد
(عبید زاکانی)
پیش تو بگو کای بت سوزنده چون هندویم
برآینه ریز آنکه خاکستر هندویت
(امیر خسرو)

The Pir of Herat, Khwajah Ansari writes:

ای شب تو کیستی زنگی سیاهی و من ختنی زادهی چون ماهی
ای شب تو بر خرابههای تاریک چون بومی و من بر تخت روزگار اسکندر رومی.

(Dastgerdi, Wahid. “Resa’il Jaami’ ‘Aref Qarn Chaharom Hejri: Khwaja Abdullah Ansari”, Forooghi Publishers, 1349/1970, 2nd edition. p 60)

Translation: Oh Night, What are? A black Zangi, and I am of Khotanese descent (look like) a moon (beautiful).
Oh Night, you are upon the dark ruins like an owl and I am on the throne of the age, like Eskandar-e-Rumi (Alexander the Greek).

Thus if we take this literally, then the well known Ansari, a descendant of the compantion of the Prophet of Islam, would be of Khotanese descent. Of course the contrast between Dark/African/Zang and Khotanese is a well known contrast used by many Persian poets.

The alleged claim by the three articles we mention (who claim Nizami Ganjavi was an Oghuz Turk) is that the line (not in a 15th century edition but it is in the Dastgerdi edition and most editions) in the praise of discourse and wisdom:

ترکیم را در این حبش نخرند
لاجرم دوغ بای خوش نخورند

is meant to say that Nizami wanted to write Turkish but it was not appreciated and hence he had to write in Persian! Anyone that has read all of the above section and knows the contrast between Turk (light) and Ethiopia (Dark) in Persian poetry and can easily see the invalidity of ethno-nationalistic interpretation.

Let us bring two professional English translations:

The Ethiop scorns my Turkish wares,
rejects the fine foods I prepare.
(Julia Meysami, 1995)

Commentary by Dr. Julia Meysami: “The Ethiop scorns my Turkish wares: literally, ‘The Ethiops (of this region) reject my Turkish delicacies,’ that is, in this dark and savage region my fine words go unappreciated.” (Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance. N Ganjavi, JS Meisami (translator) New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. pg 281)

Wilson: This Ethiopia likes not Turkish wares
hence it will have not palatable curds
(1925 translation of Haft Paykar, C.E. Wilson)

The section is about discourse and word of wisdom. Referring to people who claim wisdom, Nizami says in this section:

All offer clever pretexts; nor

will any say, ‘My milk is sour.’

Indeed food as a spiritual metaphor (and we note Dooghbaa is bright and white like the imagery of Turks in Persian poetry) has been used through Persian literature. Sufficient is to refer to the comparison between homemade Paludeh and Bazar Paludeh in Persian poetry. As Annemarrie Schimmel has noted:

“ Paludeh, a dish of milk, fine flour, and some spices, was popular enough in the thirteenth century to be mentioned several times as the symbol of spiritual sweetness ”

Let us look at English translation by these two knowledgeable translators. The key words they have used are Nakharand (Doesn’t buy), Lajaram (consequently), Dooghbaay (This is a Persian word which is a soup made of yogurt milk, whose color is white and probably made best by Turkish nomads). So they have taken a meaningful translation of the all the words. Furthermore, if one goes with a literal translation, Torkiyam as the authors have translated more naturally takes the meaning of wares literally, since Nizami uses the other word Nakharand (buy), and lajaram (consequently) they do not taste fresh Dooghbaa (a soup made of milk best prepared by Nomads).

Nizami here is stating that his beautiful milk/food (the advices and discourses) he gives are not paid attention to. The context of the section which is on discourse and ethics makes it clear. Furthermore the contrast of Habash and Turk is something that we have discussed already. As already shown, Persian poets often make contrasts. Since the opposition of */sepid /*(Tork) (light, North) and */zangi/Habashi/* (Abyssinian/Ethiopian) (south) has a figurative meaning, it simply signifies the range of tastes and climes, cultures and complexions, specifically with the Turks representing fair skin (as opposed to the dark-skinned Habashis). If we look at that section, it is about spiritual advices Nizami gives and there is nothing about the Turkish language! So if Nizami wanted to write Turkish, the statement “Torkiyam raa dar in Habash Nakharand” as some writers claim is not in the context of the section. If literal (and assuming Nizami meant Turkish language by Torkiyyam! and not Turkish wares), we would also need to take the /Habash/ part literally and the Dooghbaa part literally, and unless Nezami made a trip to Ethiopia (which he never did) or was in Ethiopia, or composed poems in honor of a dark-skinned African prince (which he never did), then /Habash/ does not have a literal meaning here. Neither did Nezami ever sell food in the steets of Ethiopia. As well known already, Nizami not only wrote all of the five jewels in Persian but also he has written ghazals in Persian. Yet in all his work, he only refers to his Persian writing. There was no Turkish literature at the time of Nizami in Ganja and not a single verse of Turkish exists from the area during Nizami’s time from any poet or writer. Unfortunately, misinterpretation of basic Persian poetic imagery was the major tool used by Stalin and USSR to claim that “Nizami was a victim of Persian Chauvinism and he wanted to write in Turkish, but he was forced to write in Persian”.

Lack of knowledge or misuse of basic Persian imagery and symbols were used to politicize Nizami Ganjavi for ethno-nationalistic nation building and propagate the false idea that Nizami (who is great because of his actual words which are all in Persian) wanted to write in Turkish (which had no tradition in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan and the language of Turkish nomads was not the urban language) but was forced to write in Persian! As if one can create such masterpieces (five them!) under duress which is illogical! This misinterpretation alongside the misinterpretation of the verses in the beginning of the Layli o Majnoon was the major basis for this false political claim made during the USSR era and unfortunately continuing in some circles.

Invalid and false verse created

Although we touched upon this false verse before, it is important to touch upon it again, since a good deal of nationalist websites are spreading it over the internet and print media. Indeed and unfortunately, there is no regulation for search engines such as google and many people will google out false information from the internet.

As mentioned recently, a false verse in 1980 about Nizami’s father was forged:

پدر بر پدر مر مرا ترک بود
به فرزانگی هر یکی گرگ بود

Translation of the false verse: “Father upon father of mine were all Turks,
each one of them was wise as wolf!”

The above couplets, like much other false information on Nizami Ganjavi can be easily found in pan-Turkist websites/books/articles although it was falsified in 1980. Its basic rhyme of Gurg/Gorg (Wolf) and Turk/Tork show its invalidity and non-ingenuity of the author who falsified it. Yet the USSR scholar from Azerbaijan SSR, Arsali Nushabi writes: Ali Ganjali, a well known researcher from the Azerbaijan SSR in the introduction of his Layli o Majnoon Nizami, translated by the Turkish author M.K. Kurtuncan has written: “I do not know which manuscript of Layli o Majnoon I have seen this verse in the Ayasufia library, which Nizami explicitly mentions that he is a Turk and his fathers were Turks, the verse is this:

پدر بر پدر مر مرا ترک بود
به فرزانگی هر یکی گرگ بود

See: جلال متینی، «سندی معتبر بودن بر در ترک بودن نظامی گنجوی! »، ایرانشناسی، سال 4, 1371. Matini, J. “A solid proof on the Turkic roots of Nizami Ganjavi?!”, Iranshenasi, Volume 4, 1371(1992-1993).

The above example, like the false statement of Stalin that: “Nizami wrote most of his poetry in Persian” (Trying to hint that he has Turkish poetry!), shows the unethical and unscholarly political writings that have attempted to demean the personality of Nizami Ganjavi. All of these futile efforts were to take Nizami Ganjavi out of Iranian civilization by any means possible. Indeed, if Nizami Ganjavi had any serious references to any sort of Turkish identity or culture, there would not be a need to create such a false verse.

The nationalist groups have used this falsified and forged verse in their articles and books to claim that Nizami Ganjavi was of Turkic stock. Supposedly, the Grey Wolf or Wolf is seen as wise creature in Turkic mythology. If that is the case, then one should look at actual and authentic verses of Nizami Ganjavi about Wolves which would actually counter their argument (since Wolf is a holy symbol in Turkic mythology than Nizami Ganjavi’s derision of it means he was not from that culture).

