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Nizami Ganjavi

Type Figure Region Ganja Time c. 1141–1209 Also known as Nizami

Nizami Ganjavi (c. 1141–1209), a master of Persian narrative poetry who lived most of his life in Ganja, wrote the Khamsa (Treasury of Secrets, Khusr…

Timeline

  1. c. 1141–1165Ganja · AzerbaijanNizami was born in Ganja around 1141 and hardly left the city his whole life. He trained in Arabic, Persian literature and Islamic learning, and knew Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Sanai's didactic verse, preparing for his later retellings of heroic and love themes.
  2. c. 1166–1186Ganja · AzerbaijanAround the 1160s he completed the didactic Treasury of Secrets, then wrote the love epic Khusrow and Shirin in the 1170s–1180s, dedicated to the Atabeg rulers of Azerbaijan, showing his patronage ties to local courts.
  3. 1188–1192Ganja · AzerbaijanIn 1188, at the request of Shirvanshah Akhsitan I, he retold the Arabic legend in Persian as Layli and Majnun. It became one of the most famous love tragedies of the Islamic world and is among the more precisely datable poems of the Khamsa.
  4. 1194–1209Ganja · AzerbaijanIn the 1190s he finished Iskandarnameh and Seven Portraits (c. 1197); the five long poems in couplets are collectively called the Khamsa or 'Five Treasures'. He died in Ganja in 1209, and his narrative structure and psychological portrayal became a model emulated by later Persian and Turkic poets.

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