“Khusraw and Shirin”

by Nizami of Ganja

THE LITRARY WORK

A romance set in Persia c. 600 C.E., completed in Persian (as Khursraw va Shirin) around 1180; the first surviving manuscript dates from 1362; first published in English in 1975.

SYNOPSIS

Khusraw, a Persian prince, dreams that his dead grandfather makes four predictions, all of which come true. The fulfillment of the last one, that he will marry Shirin, is delayed for years, during which the couple’s personal qualities are tested.

Events in History at the Time the Romance Takes Place

The Romance in Focus

Events in History at the Time the Romance Was Written

For More Information

Nizami of Ganja (c.1140-c.l209) is the pen-name of Jamal al-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas. (“Ganja” is the name of the town in Azerbaijan where the author spent most of his life.) In general, Nizami worked independently rather than forming an association with the court of any particular ruler. He did dedicate several of his works to local princes, for which he was compensated by a modest gift or fee. Nizami was orphaned in childhood, yet his poetry gives evidence of an excellent education in a wide range of subjects. He married three times, remaining monogamous each time, despite the allowance in Islam for simultaneous marriage to more than one wife. “Khusraw and Shirin” (also spelled “Khosrow and Shirin”) is one of five romantic poems composed by Nizami for the collection Khamsa (“The Quintet”). Of the five, “The Treasury of Secrets” and “Seven Portraits” are original stories. The remaining three—“Layla and Majnun,” “The Story of Alexander the Great,” and “Khusraw and Shirin”—are tales adapted from the Arabic, Greek, and Persian traditions. Nizami wrote the most renowned account of the romance of Khusraw and Shirin, apparently to honor his beloved wife Afaq as well as his pre-Islamic heritage.

Events in History at the Time the Romance Takes Place

The Sasanian past

“Khusraw and Shirin” is set during the reign of the Sasanian kings of Persia, the last line of Persian kings (ruled 226–651 C.E.) before the Arabs conquered Persia in 640 C.E. At the height of its power, the Sasanian empire stretched from Mesopotamia (the lands around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq), to modern Afghanistan, to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and its armies made incursions as far west as Palestine and Egypt. For several centuries the Sasanians, whose official religion was Zoroas-trianism, competed with the Christian Byzantine Empire to the west. The Sasanian-Byzantine rivalry broke into full-scale war at times, but there was also considerable cultural exchange between the two.

The Sasanians made their capital in Ctesiphon (Tisfun), at the mouth of the Tigris River, some 20 miles southeast of today’s central Baghdad; Ctesiphon is now in ruins, but in Sasanian times it was a thriving cosmopolitan center. Along with a majority of Zoroastrians, the city had communities of Christians and Jews. Sasanian rulers took great care with the organization and smooth flow of goods, building and maintaining roads and bridges, and establishing networks of spies and guards for security. From the Achaemenids, the great Persian dynasty that rivaled the ancient Greeks, the Sasanians inherited a postal system centered on horses and riders. While most of what remains of Sasanian architecture is fairly modest, the people showed a love for fine crafts and elaborate decoration, producing especially high-quality metalware and textiles. Several Sasanian kings created large stone monuments to commemorate their achievements. It appears that culinary arts were highly developed in Sasanian times too, so one can easily imagine elaborate feasts.

Late Sasanian cultural life was dominated by royal courts, centered on a king believed to possess divine qualities. Elaborate ceremony marked the occasions on which the king met dignitaries from outside his domain, or lower-ranking people within it. The kings are known to have enjoyed music and the singing of minstrels. For exercise—and probably to escape the constraints of court life—they liked to hunt on horseback or with falcons. Otherwise the king tended to remain secluded. The seclusion of his wife—and royal women generally—was even more extreme. Sasanian women almost never showed themselves to anyone outside an inner circle of family and attendants. In principle the king was supposed to marry a sister, although this may not have always happened. Certainly it did not in “Khusraw and Shirin,” which, while legendary, reflects at least some pre-Islamic practices.

In many ways the Sasanian Empire of the seventh C.E. was ripe for the fate that it suffered: invasion by the Muslim Arab army. While long, senseless wars with the Byzantine Empire had exhausted the energies of these two superpowers of the Near East, inroads by the Christians continued to present formidable challenges to the Persian state and to the official religion, Zoroas-trianism. Internally, religion and politics had become closely intertwined, to the extent that high Zoroastrian priests often wielded more power than the Sasanian monarchs, at times dictating policies that served the interests of the upper classes at the expense of the general populace. Both state and religion had grown more opulent, more pompous, and far more ritual oriented, while the society had grown very rigid. Leaving little or no room for social mobility, the Sasanian caste system resulted in four distinct classes—royal princes and religious leaders, courtiers and the nobility, artisans and craftsmen, and, at the bottom of the social pyramid, laborers and serfs. By the 600s, the division had created intense resentment in the lower strata of the society and a sense of estrangement between the people and their rulers that was unparalleled in the history of ancient Iran (Persia).