Here are some verses about Wolves by Nizami Ganjavi which depict wolves as stupid, vile character and bloodsucking creature and even prefers a fox to a wolf and calls the fox as the king of Wolf due to the Wolf’s stupidity! There is nothing about the wisdom (Farzanegi) of the Wolf in his poems and indeed bad and unpleasant people are compared with Wolf:

برای نمونه:

از آن بر گرگ روبه راست شاهی
که روبه دام بیند گرگ ماهی
یا:
به وقت زندگی رنجور حالیم
که با گرگان وحشی در جوالیم

یا:
پیامت بزرگست و نامت بزرگ
نهفته مکن شیر در چرم گرگ

یا:
روباه ز گرگ بهره زان برد
کین رای بزرگ دارد آن خرد.
یا:
پیامت بزرگست و نامت بزرگ
نهفته مکن شیر در چرم گرگ

یا:
مردماني بدند و بد گوهرند
يوسفاني ز گرگ و سگ بترند
گرگ را گرگ بند بايد کرد
رقص روباه چند بايد کرد
خاکياني که زاده ز ميند
ددگاني به صورت آدميند
یا:
سوم موبد چنان زد داستاني
که با گرگي گله راند شباني
ربايد گوسفندي گرگي خونخوار
در آويزد شبان با او پيکار
کشد گرگ از يکي سو تا تواند
ز ديگر سو شبان تا وارهاند
چو گرگ افزون بود در چاره سازي
شبان را کرد بايد خرقه بازي

Thus it is extremely unfortunate that someone in 1980 falsified such a verse in the former USSR. This was part of the USSR policy of nation building but there is no excuse for its abundance in Google and some non-internet publications. Unfortunately, lies coupled with ethnic nationalism propagate fast on the Internet and other media and the ethnic nationalists who spread these lies have little regards for truths. More unfortunately, the above false verse is coupled with Turkish poems of other authors and then attributed to Nizami Ganjavi. Thus many susceptible readers will get false information with regards to Nizami Ganjavi unless they were aware of ethnically natured manipulations with regards to his personality. Anyhow, if Nizami Ganjavi was not Iranian and did not have Iranian culture and had Turkic culture (which the book Nozhat al-Majales provides decisive proof that Iranic culture was dominant in the urban centers), there would be no need to create such false verses to associate him with Turkic nationalist Gray Wolf myths.

Summary

There are other invalid arguments which have been covered in the main article. These were just summary of some of the main points and for more details, the reader needs to read the main article:

Iranic fatherline

The Kurdish motherline of Nezami and him being adopted by his Kurdish uncle Khwaja Umar has already been discussed. So Nezami was raised by Kurdish (Iranic) family. I have extensively discussed why his fatherline was Iranic in the sections:

Nizami’s Iranian Background, Culture and Contribution to the Persian Language, Culture and Civilization 324 Iranian background and some statements from scholars 325 Nezami’s reference to himself as the Persian Dehqan 328 Nizami’s reference to his wife and another proof of non-Turkic background for Nizami 332 Other Indicators of Nizami Ganjavi’s Fatherline 338 Lack of Turkish names unlike Turkish dynasties and groups 338 Urban background 338 Shafiite Madhab 339 Intermarriage was rare between Western Iranians and Turks due to both religious and ethnic factors 347 Nizami Ganjavi’s Culture 349

Ganja

However, modern historians believe that the Persian name Ganja (گنجه / Ganjeh, "Ganja" derives from the New Persian ganj (گنج: "treasure, treasury")) suggests that the city existed in pre-Islamic times and was likely founded in the fifth century A.D. The area in which there was Ganja, during the 9th to 12th century named Arran; its urban population spoke mainly in the Persian language.

The best proof of Iranian language and culture in the area is Nozhat al-Majales.

Mua'yyads time

Nezami's full name is Ilyas ibn Yusuf ibn Zakki ibn Mua'yyad. The Turkic kings from the area had Turkic names but one does not see this in Nezami's ancestry. His ancestry goes back before the Seljuq era. Since the Seljuqs took over Ganja in 1075 where-as Nezami is (1140) and since he was orphaned early, one can say his father was 40 (Yusuf), 1100, Zakki becomes 1075 and Mu'ayyad becomes 1050. Another important indicator is also the fact that in the lineage of Nizami Ganjavi, one does not see any Turkic names, but in the lineage of the Seljuqs, Eldiguzids and the Atabekan-e-Maragheh (also called Ahmadilis), one can see Turkish names. These Turkish names of these rulers were in the time of Nizami and also in the lineage of these Turkish rulers. For example Togrul, Arsalan, Aq-Sonqor, Ildegoz, Karpa/Korpa Arsalan, Qizil Arsalan, Ozbek and so on were the names of Seljuq, Eldiguzid and Ahmadili rulers of Nizami’s lifetime. We shall discuss this issue further.

Shafi'ite background

Nezami was likely of Shafi'ite background where as Turks that entered the area were mainly Hanafites. Sunni Kurds (as well as western other Persianate/Iranian people like Sunni Tats, Sunni Talysh, Sunni Persian speakers in Fars province) overwhelmingly in history have been followers of Shafi’ite rite of Sunnism. As we show, Nizami Ganjavi was also most likely follower of Shafi’ite rite. Turks on the other hand, have overwhelmingly been followers of Hanafism. This is especially true with regards to Oghuz Turks. We shall discuss this in a separate section.

This is discussed in detail in the article.

Some quotes

His mother was an Iranian Kurd and it is possible that his father had the same ethnic origin, though he is claimed also by Turkish Azerbaijanis as being of their stock. (Ian Philip McGreal , “Great Literature of the Eastern World”, Published 1996, p. 505).

We now recall another scholar, I.M. Diakonoff who is world famous for his study of human history. He had a great knowledge of the history of the Caucasus and Iran and thus his word has weight on the topic of Nizami Ganjavi. As already quoted (with the original Russian): I.M. Dyakonoff. (1915- 1999) Publisher: (European House), Sankt Petersburg, Russia, 1995, pg 730-731.

“ And it was planned an anniversary of the great poet Nizami celebration in Azerbaijan. There were slight problems with Nizami - first of all he was not Azeri but Persian (Iranian) poet, and though he lived in presently Azerbaijani city of Ganja, which, like many cities in the region, had Iranian population in Middle Ages. ”

For example as noted by Francois de Blois:

“ “Nizami Ganja’i, whose personal name was Ilyas, is the most celebrated native poet of the Persians after Firdausi. His nisbah designates him as a native of Ganja (Elizavetpol, Kirovabad) in Azerbaijan, then still a country with an Iranian population, and he spent the whole of his life in Transcaucasia; the verse in some of his poetic works which makes him a native of the hinterland of Qom is a spurious interpolation.”

C. A. (Charles Ambrose) Storey and Franço de Blois (2004), “Persian Literature - A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period.”, RoutledgeCurzon; 2nd revised edition (June 21, 2004). ISBN-10: 0947593470. (Pg 363)

”

Reference to himself as the Persian Dehqan

The Dehqan as already mentioned were a noble class of Iranians who were the main proponents and repository of Iranian and Persian culture during the Islamic era.

The term dehqān was used in the late Sasanian period to designate a class of landed magnates (Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 420) considered inferior in rank to āzādān, bozorgān (qq.v.; Zand ī Wahman Yasn 4.7, 4.54), and kadag-xwadāyān “householders” (Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag 15.10, where dahīgān should be read for dādagān)

The origin of the dehqān class is usually attributed in both Zoroastrian Pahlavi books of the 9th century and early Islamic sources to Wēkard/t, brother of Hōšang, the legendary Iranian king (Dēnkard, ed. Madan, pp. 438, 594, 688; Bīrūnī, Āṯār, pp. 220-21; Masʿūdī, ed. Pellat, I, sec. 662; Christensen, pp. 68, 134, 151, 156). In some sources the innovation is credited to Manūčehr (Ṯāʿālebī, p. 6; Ṭabarī, I, p. 434; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 345; Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 37). Nevertheless, as the term dehgān is not attested in early Sasanian documents but is sometimes mentioned in the Pahlavi books and frequently occurs in descriptions of late Sasanian administration in early Islamic sources, it is admissible to suppose that dehqāns emerged as a social class as a result of land reforms in the time of Ḵosrow I (531-79). He is reported to have admonished future kings that they should protect the dehqāns, just as they would protect kingship, because they were like brothers (Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 6).

After the defeat of the Persian army and the gradual disappearance of the nobles who administered the country, the local gentry, that is, the dehqāns, assumed a more important political and social role in their districts, towns, and villages.

