Abstract
Nezami (Nizami) Ganjavi (533/1139–599/1203), one of the greatest Persian poets and thinkers, lived in the city of Ganja in a region, which until 1918 was called Arran and Shervan and is now located in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Ganja and Shirvan (about 145 miles apart) in the twelfth century played a somewhat similar role in the Persian literary productivity to Samarqand and Bukhara (159 miles from each other) on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea played in the ninth century. Based on Nezami’s poetry and the writings in a few Tazkereh books, his mother was Kurdish and his father was possibly from Qom. He was a prolific poet who wrote five masterful books of narrative poetry (masnavi epics in rhymed couplets). The five long poems in his five books, known collectively as the Khamsa (Quintet) or Panj Ganj (Five Treasures), composed by Nezami in the late twelfth century, set new standards in his time for elegance of expression, sophisticated characterization, and richness of narrative. They were widely imitated for centuries by poets writing in Persian and languages influenced by Persians, such as Urdu and Ottoman Turkish. No detailed estimate has ever been made of the Persian, Turkish, Pashto, Kurdish, and Urdu (and other languages of the Persianate tradition) who emulated Nezami’s example. Still, by all indications, the figure certainly exceeds 60. The extraordinary dissemination of Nezami’s Five Treasures throughout Persianate literature is a remarkable and largely unexplored phenomenon. Even though the poets who were inspired by him wrote on similar themes and versified identical stories and sometimes even surpassed him in terms of quantity, none could achieve the poetic beauty or the thoughtfulness with which Nezami wrote. Based on this widespread popularity, one might think of the Five Treasures as a bonding literary string throughout the four corners of the Persianate world and beyond.
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Notes
- 1.
His full name is Jamal al-Din Abu Muḥammad Ilyas Nezami Ganjavi. Some biographers have different dates of his birth and death. Early on, I relied on Nezami Ganjavi, Kolliyat-e Hakim Nezami Ganjavi, edited by Vahid Dastgerdi (Tehran: Behzad, 1999), which has since been reprinted in various forms several times without any significant changes except for the location of commentaries and explanations (one version published Amir Kabir in 1987 even eliminated the commentaries). I refer to this book as simply Kolliayt. This edition also includes an introduction by Sa’id Qaemi, which offers useful information about Nezami, but also reinforces the perception of Nezami as an isolated, clean language, mystic. I have consulted the editions by Sarvatiyan and Zanjani. Dastgerdi’s earlier edition had the commentaries at the end of the page, and in the newer version, the comments are published in a separate volume. Amir Kabir publishers also once printed the same exact book without commentaries.
- 2.
Ganja or Ganjeh was at a crossroad that connected many cities and regions, hosting travelers of all sorts. Nezami’s poetry reflects the resulting multiculturalism, tolerance, and open mindedness. In the Saljuqid dynasty, Nezami found patrons for his poetry; however he did not become a regular part of their courts.
- 3.
For the debate over the nationality and the occasional misrepresentation of the native language of Nezami, see Siavash Lornejad and Ali Doostzadeh, On the Modern Politicization of the Persian Poet Nezami Ganjavi (Yerevan: Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, 2012) and the informed review of the book by Paola Orsatti (2015) “Nationalistic Distortions and Modern Nationalisms,” Iranian Studies, 48:4, 611–627. Nezami lived when Iranian regions under the Seljuk Empire and other areas between the Mediterranean and Central Asia enjoyed a period of cultural efflorescence.
- 4.
See Jalal Sattari’s work in note below, page 18. Meisami examines the impact of Nezami’s poetry on the Iranian historian Ravandi. Nezami’s work and, his Layli o Majnun, have been imitated by numerous (allegedly up to 86) other authors. Radfar has mentioned 31 imitators by name (of these works, ten are published, and 21 are available in manuscript form). Twenty-six have been mentioned in the books of Tazkareh. The rest are not in Persian. See Abol Qasem Radfar, Ketab Shenasi Nezami Ganjavi (Tehran: Motale'at va Tahqiqat-e Farhangi, 1992). These do not include countless translations and retellings and rewritings of Nezami’s various romances in south Asian dialects.
- 5.