In the 620s and 630s, family and succession feuds aggravated this situation and led to chaotic relations between the rulers and the ruled, often to the detriment of the lower classes. The capital city of Ctesiphon had become the focal point of royal attention and the empire’s wealth, leaving little to the outlying areas or faraway corners of the empire, such as Central Asia or the Caucasus. All this contributed to the downfall of the empire, so that when the Muslim Arab army poured over into its lands from Mesopotamia, many regions were left to fend for themselves. As it turned out, the invaders levied fewer taxes and proclaimed a faith that promoted the dignity of the individual and equality in the eyes of an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God. As such, they were more often welcomed than resisted. The result was that by the 650s, the empire that for centuries had vied for dominance over the ancient world with Greece, Rome, and Byzantium collapsed far more easily than later Persians, such as Nizami, could explain or even comprehend.

Khusraw II

Khusraw the Second, also known as Khusraw Parviz, was an actual Sasanid king of Persia (r. 590–628 C.E.). Little is known about his family life, but most historians concur that he had a wife named Shirin. Khusraw’s reign was threatened by the ambitions of one of his late father’s generals, Bahram Chubin. Taking an unusual measure, the threatened king fled to the Byzantine Empire and requested help from his longtime rivals, the Byzantines, from the emperor Maurice (ruled 582–602 C.E.). Khusraw promised Maurice land—most importantly, Armenia—if he would provide military aid against Bahram, which Maurice furnished in 591. The two appear to have become fast friends, for Maurice declared Khusraw to be his son. When Maurice was murdered by a Byzantine rival, Phocas, in 602, Khusraw declared war on the Byzantines, and the Sasanid army overran Byzantine holdings in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, northern Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. By 615 the Sasanids were approaching Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, but a new Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, reversed the losses in 623–28. The two empires continued their separate development thereafter. Meanwhile, Islam was gaining ground on the Arabian Peninsula.

With the rapid expansion of Islam beyond Arabia after the death of Prophet Muhammad (570–632), the Sasanian regime was swiftly overrun, and the Persian people adopted the new faith of Islam. They, however, retained high regard for their pre-Islamic heritage, especially for the Sasanian dynasty.

The Romance in Focus

Plot summary

In the sixth century B.C.E., in the kingdom of Persia, a noble son is born to a line of great kings. The boy is given his grandfather’s name, Khusraw, with the title “Parviz,” which means “victorious.” Despite his promising name and an excellent upbringing, his path to greatness will not be an easy one.

Khusraw’s father is the virtuous King Hurmuz, son of one of the greatest Persian kings of all time, Khusraw Anushirvan. His grandson Khusraw is his namesake. Despite this younger Khusraw’s many talents and virtues, he disappoints his father. Concerned for all his subjects, King Hurmuz issues the following proclamation: “Woe to anyone who does violence against another person [or his property], whether to his horse grazing in the field or to the fruits that he cultivates” (Nizami, “Khusraw va Shirin,” p. 43; trans. C. Sawyer). When it comes to exacting justice, his stern edicts promise that everyone will be treated equally.

One evening, after hunting all day, Khusraw takes over a peasant’s house for the night. There is much revelry during the night, replete with freely flowing wine and his minstrel’s tunes. His senses dulled by drinking too much wine, Khusraw fails to notice when his servant sallies out to pick the peasant’s grapes, which sets off a chain of unfortunate circumstances. The servant startles the prince’s horse, and the horse then tramples and destroys a good part of the peasant’s vineyard. So furious is King Hurmuz when he hears about the damage that he issues severe punishments: the servant who picked the grapes is made the peasant’s slave; the horse that trampled the grapes has its hooves pared down; the minstrel’s harp is unstrung and injury done to his hand; and Khusraw’s princely throne is transferred to the peasant. Genuinely sorry, Khusraw pleads for forgiveness, whereupon Hurmuz relents and restores his son’s position as crown prince.