Aside from their political and social significance, the dehqāns played an important cultural role. Many participated in the courts of caliphs or governors, and after the establishment of the Persian dynasties in the east they served kings, princes, and amirs as learned men who were well informed on the history and culture of ancient Iran. Bayhaqī (p. 299) reported that Zīād b. Abīhi (d. 56/675), while still governor of Baṣra, had in his service three dehqāns, who told him stories of Sasanian grandeur and pomp, causing him to think Arab rule much inferior. In the Tārīḵ-e Sīstān (p. 106) a number of wise sayings, similar to the Pahlavi andarz (q.v.), are attributed to a certain Zoroastrian dehqān named Rostam b. Hormazd, who reportedly uttered them at the request of ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd-Allāh, an Omayyad governor of Sīstān (cf. Šāh-nāma, ed. Moscow, IX, p. 211 vv. 3380-83). The 9th-century author Jāḥeẓ (1385/1965, I, p. 115, II, p. 125) also quoted some pieces of folklore from dehqāns. In both Arabic and Persian sources the names of many learned persons and men of letters, including theologians, who were dehqāns or decendants of dehqān families are mentioned (Ebn Fondoq, pp. 116, 149). Some were patrons of Islamic religious scholars; for example, Ebn Fondoq (p. 185) mentioned a wealthy dehqān from Sabzavār who, in 418/1027, founded a religious school for a Koran commentator named Ebn Ṭayyeb. The majority of dehqāns favored Persian culture, however, and some were patrons of renowned Persian poets. Rūdakī (p. 458) related that the dehqāns gave him money and riding animals. Farroḵī in his youth served a dehqān in Sīstān and received an annual pension from him. According to one tradition, Ferdowsī himself was a dehqān (Čahār Maqāla, ed. Qazvīnī, text, pp. 58, 75). Most of the credit for preservation of the stories in the national epic, the Šāh-nāma; pre-Islamic historical traditions; and the romances of ancient Iran belongs to the dehqāns. Abū Manṣūr Maʿmarī (q.v.), who compiled the prose Šāh-nāma-ye abū-manṣūrī (346/957), now lost, wrote in his preface, which does survive, that in gathering his material he summoned a number of dehqāns from various cities of Khorasan (pp. 34-35). Ferdowsī often cited dehqāns as sources, apparently oral ones, for his narratives (e.g., Šāh-nāma, ed. Moscow, I, p. 28 v. 1, II, p. 170 v. 15, III, pp. 6-7 vv. 8, 19, IV, p. 302 vv. 19-20, VI, p. 167 v. 25). Other poets, too, referred to traditions from the dehqāns (e.g., Asadī, p. 21 v. 1; Īrānšāh, p. 17; Neẓāmī, pp. 436, 508). The term dehqān thus also came to be defined as “historian, versed in history” (Borhān-e qāṭeʿ, ed. Moʿīn, II, p. 905). The profound attachment of the dehqāns to the culture of ancient Iran also lent to the word dehqān the sense of “Persian,” especially “Persian of noble blood,” in contrast to Arabs, Turks, and Romans in particular. (Tafazzoli, Ahmad. “Dehqan”in Encyclopedia Iranica)

In the story of Leyli o Majnoon, Nezami Ganjavi as some scholars have mentioned has called himself the Dehqan (Iranian) and Parsi-Zad (Persian). In the verses which start in the section: رفتن پدر مجنون به دیدن فرزند
The visit of Majnoon’s dad to visit his son:
در لیلی و مجنون:
دهقان فصیح پارسی زاد
از حال عرب چنین کند یاد
کان پیر پسر به باد داده
یعقوب ز یوسف اوفتاده

The Fasih (eloquent) Persian Dehqan
Recounts the situation of Arabs as such:
That Old man who lost his son to the wind
That Jacob who was separated from Joseph

…

There are some points to note here. The word Fasih from Arabic فصح and another form it فصاحت (eloquence) is used to describe Nezami. For example in the letter of Sherwanshah versified by Nezami and in reality his poetic interpretation of the letter:

در لافگه شگفت کاری
بنمای فصاحتی که داری

In the Arena of the Wondrous Words
Exhibit the eloquence(فصاحتی ( that you possess

Thus in the same story, Nezami is called a possessor of eloquence. He also calles himself Fasih elsewhere in the Lili o Majnoon as in the famous verse when he complains those that are jealous of him and want bad for him:

در سحر سخن چنان تمامم
کایینه غیب گشت نامم
شمشیر زبانم از فصیحی
دارد سر معجز مسیحی

Note both "Sehr" (magic) was also mentioned in the part about reason for writing this book where he is called Jadooyeh Sokhan (magical words). Here in the above verses, again Nezami mentions himself as Fasih.

We note that the story of Leyli o Majnoon would not be a Persian story known by the Dehqans who were repositories of ancient Iranian lores. Furthermore, as Nezami pointed out, before him other poets did not touch the story and the story lacked the elements to make it eloquent. Indeed according to these scholars, Nizami was part of the land owning Dehqan class and he refers to himself as the Persian Dehqan.

For example Dr. Behruz Servatiyan also provides commentary on the above verse where Nezami Ganjavi calls himself the Persian Dehqan:

دهقان فصیح پارسی زاد: نظامی گنجهای
عرب:مجنون و پدر او
یادداشت- سرآغاز بندهای لیلی و مجنون همه به توضیحی کنایی آراسته است و شاعر بالکنایه اشاره میکند که این بخش از خود اوست یا در داستان اصلی و به زبان عربی آمده است. بیت اول بند 36 از اهمیت به سزایی از نظر تاریخ تحقیق در زندگی و آثار نظامی برخوردار است و آن اینکه شاعر شغل و موقعیت اجتماعی خود را که «دهقان» بوده است و همچنین نژاد او که خود را «پارسی زاده» مینامد، به تصریح بیان داشته و هیچگونه تردیدی در صحت بیت و مطلب نیست و با تحقیق دربارهی دهقانان قرن ششم در آذربایجان و بررسی "پارسی" که آیا نظر او «ایرانی» است یا زبان «پارسی» و یا هر دو، گوشهای از حیات و موقعیت اجتماعی شاعر آشکار میگردد.

(Servatiyan, Behruz. “Lili o Majnoon”, criticial edition and commentary. Amir Kabir publishers, 2008. Pg 424)

Dr. Servatiyan mentions that in each section of Lili o Majnoon, Nezami hints at Nezami’s source. Here there is no doubt that he is mentioning himself and the word Parsi-Zaadeh and Dehqan is a reference to his lineage.

We also note that he uses Parsi-Zadegaan for Persian in another verse in Haft Paykar:

تازیان را دهد ولایت و گنج
پارسیزادگان رسند به رنج
(هفت پیکر)

Furthermore, Nezami was awarded a village by the name Hamdooniyan (an Iranian name) for the Khusraw and Shirin. This leads further credence that he was already a minor land owner from the Dehqan class and indeed it were the Dehqans like Ferdowsi and Nezami who kept the Iranian traditions alive. This could also explain why he as constantly referred to himself as “Shahrband” (someone that cannot leave the area) as he had personal responsibilities.

We have already overviewed the Iranian land-owning class of Dehqans in the section on Qatran Tabrizi. All three poets, Qatran Tabrizi, Nizami Ganjavi and Ferdowsi Tusi were also inheritors of ancient Persian history, culture and myths, and it was the Dehqan class who preserved much of this history. It is natural for Nezami to for example consider the story of Khusraw and Shirin the sweetest story in existence and naturally choose such a story. Or his voluntary choosing of the story of Haft Paykar or his attachment to Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh. All of this in our opinion is due to the fact that he belonged to the noble Iranian Dehqan class and of course he already had few lands around Ganja and came from a well off family which means he was not just a descendant of this class but rather this class was still present at that time.

Iranian Culture

And in terms of Culture, all of Nezami's contribution is to the Persian language, literature and civilization. Three of his stories are also about pre-Islamic Iran and have been taken from the Shahnameh.

Viewpoints of Navai and a perspective upon culture 350 Nizami and the inheritance of Ferdowsi’s throne 354 Cultural Content of the works of Nizami Ganjavi 361 Nizami Ganjavi’s attachment to Iran 373

Some excerpts from the article

چون شیر به خود سپهشکن باش
فرزند خصال خویشتن باش

One way of distinguishing which civilization Nizami Ganjavi belongs to (Turkic or Iranian) is to simply review his culture background, folklore, myths and his cultural orientation and contribution. Culture after all is the ultimate indicator of modern ethnicities. We note that unlike a scientist who writes in Latin or English, a poet is closely tied to the culture he grew up in, learns from and contributes to. Specially, if the poet’s material is based upon the culture he contributes to. With this regard, none of the five jewels of Nizami Ganjavi have anything to do with Turkic/Oghuz civilization. These jewels are based on Iranian cultural materials. Ultimately, Nizami’s legacy is based upon his work, as he himself has claimed so many times. It has nothing to do with his father (who we showed was most certainly Iranian) who he lost early in his life and was raised by his Kurdish maternal uncle. Poetry unlike scientific works or many novels is tied eternally to the language it is composed in and language is the major difference between various cultures.

If the only thing that justifies calling Nezami Ganjavi a “Turkic poet” rather than Iranian poet of Iranian civilization is the wrongfully alleged (and as we showed in this article without any basis) ethnicity of his father whom he lost very early in his life, then that reasoning does not hold at all with regards to Nizami Ganjavi’s culture. We should note for example that three Azerbaijani-Turkic poets were not of Oghuz father line ancestry. That is Nasimi, Ismail I of Safavids and Shahriyar are not Azerbaijani-Turkic poets because of their lineage but rather because of their culture.