For detailed information see the earlier sources such as A. H. Zarrinkub, Pir-e Ganjeh (Tehran: Sokhan, 2001); Z. Safa, Tarikh-e Adabiyat dar Iran (Tehran: Ferdowsi, 1984); and E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia (Cambridge: The UP, 1951–1956).
- 6.
François de Blois, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey Begun by the Late C. A. Storey, (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1994–1997). De Blois includes a bibliography of editions and translations of Nezami’s work in his article.
- 7.
Z. Safa, Tarikh-e Adabiyat dar Iran (Tehran: Ferdows, 1990).
- 8.
Dabashi studies Nezami alongside Ferdowsi, Sa'di, and Hafez as masters of Persian literature, whose works are part of Persian literary humanism. In terms of romance writing, he compares Nezami with Manouchehri, Onsori, and Asjadi, whose “fragmentation of the authorial subject moves from lyrical and epic into panegyric (chief among its medieval master practitioners Manouchehri, Onsori, and Asjadi) romance (Nezami Ganjavi in particular), and finally comes to a crescendo, in terms of its varied narrative dispositions, in the abundance of the karamat literature dealing with saintly miracles (with Sanai, Attar, Rumi, and Jami as the main beacons).” See, Dabashi, Hamid. The World of Persian Literary Humanism (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2012), 30. He also writes, “Nezami’s achievement in Khamseh brought the Persian romance tradition to a height comparable to that of Ferdowsi’s achievement in epic poetry. In a masterful construction of a dramatic narrative, Nezami, always personally present in his tales, constructs a literary humanism resting on nothing but the dramatic movement of his own power of storytelling,” 126. I should add that for Nezami, the concept of Sakhon also conveyed all those traits.
- 9.
In addition to the other names, see, Hadi Khadivar and Fatemeh Sharifi, “Eshterakate Layli o Majnun-e Jami va Nezami va Amir Khosrow Dehlavi” in Majaleh-e Zaban va Adabiyat, Daneshgah-e Azad-e Fasa, 1, 2, 2010, 37–56.
- 10.
See Christine van Rymebe “Nizami’s Poetry Versus Scientific Knowledge: The Case of the Pomegranate”; Asghar Abu Gohrab, “Majnun’s Image as a Serpent”; J. Christoph Burgel “Occult Sciences in The Shahnameh”; and others in The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric, edited, ed. K. Talattof and J. Clinton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).
- 11.
Even in the tale of “Haji and Sufi” from Makhzan al-Asrar, the Shaykh, Darvish, and Sufi are all used negatively. Kolliyat, 59–60.
- 12.
E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge, 1964) vol. 2, p. 403.
- 13.
About the importance of this concept in Nezami’s work, see Hamid Dabashi, “Harf-e nakhostin: mafhum-e sokhan dar nazd-e hakim Nezami Ganjavi,” Iranshenasi, volume 3, number 4 (Winter 1992), pp. 723–740.
- 14.
Kolliyat, 16.
- 15.
In addition to Dastgerdi, Wilhelm Bacher’s Nezami’s Leben und Werke und der zweite Theil des Nezamishcen Alexanderbuches, mit persischen Texten als Anhang (Leipzig, 1871) provides textual references.
- 16.
The belief that Nezami was born in Taad, a village near Tafresh city, and that his family migrated to Ganjeh when he was a child persists among some scholars, particularly in Iran. The belief is rooted in lines of poetry written about Nezami in a later period. And there is no dispute that Nezami only wrote Persian poetry.
- 17.
In a verse, he expresses a desire to move away from that city. Kolliyat, 97.
- 18.
van Ruymbeke illuminates a point on which Nezami gave preference to poetic metaphor over scientific knowledge in her essay in this volume entitled, “Nezami’s Poetry versus Scientific Knowledge.”
- 19.
See, Amir Azar and Najafi “An Investigation of Nezami’s Works Translated in the West,” in European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences, 2015; www.european-science.com, vol.4, no.2 pp. 260–272.
- 20.
Wilhelm Bacher, Nezami’s Leben und Werke und der zweite Theil des Nezamishcen Alexanderbuches, mit persischen Texten als Anhang, (Leipzig 1871).
- 21.
Principal among the Western literary histories are those of Browne, A Literary History of Persia, volume II (London 1906; reprinted Cambridge, 1964), Rypka et al., History of Iranian Literature revised and expanded English edition (Holland, 1968), and Yarshater et al., Persian Literature (Albany: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988). In Persian, the standard history is that of Zabihollah Safa, Tarikh-e adabiyat dar Iran (Tehran 1362/1988).