That night Khusraw’s grandfather, Khusraw Anushirvan, appears to him in a dream and predicts that his grandson will be rewarded for admitting the error of his ways:

You will receive four things…. You shall ride Shabdiz, the world’s swiftest and most fabled steed…. You shall sit on Taqdis, the throne of thrones… ; at your bidding Barbad the musician shall play and with the lightest touch will far surpass the broken notes of your lost minstrel. But beyond all these, you shall have Shirin, your destined love.

(“Khosrow and Shirin,” p. 22)

Khusraw has a loyal friend and confidante, a well-traveled painter named Shapur. The portraits painted by Shapur do not just represent a person’s physical being; they capture the person’s soul. Shapur’s travels have taken him to Armenia, where he has learned of the beauty of Shirin, niece to Queen Mihin Banu. Not long after Khusraw’s dream, Shapur speaks of the queen’s exceptional horse, Shabdiz, and of the great beauty of her niece, Shirin. Khusraw, recalling his grandfather’s predictions, dispatches Shapur to Armenia to bring back Shirin. The trusty Shapur arrives to discover that Shirin and her female companions often sip wine, sing and dance, and weave garlands of flowers in a meadow. He cleverly paints a lifelike portrait of Khusraw, hangs it on a tree at the edge of the meadow, and hides. When Shirin spots the picture, she nearly swoons with passion. Her companions, concerned that the painting might be the work of evil spirits, confiscate and destroy it. Undaunted, Shapur creates two more portraits; the companions refuse to bring the second one to Shirin, but she secures the third.

Desperate to know whose image it is, Shirin finds Shapur at the edge of the meadow, and he solves the mystery, explaining that Khusraw is a Persian prince who has already fallen in love with her. Next the ingenious painter devises a plan for her: on the pretext of going hunting, the princess should ride out on Shabdiz and flee to Persia. She acts on his counsel, receiving from him a signet ring of Khusraw’s to take with her.

In all of legendary history, there cannot be many lovers who have traveled so far and long in search of each other as Khusraw and Shirin. While Shirin travels south to the Persian capital, Khusraw travels north to Armenia, his enemies once again making it impossible for him to tarry at home any longer. On the road between Ctesiphon and Armenia, Shirin and Khusraw have a chance meeting, which seals their love, though they do not recognize each other at the time. Shirin is bathing in a woodland pool when Khusraw happens upon her: “Beautiful was the whiteness of her skin against the blueness of the water. She loosed her braids and washed her long black hair, and the moon-like reflection of her face was caught in the shallows of the pool” (“Khosrow and Shirin,” p. 25). So startled is she at being seen that she jumps on Shabdiz and speeds off, wondering if the handsome stranger might be Khusraw. He, on the other hand, travels on to Armenia, believing Shirin is there, doubtlessly wondering about the identity of the bathing beauty who has so recently filled him with desire.

Dreaming of the unattainable woman and her black horse, Khusraw weeps as he travels on to Armenia. He receives a royal welcome at court, but takes no pleasure in anything since Shirin is not there. Meanwhile, Shirin has arrived at the Persian capital and is equally miserable. Without news of Khusraw, she grows depressed and longs for the fresh green landscape of her homeland. Learning that Khusraw instructed his servants to build her a palace if she wishes, she asks them to erect one on a mountain plain. The workers comply, but, jealous of her privileges, build the palace in a hot, unhealthy place, not far from the capital. Shirin will spend far more time here than she could ever have imagined.

Khusraw has by now sent Shapur back to Persia to fetch Shirin. When she returns to her mother’s court, there is much rejoicing—without Khusraw, however. Before Shirin’s arrival, King Hurmuz died suddenly, so Khusraw had to leave for home. He has returned to take the throne in Ctseiphon, which one of Hurmuz’s generals, Bahram Chubin, covets for himself. The general has been spreading vicious rumors among the people, claiming that Khusraw is more devoted to wine than to his kingdom and so distracted by love for Shirin that he is unfit to rule. Losing his people’s support, Khusraw must again flee. He reaches Armenia and is at long last united with Shirin.

Although she approves the match, Queen Mihin Banu counsels Shirin not to give herself to her beloved until she is his wife. The queen has heard that this crown prince has a thousand beauties: “Keep your jewel, and he will be addicted to you as to opium. Yield, and you will be a trampled flower before the world” (“Khosrow and Shirin,” p. 31). Shirin remains true to this counsel. Khusraw tries to persuade her to meet him alone in an unwatched corner of the castle, but she resists. Remaining steadfast in her chastity, she schools him in the art of faithful love. When, on another occasion, Khusraw, flushed with wine, tries to overpower her by the palace garden, she again resists. Cleverly she urges him to uphold her reputation by establishing his own, by restoring his kingdom. Again Khusraw leaves Armenia, this time to heed her advice. Entrusting care of Shirin to Shapur, he pursues a drastic but successful strategy. Khusraw appeals to the emperor of Byzantium for aid, which he receives, but in return, he must marry the emperor’s daughter. When he wins back rule over Persia, Maryam, not Shirin, is his wife.