Else both Nasimi and Shahriyar are Seyyeds which means their father line goes back to the Prophet Muhammad, but no one would classify them as “Arab poets”. The same is true of Esmail I, the founder of Safavids, whose lineage is traced back to Shaykh Safi al-Din Ardabili and from there to Piruz Shah Zarin Kolah the Kurd of Sanjan. Oldest preserved manuscript about Shaykh Safi al-Din Ardabili dating prior to the Safavid control of Iran clearly states his ancestry as Kurdish. But by no means this makes Ismail I a “Kurdish poet”. The same is true of the Russian poet Pushkin, whose father line was Ethiopian, but no one has called him an “Ethiopian poet”. However these cases are different than Nezami since Nezami had Iranian ancestry on both sides. However, while it is certain that Nezami Ganjavi was Iranian from both sides, it is not the reason why he is an Iranian cultural icon and Persian poet. Nizami Ganjavi is Iranian Persian poet and part of Iranian civilization because of culture, his impact on Persian poetry and the untranslatable language of poetry he used. Cultural contribution is the major indicator of the poet’s heritage and why he is known universally as a Persian poet in non-political academic writings.

Viewpoints of Navai and a perspective upon culture

In his very informative book “The Turkish State and History: Clio Meets the Grey Wolf”(1991), Professor Speros Vyrona takes issue with history writing of some nationalist Turkish authors who claim Iranian scientists such as Avicenna, Ghazali and others as Turkic. We note that both Ghazali Tusi (same city as Ferdowsi) and Avicenna have also very important works in Persian. Besides the fact that Avicenna has mentioned that the only languages he knows are Persian and Arabic, and besides the fact that in one of his works, he says that Turks and Blacks of his time, due to living in far away and harsh climates, are far away from knowledge and logic and are meant to serve the people of the city of knowledge:

مثلاً در كتاب اشارات كه در حكمت بعد از شفا مهمترين مصنفات اوست در باب منطق در اشارهء ششم آنجا كه تحقيق در قضيهء سالبهء كليه ميكند ميگويد: لكن اللغات التى نعرفها قد خلت فى عاداتها عن استعمال النفى على هذه الصورة.... فيقولون بالعربية لاشى‌ء من ح‍ ب... و كذلك ما يقال فى فصيح لغة‌الفرس هيچ ح‍ ب نيست. ملاحظه بفرمائيد كه ابتدا ميگويد: «در زبانهائى كه ما ميدانيم، آنگاه مثال از عربى ميزند سپس از زبان فارسى شاهد مى‌آورد و عين عبارت را نقل ميكند كه « هيچ ح‍ ب نيست» و اگر زبان ديگر هم ميدانست البته ميگفت در آن زبان چگونه ميگويند. (لغتنامه دهخدا ابوعلی سینا)

Thus Ibn Sina states: “In the languages we know … in Arabic it is La-shayy .. and in Persian it is Hich Nist”. Thus if Ibn Sina knew any other languages, he would have mentioned it.

شيخ‌الرئيس ابن سينا در آخر الهيات كتاب شفا با ذكر جمله «المدينه‌الفاضله”مي‌نويسد: «و انه لابد من ناس يخدمون الناس، فيجب ان يكون هؤلا يجبرون علي خدمه اهل المدينه الفاضله، و كذلك من كان من الناس بعيداً عن تلقي الفاضيله فهم عبيد بالطبع، نثل الترك والزنج، و بالجمله الذين نشأوا في غير اقاليم الشريفه التي اكثر احوالها ان ينشأفيها حسنه الامزجه صحيحه القرايح و العقول». حاصل معني است كه ابن سينا مي‌خواهد بگويد تركان و زنگيان آن عصر كه طبعاً عبيد و بنده بشمار مي‌رفتند و كساني كه در سرزمينهاي ناسازگار كه پرورنده قريحه صحيح و عقول سليم نيست، زندگي مي‌كنند از فضيلت دورند و مجبور به خدمت اهل مدينه فاضله مي‌باشند.

Avicenna in the book of “The Healing: (Ash-Shifa) in Chapter 5 (Concerning the caliph and Imam: the necessity of obeying them. Remarks on politics, transactions and morals) states: “…As for the enemies of those who oppose his laws, the legislator must decree waging war against them and destroying them, after calling on them to accept the truth. Their property and women must be declared free for the spoil. For when such property and women are not administered according to the constitution of the virtuous city, they will not bring about the good for which the property and women are sought. Rather, these would contribute to corruption and evil. Since some men have to serve others, such people must be forced to serve the people of the just city. The same applies to people not very capable of acquiring virtue. For these are slaves by nature as, for example, the Turks and Zinjis and in general those who do not grow up in noble climes where the condition for the most part are such that nations of good temperament, innate intelligence and sound minds thrive”(Chris Brown, Terry Nardin, Nicholas J. Rengger, “(International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War”, Published by Cambridge University Press, 2002, pg 156-157).

Despite these clear proofs, Professor Vyrona does not bother with racial argument and puts the emphasis on culture.

Professor Vyrona states: Even if one were to assume that all three of these philosophers had been Turks by origin one still could not say either: (a) That their cultural heritage and proclivity were due to their alleged ethnic affiliation. They came to know Islamic philosophy, science, medicine within a Muslim and Arabo-Persian cultural milieu and in the Arabic language. Their ethnicity, whatever it might or might not have been, is irrelevant in this matter; or (b), one could not say that the particular careers of these three men within philosophy had any effect on the mass of Turks entering the Islamic world and Anatolia in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, since they were by and large nomads, illiterate and without any widespread tradition of written culture in the Turkish language.

Indeed without the Sassanid civilization, an Islamic milieu would have been impossible. Many works were translated from Pahlavi and many authors wrote scientific works in Persian and Arabic. Yet the culture of the Oghuz/Turkic nomads had absolutely no influence either on Nizami or the Islamic-Iranian Golden age of culture. Turkish dynasties like the Seljuqs and Ghaznavids were rapidly Iranified.

For example: Here one might bear in mind that non-Persian dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Saljuqs and Ilkhanids were rapidly to adopt the Persian language and have their origins traced back to the ancient kings of Persia rather than to Turkish heroes or Muslim saints (Amir-Moezzi, M.A “Shahrbanu”, Encyclopaedia Iranica.).

Not a single work in Turkish was produced in Iran or Caucasus under these two and similar Turkic dynasties up to at least the Mongol era. We have already brought examples from Seljuqs. On the Ghaznavids one does not have to look what these scholars say (David Christian, “A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia”, Blackwell Publishing, 1998. pg 370: “Though Turkic in origin and, apparently in speech, Alp Tegin, Sebuk Tegin and Mahmud were all thoroughly Persianized”). With this regard, we can also point to one of the earliest “Turkish nationalists”. That is Alisher Navai, who wrote an interesting (from the point of view of classical Turkish nationalism although he was not a linguist) book in order to try to prove that the “Turkish” language is superior to Persian. The book was the last work written by Navai.

Robert Devereux (tr.), “Judgment of Two Languages; Muhakamat Al-Lughatain By Mir ‘Ali Shir Nawai”; Introduction, Translation and Notes: Leiden (E.J. Brill), 1966.

“He (Nawai) found Chagatai an unrefined language of tribesmen and he left it a language recognized and accepted as a suitable medium for literature. This contribution was not by happenstance. Nawa’i was a strong Turkish patriot and nationalist, which sentiments expressed themselves as linguistic chauvinism. As he grew older Nawa’i came to feel that real Turkish sovereignty would arrive only when Turkish (Chagatai) was used as the state language and when its literature was written in that idiom. His dream had perhaps not been fully realized by the time of his death, but a good start had been made and, in later years, thanks to his contribution, Chagatai did ascend to the heights he believed it deserved. … In the first half, Nawa’i proclaims in extravagant terms that Turkish - he never uses the term Chagatai - is not only a proper literary language but is actually superior to Persian for that purpose. He then devotes the remainder of the essay to a glowing - modesty is not one of his virtues - account of his own literary works, designed to convince the reader that his view of the comparative merits of Turkish and Persian stemmed from a profound knowledge of both languages and not merely from prejudice inspired by his Turkish background. Any linguist of today who reads the essay will inevitably conclude that Nawa’i argued his case poorly, for his principal argument is that the Turkish lexicon contained many words for which the Persians had no exact equivalents and that Persian-speakers had therefore to use the Turkish words. This is a weak reed on which to lean, for it is the rare language indeed that contains no loan words. In any case, the beauty of a language and its merit as a literary medium depend less on size of vocabulary and purity of etymology than on the euphony, expressiveness and malleability of those words that its lexicon does include. Moreover, even if Nawa’i’s thesis were to be accepted as valid, he destroyed his own case by the lavish use, no doubt unknowingly, of non-Turkish words even while ridiculing the Persians for their need to borrow Turkish words. The present writer has not made a word count of Nawa’i’s text, but he would estimate conservatively that at least one-half of the words used by Nawa’i in the essay are Arabic or Persian in origin.” (Robert Devereux (tr.), “Judgment of Two Languages; Muhakamat Al-Lughatain By Mir ‘Ali Shir Nawai”; Introduction, Translation and Notes: Leiden (E.J. Brill, 1966)

Thus Nawai’s book is highly nationalistic for its own time, when modern nationalism based on the European model was not developed yet. It is really a classical form of ‘Assabbiyya which the Iranian Shu’abbiyah movement can be called an example of. But the Shu’abbiyah movement was widely popular and took many forms including important revolts, where-as the ideas of Nawai seemed not to have the same mass appeal during his own time.