- 22.
Helmut Ritter, Über die Bildersprache Nezamis (Berlin: De Gruyter; Reprint 2013).
- 23.
Bertel’s, Evgenii. Nizami: Tvorcheskii put’ poeta (Nizami: The Creative Path of the Poet). Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSR, 1956.
- 24.
Heft Peyker, ein romatisches Epos. Ed. H. Ritter und J. Rypka (Prague 1934).
- 25.
For details on editions and translations, see de Blois, op. cit., pp. 448–95.
- 26.
Meisami examines Nezami’s works in several essays as well, all published in Edebiyat: A Journal of Middle Eastern and Comparative Literature.
- 27.
Julie Scott Meisami, “Kings and Lovers: Ethical Dimensions of Medieval Persian Romance,” in Edebiyat. 1, 1, 1987, 1–27.
- 28.
For example see, J. Christoph Bürgel, “Nezami” in Die Grossen der Weltgeschichte Band III (Zurich 1973); “Nezami über Sprache und Dichtung”; “Die Frau als Person in der Epic Nezamis,” Asiatische Studien (1988) 42:137–55; “The Romance” Persian Literature, ed. E. Yarshater (New York, 1988) 161–78.
- 29.
Nezami: Chosrou und Schirin (Zurich, 1980), Nezami: Das Alexanderbuch (Zurich, 1991), Nezami: Die Abenteuer des Königs Bahrām und seiner Sieben Prinzessinenen (München, 1997). Bürgel’s essay, “Nezami über Sprache und Dichtung,” (see previous note) also contains verse translations of excerpts from the Makhzan ol-Asrar.
- 30.
See the valuable contributions by Christine van Ruymbeke “Nizami’s Poetry Versus Scientific Knowledge: The Case of the Pomegranate”; Asghar Abu Gohrab, “Majnun’s Image as a Serpent”; and others in The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi.
- 31.
Johan Christoph Bürgel and Christine van Ruymbeke (ed.), A Key to the Treasure of Hakim Nizami, (Leiden: Leiden UP, 2011).
- 32.
Jalal Sattari, Halat-e 'Ishq-e Majnun (Tehran 1366/1988); Sa'idi-Sirjani, Sima-ye do zan (Tehran, 1367/1989).
- 33.
Mansur Sarvat, ed., Majmu'ah-e Maqalat-e Kungreh Hakim Nizami (Tabriz: 1993). Those from the conferences in Washington, DC, and Los Angeles appeared as a special issue of Iranshenasi, edited by Jalal Matini (volume III, no. 4, Winter 1992).
- 34.
M.T. Ja'fari, Hikmat, 'Irfan, va Akhlaq dar She'r-e Nezami. (Tehran: Kayhan, 1991).
- 35.
Ja'fari, Hikmat, Ibid. Barat Zanjani, Laili va Majnun-e Nezami Ganjavi (Tehran: Danishga-e Tehran, 1990), 5. Muhammad Rashid, “Eshq va Etiqad dar Makhzan al-Asrar,” in Majalih-e Danishkadih-e Adabiyat-e Ferdowsi, no. 88–9, Spring 1990, 87. Behruz Sarvatiyan, Sharafnamah-e Ganjah'i (Tehran: Tus, 1989), 23.
- 36.
Behruz Sarvatiyan, Ainih-e Ghayb-e Nezami Ganja-e dar Masnavi Makhzan al-Asrar (Tehran: Nash-e Kalamih, 1990), 129.
- 37.
E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, vol 2 (Cambridge: CU Press, 1969).
- 38.
A. H. Zarkub, Pir-e Ganjeh (Tehran: Sokhan, 2010).
- 39.
Cf. Safa, op. cit., volume 2, p. 798.
- 40.
See Pizhman Bakhtiyar (ed.), Makhzan al-Asrar-e Nezami, (Tehran: Peygah, 1988).
- 41.
See the note below on this subject of editing.
- 42.
The chapter on Nezami’s Layli and Majnun mentions the relevance of this romance and Khosrow and Shirin to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
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Talattof, K. (2022). Nezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Literature. In: Nezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Literature. Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97990-4_1
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