This news does not reach Shirin for some time, during which she herself is deeply occupied by affairs in her homeland. Her aunt, the beloved queen dies, and Shirin takes the throne of Armenia. Ruling justly becomes her primary concern. She does away with taxes, and the realm prospers. When the news of Khusraw’s marriage reaches her, however, she grows so distracted she can think of nothing else. Finally she turns her rule over to a regent and retreats to the palace built for her near Khusraw’s home in Persia. Khusraw learns of her arrival, but, because of his marriage, communicates with her only through messages. He learns that Shirin has given up her reign for love of him.

One night, after drinking too much wine, Khusraw informs Maryam of the forlorn Shirin and beseeches his wife to take her in as a slave. Maryam not only refuses but pledges to kill Shirin if she so much as catches a glimpse of her. Unable to prevail upon his wife, Khusraw urges Shirin to meet him in secret at his palace, but she refuses. If he wants to see her, he will have to saddle up Shabdiz and come himself.

During this lonely period of her life, Shirin gains the admiration of a renowned stonemason named Farhad, who falls desperately in love with her. News of his passion reaches Khusraw, who, failing to bribe Farhad to abandon Shirin, tries to occupy the mason with a supposedly impossible task. He is to carve a path for trade caravans through a towering mountain called Bisutun. Farhad consents to the task, but only on the condition that Shirin will be his if he succeeds. Khusraw finds no harm in agreeing to the request, since the job appears impossible. Then when it seems that Farhad is indeed about to succeed, Khusraw resorts to cruel deception, informing him that Shirin has died. Upon hearing this, Farhad throws himself off the mountain to his death. Shirin grieves deeply for his pure love, and Khusraw regrets the deception.

In time Queen Maryam grows ill and she too dies, leaving Khusraw with their son, Shiruya. Khusraw is free now to resume the match with Shirin, but impulsively he marries another woman, a Persian beauty named Shekar. So distraught is Shirin that she spends her nights praying for God to release her from her plight. In time her prayers are answered. Khusraw tires of Shekar and arranges a pretext to travel to Shirin’s palace; he goes on a great hunt with dignitaries from as far as China. One night Khusraw leaves them and ventures alone to Shirin’s castle. Hearing of his arrival, she arranges for what appears to be the greatest of welcomes. On the palace grounds, “gold was showered, silks were spread; tents were raised and covered with jeweled canopies” (“Khosrow and

HORSES IN PERSIAN CIVILIZATION

Khusraw and Shabdiz form a hero-horse duo. The type is not unknown in Western culture—Alexander the Great had his Bucephalos (“Ox-Head”), for example. But such duos are far more common in Islamic and Persian lands. In the Persian epic the Shahnamah (also in WLAIT 6: Middle Eastern Literatures and Their Times), the hero Rustam is inseparable from his horse, Rakhsh. Horses were in fact important in northern Sasan ian territory, where Azerbaijan in particular has well-watered grasslands. The Sasanian Persians cared greatly for their steeds and developed much skill in horse breeding, riding, and veterinary medicine, There were two favorite breeds: the Nisaean horse and the warhorse. The first was medium-sized, relatively slender, and preferably white or golden. Though the Sasanians sometimes used the Nisaean horse for battle, they especially prized it for hunting, pleasure riding, and ceremony. Khusraw’s mount, Shabdiz, on the other hand, is a large, black muscular warhorse. The Persians were pioneers of full battle armor (the Romans adopted it from them), which required a sturdy mount to bear the outfitted soldiers. Aside from black, a choice warhorse might be white, dappled, or sorrel. Ceremonial trap, pings for the horses were often made of the most lavish and expensive materials available, When a hero died, the mane and tale of his horse would be clipped, presumably as a sign of the animal’s mourning. Occasionally the ancient custom of killing and burying the horse with its rider was observed.

Shirin,” p. 39). Shirin even has a special throne built for Khusraw. But when he arrives, she locks the palace doors, denying him entrance. From the roof, Shirin reproaches Khusraw, recounting her sufferings, insisting they can only be together if she becomes his wife.