Navai mentions: He [Nuh] made Sam, whom they call the Father of the Persians, the ruler of the lands of Iran and Turan, and he sent Ham, who is called the Father of the Hindus, to Hindistan. The children of these three sons of the Prophet spread and multiplied in the places named. The son of Yafith was the progenitor of the Turks.

Interestingly enough, Navai who was aware of Turkic folklore, differentiates between the origin of Turks and the lands of Turan. Only in the last 100 years, by studying Avesta and Pahlavi, have scholars realized that the Turanians of Shahnameh have no relation to Turks. In words of Bosworth: “Hence as Kowalski has pointed out, a Turcologist seeking for information in the Shahnama on the primitive culture of the Turks would definitely be disappointed.” (Bosworth, C. E. “Barbarian Incursions: The Coming of the Turks into the Islamic World.” In Islamic Civilization . Edited by D. S. Richards. Oxford, 1973.)

This issue is also discussed in the Appendix. Navai believed adamantly in the superiority of his language (just like many nationalists believe in the superiority of their language): “Turkish is much superior to Persian as regards the formation of words and expressions and contains nuances and eloquences which, God willing, shall be explained at the proper place.”(Robert Devereux (tr.), “Judgment of Two Languages; Muhakamat Al-Lughatain, pg 5)

Thus Navai was truly a Turkish nationalist for his day and age. Nevertheless, what is interesting is that he considers Seljuqs of Persian ethnicity and of course he considers Nizami/Ferdowsi and many others as Persian poets (here in the ethnic sense since he mentions even the Seljuqs as Persian rulers). “Then Persian rulers won independence in some climes and territories, whereupon Persian poets appeared: Khaqani and Anwari and Kamal Isma’il and Zahir and Salman for qasidas; Firdawsi (Master of Knowledge), Nizami (the Incomparable) and Mir Khusraw (Sorcerer of India) for mathnawis; and Sa’di (Inventor of Time) and Hafiz (Non-pareil of the Century) for ghazals. All of them have already been discussed and their qualities noted, so there is no need to extend my words, which men of learning would not find seemly. Amongst Persian rulers also there have been great and worthy rulers and high-ranking commanders of vast armies, such as Sultan Tughrul and Shah Shuja’, who wrote brilliant couplets and beautiful ghazals that were famous in their day and known throughout the world. Then the land passed from the Arab and Persian rulers to Turkish khans. From the time of Hulagu to the end of the reign of Timur and his son and successor, Shahrukh, many Turkish poets appeared, and from amongst the sons and grandsons of these rulers came sultans of gentle temperaments. The poets were al-Sakkaki and Haydar Khwarazmi and Atayi and Muqimi and Amir and Yaqini and Gadayi. But none of them was comparable to the Persian poets I have named.” (Robert Devereux (tr.), “Judgment of Two Languages; Muhakamat Al-Lughatain, pg 40-41)

Thus for Navai, culture was the differentiating factor than possible ethnicity which had became more convoluted as Muslims intermarried. The Seljuqs who considered themselves descendants of Sassanid kings and adopted Persian language and married within Iranian families were Persianized enough to be considered Persians by Navai. I believe that the way Navai saw ethnicity in his own era is similar or the same as that of the era of Nezami. That is ethnicity was defined by language and culture foremost.

The question of which civilization, Turkic or Iranian does Nizami Ganjavi belong to, is really not a serious question. The answer is obvious, even if the biggest superpower like the USSR tried to falsify history and attempted to detach Nizami Ganjavi from Iranian literature and civilization. All one has to do is actually read Nizami Ganjavi, in his original language, and read his masterpieces like Haft Paykar or Khusraw o Shirin. They have nothing to do with Turkic civilization and are parts of the culture of Sassanid Iran, originally expanded upon by Ferdowsi and then other later poets. Despite the obvious answer to this simple question, we shall provide a short review of these works.

Nizami and Ferdowsi

As we mentioned already, Nizami Ganjavi advises the son of Shirwanshah to read the Shahnameh, has praised Ferdowsi, has used Shahnameh as his main source for different romantic epics, considered himself as successor to Ferdowsi and according to some scholars: “it seems that Nizami’s favorite pastime was reading Firdawsi’s monumental epic Shahnameh (The book of Kings)”(Chelkowsi).

Nezami Ganjavi has taken verses from the Shahnameh as well or has slightly modified them. For a famous example: فردوسی: چنان دان که شاهی و پیغمبری
دو گوهر بود در یک انگشتری

نظامی: نزد خرد شاهی و پیغمبری
چو دو نگین است در انگشتری

فردوسی: جهان را بلندی و پستی تویی
ندانم چی ای هر چه هستی تویی

نظامی: همه نیستند آنچه هستی تویی
پناه بلندی و پستی تویی

Nizami Ganjavi considered himself a successor and inheritor of Ferdowsi:

در بخش «خطاب زمین بوس”اقبال نامه:

ز کاس نظامی یکی طاس می
خوری هم به آیین کاوس کی
ستانی بدان طاس طوسی نواز
حق شاهنامه ز محمود باز
دو وارث شمار از دو کان کهن
تو را در سخا و مرا در سخن
به وامی که ناداده باشد نخست
حق وارث از وارث آید درست
من آن گفته‌ام که آنچنان کس نگفت
تو آن کن که آن نیز نتوان نهفت

The meaning of these four verses is as follows:

“ From the wine cup of Nizami, take a cup and drink in the manner of the Kayanid (Achaemenid) Kings. Listen to these eloquent words which refresh the memory of Ferdowsi. Seek the rights of Ferdowsi from Mahmud, and give it to me (Nizami), since I am the inheritor of Ferdowsi and you are the inheritor of Mahmud. And what Mahmud has not given to Ferdowsi, his successor will give to the successor of Ferdowsi. ”

A relatively Turkic nationalist view is mentioned here: http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai142_folder/142_articles/142_koroghlu_why.html (Betty Blair, Why Hajibeyov wrote the Opera Koroghlu, Azerbaijan International, Summer 2006) “The original opera had been based on “Kaveh, the Blacksmith”. However, such a plot would absolutely have jeopardized their lives. First of all, it was based on a foreign tale: Kaveh was a mythical figure of ancient Persia, memorialized by 10th century Ferdowsi in Persian verse in the “Shahnameh” (Book of the Kings)”

Thus the Shahnameh in reality has nothing to do with Turkic civilization and it is considered a foreign tale for Turkic-minded nationalists. Turkish folklore, like Oghuz-Nama, Dede Qorqod and etc., has no relationship with the Shahnameh. The Shahnameh is a statement of Iranian patriotism, a product of the Shu’ubbiya movement and a testament of Iranian civilization. It glorifies Iran and it is centered on Iran. The epics of Shahnameh are grounded in the Iranian civilization and are obviously not part of Turkic-Oghuz culture. Indeed after the era of modern Turkic nationalism, many Turkish nationalists looked towards the Shahnameh with enmity. Among them, one can mention the Varliq magazine which has many times criticized Ferdowsi while attempting to detach Nizami Ganjavi from Iranian civilization and attach him into Turkic civilization. Or one can simply check recent pictures where some Persian books were burned by some pro-Turkist nationalists in Iran. This author believes that any sort of ethnic nationalism is very dangerous, where-as feeling of patriotism on the style of George Washington is defensive. Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh was also defensive and patriotic in the sense that for him, Iran was being overrun by non-Iranian invaders.

Nizami Ganjavi also is completely influenced and absorbed by the Shahnameh. There is absolutely no mention of any Turkic folklore or tales by Nizami Ganjavi. He has mentioned Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh in four of his five books/stories. اندر پژوهش خسرو و شیرین

حکیمی که این حکایت شرح کردست
حدیث عشق ازیشان طرح کردست
چو در شصت اوفتادش زندگانی
خدنگ افتادش از شست جوانی
به عشقی در که شست آمد پسندش
سخن گفتن نیامد سودمندش
نگفتم هرچه دانا گفت از آغاز
که فرخ نیست گفتن گفته را باز

Nizami calls Ferdowsi, sage (Hakim) and Daanaa (wise, the knowledgeable). He also mentions that since Ferdowsi was in his sixties, he did not expand upon the romantic nature of the story (since at that age romance did not suit him), where-as Nizami will expand upon it. Khusraw the Sassanid King and his Christian wife Shirin (note the monotheism of Shirin throughout the whole story as well as the fact that the historical Shirin was a Christian) have no relationship with Turkish folklore and culture. Nizami Ganjavi mentions:

حدیث خسرو و شیرین نهان نیست
وزان شیرینتر الحق داستان نیست

Thus Nizami Ganjavi considers the story of Khusraw and Shirin to be the sweetest story he knows. If Nizami Ganjavi had derived any influence from Turkic civilization, he would have chosen one of his stories based on themes of that civilization. But as we see, this was not so and he considers the Iranian folkloric story of Khusraw and Shirin to be the most beloved story of his civilization. He chose a Sassanid based story and he has given us great detail about Iran’s ancient culture.

