Nizami Ganjavi (; c. 1141 – 1209), Nizami Ganje'i, Nizami, or Nezāmi, whose formal name was Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī,Mo'in, Muhammad(2006), "Tahlil-i Haft Paykar-i Nezami", Tehran.: p. 2: Some commentators have mentioned his name as “Ilyas the son of Yusuf the son of Zakki the son of Mua’yyad” while others have mentioned that Mu’ayyad is a title for Zakki. Mohammad Moin, rejects the first interpretation claiming that if it were to mean 'Zakki son of Muayyad' it should have been read as 'Zakki i Muayyad' where izafe (-i-) shows the son-parent relationship but here it is 'Zakki Muayyad' and Zakki ends in silence/stop and there is no izafe (-i-). Some may argue that izafe is dropped due to meter constraints but dropping parenthood izafe is very strange and rare. So it is possible that Muayyad was a sobriquet for Zaki or part of his name (like Muayyad al-Din Zaki). This is supported by the fact that later biographers also state Yusuf was the son of Mu’ayyad was a 12th-century poet. Nizami 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 in Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, Iran, the Kurdistan region and Tajikistan.
Life
Born into a PersianBernard 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, Ferdowsi (940–1020) has been translated several times. An extract from the story of Farhad and Shirin, as told by the 12th century Persian poet Nizami, exmpelified another form of narrative”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“ family, his personal name was IlyasC. A. (Charles Ambrose) Storey and François de Blois (2004), "Persian Literature – A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period.", RoutledgeCurzon; 2nd revised edition (June 21, 2004). . p. 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." and his chosen pen-name was Nizami (also spelled Nezami). He was born of an urbanJan 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. p. 578: As the scene of the greatest flowering of the panegyrical qasida, southern Caucasia occupies a prominent place in New Persian literary history. But this region also gave to the world Persia’s finest creator of romantic epics. 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. background in Ganja (Seljuq empire, now Republic of Azerbaijan) and is believed to have spent his whole life in the South Caucasus. According to De Blois, Ganja had a predominantly Iranian population at the time. The Armenian historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi (c. 1200 – 1271) mentions that "This city [Ganja] was densely populated with Iranians and a small number of Christians". Armenian original: Because Nizami was not a court poet, he does not appear in the annals of the dynasties. Tazkerehs, which are the compilations of literary memoirs that include maxims of the great poets along with biographical information and commentary of styles, refer to him briefly. Much of this material in these tazkerehs are based on legends, anecdotes, and hearsays. Consequently, few facts are known about Nizami's life, the only source being his own work, which does not provide much information on his personal life.
Parents Nizami was orphaned"The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetortics", New York, 2001. p. 2: "His father, Yusuf and mother, Rai'sa, died while he was still relatively young, but maternal uncle, Umar, assumed responsibility for him" early and was raised by his maternal uncle Khwaja Umar, who took responsibility for him and afforded him an excellent education. His mother, named Ra'isa, was of KurdishA) V.Minorsky: "review of G. H. Darab translation of Makhzan al-Asrar" 1945 Minorsky, BSOAS., 1948, xii/2, 441–5):"Whether Nizami was born in Qom or in Ganja is not quite clear. The verse (quoted on p. 14): "I am lost as a pearl in the sea of Ganja, yet I am from the Qohestan of the city of Qom ", does not expressly mean that he was born in Qom. On the other hand, Nizami's mother was of Kurdish origin, and this might point to Ganja where the Kurdish dynasty of Shaddad ruled down to AH. 468; even now Kurds are found to the south of Ganja." B)V. Minorsky, Studies in Caucasian History, Cambridge University Press, 1957. p. 34:"The author of the collection of documents relating to Arran Mas’ud b. Namdar (c. 1100) claims Kurdish nationality. The mother of the poet Nizami of Ganja was Kurdish (see autobiographical digression in the introduction of Layli wa Majnun). In the 16th century there was a group of 24 septs of Kurds in Qarabagh, see Sharaf-nama, I, 323. Even now the Kurds of the USSR are chiefly grouped south of Ganja. Many place-names composed with Kurd are found on both banks of the Kur" origin. His father, whose name was Yusuf is mentioned once by Nizami in his poetry. In the same verse, Nizami mentions his grandfather's name as Zakki. In part of the same verse,Barazat Zanjani. “Layla va Majnun-I Nizami Ganjavi: matn-I Ilmi va intiqadi az ru-yi qadimtari nuskha-hayi khatti-I qarn-I hashtum ba zikr-i ikhtilaf-i nusakh va ma’ani lughat va tarikbat va kashf al-bayat”, Tehran, Mu’assasah-i Chap va Intisharat-i Danishgah Tehran, 1369. p. 28:گر شد پدرم به سنت جد- یوسف پسر زکی مؤید (Gar shod Pedaram beh sonnat-i jadd – Yusuf Pesar-i Zakki Mu'ayyad) some have taken the word Mu'ayyad as a title for Zakki while others have interpreted it as the name of his great-grandfather. Some sources have stated that his father might be possibly from Qom. Nizami is variously mentioned as a Persian and/or Iranian.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). p. 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."Ian Philip McGreal, "Great Literature of the Eastern World", Published 1996, p. 505):"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."Abel, A. (1978), “Eskandar nāma”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Ed., vol. 4:127–129. Online: 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 edition. Excerpt: "In the Shahnama, Ferdowsi already makes Iskandar an exemplary figure, whom the companionship of Aristotle helps to rise still higher, by the path of wisdom and moderation, in the direction of abstinence and contempt for this world. And Firdwasi laid stress on the defeat of Dārā (the Darius of the Greeks) as something desired by "the rotation of the Heavens"....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.
Family Nizami was married three times. His first wife was an enslaved Kipchak who was sent to him by Fakhr al-Din Bahramshah, the ruler of Darband, as part of a larger gift. According to Iraj Bashiri she became Nizami's "most beloved" wife. His only son Mohammad was from this wife. She died after "Khosrow and Shirin" was completed. Mohammad was seven at the time. Nizami mentions his son again in Layli and Majnun adding that now this son is 14 years old and "apple of my eyes". In "Haft Peykar" (Seven Beauties), he also mentions and advises his son about taking more responsibility as the father was growing more frail.
Some modern writers in the late 20th century have claimed that this wife was called Afaq. Vahid Dastgerdi seems to be the first writer to propose this name for Nizami's first wife, but Said Nafisi (at the same time) and a recent source have challenged this interpretation of the corresponding verse in Nizami's work and the assumption that Afaq was the real name of his wife and have taken the Afaq in that verse to simply mean "horizon" rather than a proper name. Strangely enough, Nizami's two other wives, too, died prematurely – the death of each coinciding with the completion of an epic, prompting the poet to say, "God, why is it that for every mathnavi I must sacrifice a wife!".Iraj Bashiri,"The Teahouse at a Glance" – Nizami's Life and Works, 2000
Education Nizami was not a philosopherSeyyed Hossein Nasr, Mehdi Amin Razavi, "The Islamic intellectual tradition in Persia", RoutledgeCurzon; annotated edition (July 4, 1996). pp. 178–187 in the sense of Avicenna or an expositor of theoretical Sufism in the sense of Ibn 'Arabi. However, he is regarded as a philosopher and gnostic who mastered various fields of Islamic thoughts which he synthesized in a way that brings to mind the traditions of later Hakims such as Qutb al-Din Shirazi.