Khusraw slinks back to his camp in the snow and rain, and Shirin, repenting of her severity, follows. In the camp, a curious scenario takes place between the lovers, whose desires have become so complicated over time. They do not speak to each other, but two minstrels, Barbad and Nikisa, voice the lovers’ emotions, and Khusraw and Shirin commit themselves to each other at long last.

The lovers marry and live happily together for many years until Shiruya, Khusraw’s son with Mary am, has his father imprisoned. Shirin, of her own free will, joins Khusraw in bondage. Exhausted one night, she falls asleep. An assassin sent by Shiruya stabs his father. Khusraw at this moment proves the depth of his devotion to her. Bleeding to death, thirsting for water, he refuses to waken his exhausted wife and dies of his wounds without a murmur.

Shiruya’s wickedness continues. Although he was a mere child when Shirin married Khusraw, he lusts after her. At his entreaties, she promises to marry him, but on condition that Khusraw’s possessions be distributed to the poor. That done, Shirin joins the funeral procession for her husband, not in mourning garments but in colorful robes, much to the astonishment of the people. There is, however, private cause for rejoicing. When they reach the vault, Shirin is granted a few moments alone with the body. She kisses Khusraw, draws a dagger from her robe, and stabs herself exactly where he was stabbed. And so the two lovers are joined in death.

Farhad the Mason and Taq-i Bustan

“Khusraw and Shirin” is a tale full of pathos and palace intrigue, not only because of the featured couple’s passion for each other. For love of Shirin, the stonemason Farhad tackles the supposedly impossible task of carving a path for caravans through Mount Bisutun, a site that actually exists in west-central Iran. Located at the base of the mountain, about 10 kilometers northeast of Kermanshah is a famous Sasanian rock carving known as Taq-i Bustan (“Arch of the Grove”). Because this site lies by an ancient thoroughfare, Taq-i Bustan was visible to many travelers, who spread word of its beautiful carved grottoes and garden. The carvings and bas-reliefs represent scenes of hunting and coronation. (Some say that the rider depicted is Khusraw II, and that the carving commemorates a military victory, but the matter is far from settled.) Above the three-story arch is a relief carving of three figures: a man flanked by another man and a woman.

Sasanian monuments like Taq-i Bustan seem to have struck Persians of the Islamic period as mysterious, much as monuments with Egyptian hieroglyphics or American Indian rock carvings might strike us today. Although these monuments were from a fairly recent, for them, pre-Islamic period, the early Muslim Persians did not know much about their ancestors. From the days of Khusraw II to those of Nizami, however, stories circulated about the monuments, especially about Taq-i Bustan. These stories spoke of the woman as a pre-Islamic water goddesss, Anahita, or alternatively as Khusraw IFs wife, Shirin. They identified one of the men as Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of good, or else Farhad, Khusraw’s rival.

According to some, a lower sculpture depicting the monument’s craftsman once stood astride a stream that flowed from the spring at the base of the rock carving. This idea led to the notion that the carving itself represented the sculptor of the monument. It was Nizami’s innovation to link Farhad, Shirin’s legendary lover and the possible second man in the upper sculpture, to the craftsman who carved it. In Nizami’s rendition of “Khusraw and Shirin,” the stonemason creates the carving of Shirin and one of Khusraw riding on Shabdiz before starting to chisel through the mountain, so that the image can inspire him as he works: “He labored day and night,” his legend spreading throughout Persia; he stopped only “to gaze upon the likeness of Shirin,” “to kiss its feet” and “plead his love” (“Khosrow and Shirin,” p. 37).

The stonemason character appears to be a product of Nizami’s time, of people who contemplated a monument in their midst that had been created, from their point of view, in the remote and mysterious past. Part of what is interesting about Farhad’s story is that he is not a nobleman or a warrior but a workman. In his heroic portrayal of this workman, Nizami takes an unusual, egalitarian approach. Few Persian poets of his time would have portrayed anyone but a king or warrior as a hero. In Nizami’s story, love defies social status. The pure emotion of a stonemason fares well in competition with that of a king. Love eradicates distinctions between the high and low, between the common Farhad and the noble Khusraw.