In his Eskandarnama, Nizami again mentions Ferdowsi:

مگوی آنچه دانای پیشینه گفت
که در در نشاید دو سوراخ سفت

We note again, Nizami uses the term “Daanaa” (Wise, knowledgeable) for Ferdowsi. And again he mentions Ferdowsi as the “great wise discourse-writer who decorated words like a new bride”.

از ان خسروی می که در جام اوست
شرف نامهی خسروان نام اوست
سخنگوی پیشینه دانای طوس
که آراست روی سخن چون عروس
در آن نامه کان گوهر سفته راند
بسی گفتنیهای ناگفته ماند
اگر هر چه بشنیدی از باستان
بگفتی دراز آمدی داستان
نگفت آنچه رغب پذیرش نبود
همان گفت کز وی گزیرش نبود
دگر از پی دوستان زله کرد
که حلوا به تنها نشایست خورد
نظامی که در رشته گوهر کشید
قلم دیدهها را قلم درکشید
بناسفته دری که در گنج یافت
ترازوی خود را گهرسنج یافت
شرفنامه را فرخ آوازه کرد
حدیث کهن را بدو تازه کرد

As previously mentioned, according to Professor Chelkowsi: It seems that Nizami’s favorite pastime was reading Firdawsi’s monumental epic Shahnameh (The book of Kings). Firdawsi’s treatment of Alexander in this great heroic poem was by no means negligible, but in Nizami’s opinion it was not complete and he wanted to write a poetic supplement to it. After several years of research he gave up this idea and decided that the subject called for a new and independent work. He still, however, acknowledged his indebtedness to his great master, Firdawsi, and considered himself a respectful follower of that literary pioneer. He, therefore, chose for the book of Alexander one heroic epic verse known as Mutaqarib, which Firdawsi employed in his Shahnameh. (Chelkowski, P. “Nizami’s Iskandarnameh:”in Colloquio sul poeta persiano Nizami e la leggenda iranica di Alessandro magno, Roma,1977).

In the Haft Paykar, again Nizami mentions Ferdowsi and praises him:

هرچه تاریخ شهریان بود
در یکی نامه اختیار آن بود
چابک اندیشهی رسیده نخست
همه را نظم داده بود درست
مانده زان لعل ریزه لختی گرد
هر یکی زان قراضه چیزی کرد

Translation: All chronicles of king of yore
Were gathered in one book lore
Already one of the keenest minds
Had ordered its verse refined
From that, some Ruby dust remained
Shards from which others sometimes feigned

Finally in the Layli o Majnoon, despite its Arabic origin (although the story has been mentioned since the time of Rudaki in Persian), Nizami Ganjavi again alludes to the Shahnameh:

هم نامه خسروان بخوانی
هم گفته بخردان بدانی

After paying homage to the son of Shirvanshah, “the relationship between Shirwanshah and his son, Manuchihr, is mentioned in chapter eight. Nizami advises the king’s son to read Firdausi’s Shahnama and to remember the pithy sayings of the wise. Nizami overtly refers to the didactic aspect of his poem. He promises the prince that in his poem there is a “treasure concealed in a casket.” He considers the poem as his daughter, a beautiful maiden, whom he presents to the royal family. He adds that even if the prince does not have any regard for her father, he might look with kindness on her brother, that is, on Nizami’s son. In this subtle way, Nizami not only entrusts his son to prince Manuchihr, he also draws the prince’s attention to the poem’s didactic nature”. (Seyed-Gohrab, Ali Asghar, Layli and Majnun: Madness and Mystic Longing , Brill Studies in Middle Eastern literature, Jun 2003, pg 276).

The only other work which Nizami Ganjavi does not mention Ferdowsi has ample enough stories about ancient Persian Kings, and uses Shahnameh imagery and also Nizami Ganjavi mentions the Persian poet Sanai in it.

According to Peter Chelkowsi: He was looking for universal justice, and is trying to protect the poor and humble people and to put under scrutiny the excesses of the powerful of the world. The guidelines for people in the poem are accompanied by warnings of the transitory nature of life. Makhzan al-Asrar is an emulation of Sanai’s Hadikat al-Hakika, and Nizami acknowledges this but stresses his own superiority. The similarities between Sanai’s poem and Nizami’s are in the ethico-philosophical genre, but Nizami used a different metre and organised the whole poem in a different way. (Encyclopedia of Islam, “Nizami”, P. Chelkowski).

Among the multitude of references and symbolism from the Shahnameh, one can mention the more famous characters and concepts of the Shahnameh. For example:

Farr(فره),
For example on Farr, the eminent Professor Gheraldo Gnoli writes: “FARR(AH),XᵛARƎNAH, literally, “glory,” according to the most likely etymology and the semantic function reconstructed from its occurrence in various contexts and phases of the Iranian languages. In all Iranian dialects the form had initial f-, except Avestan and Pahlavi, in which we find initial xᵛ- (hṷ-): xᵛarənah- and xwarrah (cf. NPers. ḵorra, below). (Encyclopedia Iranica, “Farr(ah)”, Gherado Gnoli)

Each of these names and concepts has a deeply rooted historical or philosophical meaning in Iranian civilization and are mentioned in Nezami’s work:

Simorgh (Mythical Iranian bird mentioned in Avesta),
Rustam (The most famous Iranian Hero in Shahnameh),
Fariborz (The son of Rustam)
Darafsh Kawiyaani (The flag of Kaveh, symbol of Iranian nation),
Fereydun(legendary ancestor of Iranians),
Anushirawan (Famous Sassanid King),
Esfandyaar (Great legendary Hero of Avesta and Shahnameh, see also the section under Nezami’s mother where we delved into a verse of Nezami),
Zand/Avesta (Zoroastrian holy texts attributed to Zoroaster),
Zahak (Bivarasb the villian in Shahnameh),
Zardosht(Prophet),
Siyavash(Iranian Martyr),
Sikandar(Alexander mentioned extensively in the Shahnameh),
Siamak (The son of Kayumarth who was killed by Deamons/Divs) ,
Div (“Demons”),
Bahram Gur (celebrated Sassanid King),
Bahram Chubin (Celebrated Sassanid General),
Afrasiyab (Famous villain in the Shahnameh of Turanian origin (an Iranian tribe), he is also mentioned in the Avesta),
Zaal (the father of Rustam who was abandoned by Saam but saved by the Simorgh and later on reclaimed by Saam),
Saam(the Father of Zaal),
Shirin (Armenian/Christian princess according to later poets but also mentioned in the Shahnameh as a beloved of Khusraw and a historical figure in Sassanid court),
Farhad (a legend both in the Shahnameh and in Iranian history from the Sassanid time who falls in love with Shirin),
Kayanids (Royal Iranian dynasty),
Parviz(victorious and another name of Khusraw),
Nard (Backgammon whose history is given in the Shahnameh and is considered to be of Iranian origin),
Magi (Zoroastrian Priest),
Kisra/Khusraw (Sassanid Kings),
Kayumarth(the Adam of Zoroastrianism and the first King in Shahnameh),
Kay-Qubad (first Kayanid King),
Kay-Khusraw(great mystic/hero/king of the Shahnameh),
Kay-Kavus(father of Siyavash and a Kayanid King),
Jamshid(great mythical King in the Shahnameh and Zoroastrian texts),
Iraj(Father of Iranians in Shahnameh and one of the sons of Fereydun.),
Giv(a famous hero in the Shahnameh),
Gushtasp(famous hero and legendary ancestor of Rustam),
Dehqan (Iranian),
Darius/Dara (name of several Kayanid/Achaemenid kings),
Bistun(the famous point in Kermanshah),
Bahman (Zoroastrian and Shahnameh King and son of Esfandyar),
Artang (the art work of Mani), Ardeshir Babakan (founder of Sassanids),
Arash (famous Iranian Hero and archer who gave up life for Iran),
Barbad (famous Sassanid musician),
Nakisa (famous Sassanid musician),
Kalila o Demna (famous stories brought by the Vizir of Anushirawan from India and expanded by Persian stories).
…

Indeed, without the Shahnameh and its symbolism, one would simply not understand the poetry of Nizami Ganjavi. Neither would there have been a Nizami Ganjavi without previous Persian poets like Ferdowsi, Khaqani, Sanai, Asadi Tusi and etc. It is clear that Nizami continued upon the traditions of Iranian civilization and culture. Besides his praise of the Shahnameh and Ferdowsi, an important note should be mentioned with regards to the general view of the Shahnameh at the time. The Shahnameh among religious orthodox Muslims, even of Iranian background, was sometimes belittled due to it being in praise of Iranian-Zoroastrian lore.

In the next section, we point to the fact that Nizami Ganjavi is criticized by his friend for reviving the stories of Zoroastrians. As Professor Julia Meysami has pointed out: “The Haft Paykar blends historical and legendary materials concerning the pre-Islamic Iranian past with the Islamic beliefs of esoteric symbolism. Over a century earlier, Firdawsi had in his Shahnama (‘Book of Kings’; c 1010) chronicled the history of Iranian monarchy from its mythical beginnings to the defeat of the Sassanians by the Muslim Arabs in 637, incorporating materials drawn from popular legend and saga as well as panegyrics in which he presented the poem’s dedicatee, Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 997-1030), as embodying both Iranian and Islamic kingship. But Mahmud received the work coolly; and both historians and panegyrists of this and early Seljuk period speak slightingly of the ‘false’ and fabulous history represented by the Shahnama. Nizami both recuperates and reworks Firdawsi’s treatment of the Iranian past to create a different sort of poem, one that reflects the concern of his age.” (Haft Paykar by Julia Meysami pg XXIII).

Indeed Ferdowsi was not buried in a Muslim cemetery on the account of being a Shi’i (Rafidhi), composing Zoroastrian stories and praising Zoroastrians. The Muslim Imam according to the popular folklore refused to say prayer on his dead body before his burial when he passed away. Some Sunni and even Shi’i (despite Ferdowsi being Shi’i) authorities considered his book which was based on the Irano-Zoroastrian culture as the false stories of Zoroastrians, without use and something to be avoided.

بعدها بسياري از عالمان شيعه و سني، فردوسي را به اين دليل که عمري ستايش گبرکان کرده، مورد ملامت قرار دادند.براي او ايران ايران است، بدون هيچ قيد و بندي. شيخ حسن کاشي در سال 708 هجري در اين باره گفت:

اي پسر قصه مجاز مخوان
الحذر الحذر ز خواندن آن
چند خواني کتاب شهنامه
ياد کن زود زين گنه نامه
چند گويي حديث رستم زال
لعب و بيهوده دروغ محال
ذکر گبران و اهل استوران
چند خواني تو بر مسلمانان

Despite the fact that there is no doubt today that Ferdowsi was a Muslim, he was chastised severely for revival of Zoroastrian/Iranian/Sassanid stories which today forms the major pillar of the Iranian identity. With this regard, Nizami Ganjavi advises others to read the Shahnameh, has praised the Shahnameh, has praised Ferdowsi and has considered himself a successor of Ferdowsi. Thus the deep connection between Nizami Ganjavi’s culture/work and the Shahnameh/Ferdowsi again puts Nizami Ganjavi squarely in the Iranian cultural world and not in the Turco-Oghuz cultural world. Indeed one feels Ferdowsi had people like Nizami in mind when he stated:

تو این را دروغ و فسانه مدان
به یکسان روش در زمانه مدان
از او هر چه اندر خورد با خرد
دگر بر ره رمز معنی برد

Cultural content of Nezami's work

That is an extensive section in our work but we show Nezami's culture is firmly rooted in Iranian culture and Persian poets who came before him.

Nezami refers to his rulers as rulers of Iran

Nizami praises Iran and considers the kings that ruled around his era to be Kings of Iran and the Persian lands. Thus this very important fact again shows the Muslims of the area were at that time mainly Iranians These praises for the land of Iran and the rulers as the Kings of Persia are direct. What is interesting is that at least three different and rival dynasties are praised as rulers of Iran/Persia and their land is considered as part of Persia/Iran. This shows that despite the fact that there was not a unifying force through these lands (the Seljuqs ruling nominally), there was a unifying cultural force which was that of the Irano-Islamic civilization.

In the Haft Paykar, Nizami Ganjavi, when addressing the Ahmadili ruler (known as Atabakan-e-Maragheh in later history where Maragheh is a city in the Iranian province of East Azarbaijan), he praises the land of Iran as the best land in the World:

همه عالم تن است و ایران
نیست گوینده زین قیاس خجل
چون که ایران دل زمین باشد
دل ز تن به بود یقین باشد
زان ولایت که مهتران دارند
بهترین جای بهتران دارند

The World’s a body, Iran its heart
No shame to him who says such a word
Iran, the world’s most precious heart,
Excels the body, there is no doubt
Among the realms the kings posses
The best domain goes to the best
(Translation by Professor Julia Meysami from her Haft Paykar).

Note the similarity with that of the Avestan concept where the land of Iran was the center of the seven lands and the one blessed by Ahura Mazda.

In the Khusraw o Shirin, Nizami Ganjavi, when addressing the ruler Shams al-Din Muhammad Ildigoz (the dynasty being later known as the Atabakan-e-Azerbaijan and ruling parts of Arran and Azerbaijan and extending further in Western Persia as its height), mentions:

در آن بخشش که رحمت عام کردند
دو صاحب را محمد نام کردند
یکی ختم نبوت گشته ذاتش
یکی ختم ممالک بر حیاتش
یکی برج عرب را تا ابد ماه
یکی ملک عجم را جاودان شاه

In that day that they bestowed mercy upon all,
Two great ones were given the name Muhammad,
One who’s pure essence was the seal of prophecy,
The other who is the Kingdom’s Seal, in his own days
One whose house/zodiac is moon of the Arabs
The other who is the everlasting Shah of Realm of Persians

In praising the rulers of Shirwan (who sometimes extended their rule beyond Shirwan), Nizami again mentions:

این نامه نغز گفته بهتر
طاووس جوانه جفته بهتر
خاصه ملکی چو شاه شروان
شروان چه که شهریار ایران

This book is better to be written
A young peacock is better to have a mate
Specially for a king like the Shah of Shirwan
Not only Shirwan, but the Shahriyar (Prince, Ruler) of all Iran

Nizami Ganjavi calls upon the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH &HP):

سوی عجم ران منشین در عرب
زرده روز اینک و شبدیز شب
ملک برآرای و جهان تازه کن
هردو جهان را پر از آوازه کن

Do not stay in Arabia, come to Persia
Here are the light steeds of night and day

Some important quotes

Yo'av Karny states:

“ In 1991 he published a translation into Khynalug of the famous medieval poet Nezami, who is known as Persian but is claimed by Azeri nationalists as their own. ”

Igor M. Diakonov states:

“ "There were slight problems with Nizami - first of all he was not Azeri but Persian (Iranian) poet, and though he lived in presently Azerbaijani city of Ganja, which, like many cities in the region, had Iranian population in Middle Ages. Russian:Перед войной отгремел юбилей армянского эпоса Давида Сасунского (дата которого вообще-то неизвестна) – хвостик этого я захватил в 1939 г. во время экспедиции на раскопки Кармир-блура. А сейчас в Азербайджане готовился юбилей великого поэта Низами. С Низами была некоторая небольшая неловкость: во-первых, он был не азербайджанский, а персидский (иранский) поэт, хотя жил он в ныне азербайджанском городе Гяндже, которая, как и большинство здешних городов, имела в Средние века иранское.". ”

The Russian philologist Ivan Mikhailovich Steblin-Kamensky, Professor and the Dean of the Oriental Department of Saint Petersburg University comments:

“ "Мы готовили таких специалистов, но, как показывает наше с ними общение, там очень много националистических тенденций, научных фальсификаций. Видимо, это связано с первыми годами самостоятельности. В их трудах присутствует националистическое начало, нет объективного взгляда, научного понимания проблем, хода исторического развития. Подчас – откровенная фальсификация. Например, Низами, памятник которому воздвигнут на Каменноостровском проспекте, объявляется великим азербайджанским поэтом. Хотя он по-азербайджански даже не говорил. А обосновывают это тем, что он жил на территории нынешнего Азербайджана – но ведь Низами писал свои стихи и поэмы на персидском языке! Translation:We trained such specialists, but, as shown by our communication with them, there are a lot of nationalistic tendencies there and academic fraud. Apparently it's related to the first years of independence. Their works include nationalist beginnings. Objective perspective, scientific understanding of the problems and timeline of historical developments are lacking. Sometimes there is an outright falsification. For example, Nizami, the monument of whom was erected at Kamennoostrovsk boulevard, is proclaimed Great Azerbaijani poet. Although he did not even speak Azeri. They justify this by saying that he lived in the territory of current Azerbaijan, but Nizami wrote his poems in Persian language!". ”

Viktor Shnirelman writes in his important book in 2003:

“ К этому времени отмеченные иранский и армянский факторы способствовали быстрой азербайджанизации исторических героев и исторических политических образований на территории Азербайджана. В частности, в 1938 г. Низами в связи с его 800-летним юбилеем был объявлен гениальным азербайджанским поэтом (История, 1939. С. 88-91). На самом деле он был персидским поэтом, что и неудивительно, так как городское население в те годы было представлено персами (Дьяконов, 1995. С. 731). В свое время это признавалось всеми энциклопедическими словарями, выходившими в России, и лишь Большая Советская Энциклопедия впервые в 1939 г. объявила Низами "великим азербайджанским поэтом" (Ср. Брокгауз и Ефрон, 1897. С. 58; Гранат, 1917. С. 195; БСЭ, 1939. С. 94).

Translation from Russian:

By that time, already mentioned Iranian and Armenian factors contributed to the rapid azerbaijanization of historical heroes and historical political entities on the territory of Azerbaijan. In particular, in 1938, Nizami in connection with his 800-year anniversary was declared a genius(marvelous) Azerbaijani poet (History, 1939. Pp 88-91). In fact, he was a Persian poet, which is not surprising, because the urban population in those years was Persian (Dyakonov, 1995. page. 731). At one time it was recognized by all Encyclopedic Dictionaries of published in Russia, and only the Big Soviet Encyclopedia for the first time in 1939, announced Nizami as a "Great Azerbaijani poet (Sr. Brockhaus and Efron, 1897. page. 58; Garnet, 1917. page. 195 ; BSE, 1939. p. 94).

”

Peter Chelkowski mentions:

“ Like Alexander, Arabs, Turks, Mongols and other people who overran the Iranian plateau also came under the spell of Persian culture. Foreign invaders remained to become contributors and patrons of Persian art and culture. To give one example, some of Nizami’s benefactors were of Turkic stock.

As previously mentioned, it seems that Nizami’s favorite pastime was reading Firdawsi’s monumental epic Shahnameh (The book of Kings). Firdawsi’s treatment of Alexander in this great heroic poem was by no means negligible, but in Nizami’s opinion it was not complete and he wanted to write a poetic supplement to it. After several years of research he gave up this idea and decided that the subject called for a new and independent work. He still, however, acknowledged his indebtedness to his great master, Firdawsi, and considered himself a respectful follower of that literary pioneer. He, therefore, chose for the book of Alexander one heroic epic verse known as Mutaqarib, which Firdawsi employed in his Shahnameh.

”

(Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Madness and Mystic Longing, 77-78):

“ Although Majnun was to some extent a popular figure before Nizami’s time, his popularity increased dramatically after the appearance of Nizami’s romance. By collecting information from both secular and mystical sources about Majnun, Nizami portrayed such a vivid picture of this legendary lover that all subsequent poets were inspired by him, many of them imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. As we shall see in the following chapters, the poet uses various characteristics deriving from ‘Udhrite love poetry and weaves them into his own Persian culture. In other words, Nizami Persianises the poem by adding several techniques borrowed from the Persian epic tradition, such as the portrayal of characters, the relationship between characters, description of time and setting, etc. ”

According to Peter Chelkowsi:

“ In Haft Paykar, the phantasmagoric movement of its hero, Bahram Gūr, as he visits each princess, covers a symbolic path between black, or the hidden majesty of the Divine, and white, or purity and unity. The princesses and their pavilions are manifestations of specific planets, specific climes, colours, and days. The pavilions are domed, representing the structure of the heavens. Nizami illustrates the harmony of the universe, the affinity of the sacred and the profane, and the concordance of ancient and Islamic Iran. ”

Jan Rypka (Rypka, Jan. ‘Poets and Prose Writers of the Late Saljuq and Mongol Periods’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, ed., Published January 1968. pg 578:As the scene of the greatest flowering of the panegyrical qasida, southern Caucasia occupies a prominent place in New Persian literary history. Hakim Jamal al-din Abu Muhammad Ilyas b. Yusuf b. Zaki b. Mu’ayyad Nizami a native of Ganja in Azarbaijan, is an unrivaled master of thoughts and words, a poet whose freshness and vigor all the succeeding centuries have been unable to dull. Little is known of his life, the only source being his own works, which in many cases provided no reliable information. We can only deduce that he was born between 535 and 540 (1140-46) and that his background was urban. Modern Azarbaijan is exceedingly proud of its world famous son and insists that he was not just a native of the region, but that he came from its own Turkic stock. At all events his mother was of Iranian origin, the poet himself calling her Ra’isa and describing her as Kurdish.

Maria Sutenly, “Visionary Rose: Methaphorical Application of Horticultural Practice in Persian Culture” in Michel Conan and W. John Kress, “Botanical progress, horticultural information and cultural changes”, Dumbarton Oaks, 2007. Pg 12: “In a highly evocative tale he relates in the Makhzan al-Asrar (“Treasury of Secrets”), the twelfth-century Persian poet, Nizami whose oeuvre is an acknowleged repository of Iranian myths and legends, illustrates the way in which the rose was perceived in the Medieval Persian imagination”

C. A. (Charles Ambrose) Storey and Franço de Blois (2004), “Persian Literature - A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period.”, RoutledgeCurzon; 2nd revised edition (June 21, 2004). ISBN 0947593470. Pg 363:

“ Nizami Ganja’i, whose personal name was Ilyas, is the most celebrated native poet of the Persians after Firdausi. His nisbah designates him as a native of Ganja (Elizavetpol, Kirovabad) in Azerbaijan, then still a country with an Iranian population, and he spent the whole of his life in Transcaucasia; the verse in some of his poetic works which makes him a native of the hinterland of Qom is a spurious interpolation. ”

A. Abel states in Encyclopedia of Islam:

“ At the time of Niẓami, however, Islam is from then onwards well established in Iran, and it is the prophetic and ecumenical aspect of his destiny that the poet makes evident in his hero. As a learned Iranian poet, Niẓami, who demonstrates his eclecticism in the information he gives (he says, “I have taken from everything just what suited me and I have borrowed from recent histories, Christian, Pahlavi and Jewish ... and of them I have made a whole”), locates the story of his hero principally in Iran. He makes him the image of the Iranian “knight”, peace-loving and moderate, courteous and always ready for any noble action. Like all Niẓami's heroes, he conquers the passions of the flesh, and devotes his attention to his undertakings and his friendships. These features appear in the account, which follows ancient tradition, of his conduct towards the women of the family of Darius, in his brotherly attitude on the death of that ruler, in his behaviour towards queen Nushaba (the Kaydaf of Firdawsi, the Kandake of the pseudo-Callisthenes) whom he defends against the Russians. ”

Modern news

Even the Azerbaijani press and ambassador admits most of Europe know Nezami Ganjavi as a Persian poet although he thinks it is just due to language (and does not really seem to understand the cultural aspect as well as the fact that a closer examination yields Iranian culture/language and ethnicity in Ganja at that time).[27]

And here is another Azerbaijani author (use google translator) who also admits the same thing that the World does not recognize Nezami as a Turk [28].

And there was a case of Novruz ali Mammadov who was jailed and then died in jail for stating a different viewpoint [29]

In one Sentence

Nezami Ganjavi wrote all of his work in Persian, was raised by Kurdish uncle, his mother tongue was Kurdish, has referenced himself as the Persian Dehqan, wrote about ancient Iran(Khusraw and Shirin, Haft Paykar), has praised Ferdowsi, used Shahnameh as an important source and has stated that Iran is the best land on earth.

Thus according to Professor. Van Ruymbeke:"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. "

Overall note for Wikipedia

In wikipedia, there will always be some people who might want to claim Nezami's father was Turkic. Their arguments are basically the ones discussed in my article and summarized above but for full detailed response one needs to read the article. Those arguments are invalid and political in my opinion. Wikipedia must follow such prestigious sources as Encyclopedia of Islam and other Western writes. However in Wikipedia, I setup a line where various theories can be discussed based upon WP:RS sources with regards to his father's background (without any WP:OR of course). And the WP:OR stuff can go to the external link. Also in Wikipedia one does not violate WP:OR and WP:synthesis. With regards to this wiki writing, it was to summarize the same arguments that are repeated.. However as mentioned much more detail are given here:

Ultimately, we know 100% his mother and uncle who raised him were Kurdish (Iranic). On his father, just like any other person from 850 years, nothing can be said with 100% certainty, but I believe in my article [30][31][32][33] I have shown sufficient proof for Iranian fatherline (and there are sources that are WP:RS which mention this). Furthermore, he was orphaned from his father at an early age. And the poet's identity is a Persian poet as shown in Iranica, Encyclopedia of Islam, Britannica and 125+ sources we brought in the introduction to this wikipage.

Just like Pushkin who had certain Ethiopian ancestry or Ismail I who had Kurdish fatherline or Nasimi who had an Arab fatherline are Russian poets, and Azeri-Turkic poets. That is the heritage of a poet is in the language he has chosen for his composition since poetry cannot be translated.

The current introduction where he is shared between many countries is fair. And note this was written not for WP:forum but to summmarize some of the arguments and counter-arguments in the archive from my perspective. Others will have a different perspective but ultimately a question about someone's fatherline 850+ years cannot be resolved and thus scholars will work with what is certain.

In terms of Wikipedia, if there is an issue, it should be brought to WP;fringe and mediation. Also WP:OR, WP:synthesis and etc. should not be violated. If there is a dispute with this regard, the best method is mediation and even arbcomm. Many Wikipedia admins do not look favorably on nationalist historiography. So such admins are best to be involved in and they will look at sources only and not thousands of back and forth arguments.