Sources

While the rock carving of Taq-i Bustan served as one source for “Khusraw and Shirin,” Nizami also drew inspiration from written works. One such work was a romance written by the Arab author Khalid ibn Fayyaz, who lived about 100 years after the historical Khusraw’s death. Nizami also drew on the “Book of Government” (Siyasat-namah).Its author, Nizam al-Mulk, a Persian minister who between 1073–92 served two Seljuq (Turkish) sultans, wrote the book to instruct his patrons—military leaders who had risen quickly to high positions—how to rule a large, settled population. His approach was to present exemplary stories about prior Persian rulers. Although the vizier and his patrons were Muslims, most of the stories in “The Book of Government” are drawn from the Sasanian period, which Nizam al-Mulk regarded as an ideal one. The historical Khusraw II, though not without fault, is one of the rulers described as a model of leadership.

Nizami also drew inspiration from Firdawsi’s Shahnamah, or Book of Kings (c. 1010 C.E.), a grand epic that relates the history of Khusraw Parviz, including a brief account of his love for Shirin. In Firdawsi’s version, Shirin is not a particularly admirable character; she, for example, murders Khusraw’s wife Maryam out of jealousy. Nizami, who knew and greatly admired the Book oj Kings, did not want to duplicate it. In Firdawsi’s time, enough people of his own class—traditional feudal landowners, or dihqans —felt attached to older ways to make writing an epic worthwhile. By Nizami’s time, however, the dihqans’ power had dwindled and the audience of educated readers had grown, providing an audience for shorter tales of love and adventure. Given the focus on love and the strength of Shirin’s character, it seems possible that women figured among this broader reading audience, or at least that they possessed the leisure to listen to recitations of such tales.

Nizami wrote in the romance genre, which, though not entirely new to Persian literature (it had existed at least since the Parthian dynasty of 220 B.C.E.-226 C.E.), lapsed into disuse until about a century before Nizami was born. He may have drawn on a particular story in this genre: the ancient Persian romance “Vis and Ramin” (c. 1040–1054), by Fakhr al-Din Gurgani, tells of the illicit love between a prince and a princess destined for each other from birth but forced to marry others. Outside Persia, the story may have influenced European romances such as Tristan and Isolde and Romeo and Juliet Closer to home, the dramatic and psychological elements of this ancient Persian romance may have also influenced Nizami’s “Khusraw and Shirin.”

Events in History at the Time the Romance Was Written

The Seljuq dynasty

Nizami lived in a time of transition in Persia, during the decline of the Seljuqs, before the invasion of the Mongols. The Seljuqs, Turkish military rulers, had taken over control of eastern Persia from the caliph (Muslim emperor) in Baghdad. Seljuq rule over Persia lasted almost exactly a century, from 1055–1157 C.E. To a significant extent, the period was one of peace and prosperity in which important and enduring institutions were established, notably the Islamic colleges known as madrasahs (from the Arabic for “place of study”). During Nizami’s lifetime, however, Seljuq power diminished, and the caliphs in Baghdad regained some of their former power. However, a place as distant from Baghdad as Nizami’s Azerbaijan needed strong local leadership if its diverse ethnic groups and social classes were to be kept in check. In the absence of such leadership, lawlessness reigned: ganglike factions disrupted city life and bandits wreaked havoc on trade and farming. Rough Turcomen tribesmen—the Seljuqs’ kin—pushed farmers off the land to graze their own sheep, goats, and horses. The farmers fled for what protection they could get in the cities, while city

NIZAMI’S CHOICE OF LANGUAGE

Nizaroi’s verse constitutes a model of Persian style. Since Persian is more restricted in vocabulary than Arabic, many early Persian authors employed Arabic vocabulary to sound more erudite, Nizami, however, did not reach for Arabic words; instead, he exploited to the fullest the inherent sophistication of Persian, which lies in its idioms. The brilliance of his writing derives not only from his linguistic skill but from the vividness of his characters and descriptions, images perhaps all the more fresh because, unlike most poets of his day, he was not working to please the tastes of a particular patron or ruler.

dwellers themselves sought out walled cities wherever they could find them. Nizami’s depictions of palaces—both Khusraw’s and Shirin’s—may reflect some of the anxieties of the time, while the idealized scenes of hunts, polo games, and picnics set in the countryside may reflect nostalgia for a safer and more joyous time.

Finally around 1215 C.E. the Mongols began to sweep south and west from their homeland in northeast China. In 1258 they sacked Baghdad and killed the caliph, ending a line of rulers that had held power for more than 500 years. The fact that Persian literature survived—and even flourished—in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions probably has to do with the strong foundation laid by Nizami and other authors under Seljuq rule. Both the lingering optimism of the high Seljuq period and the mounting anxiety as leadership broke down seem to find their way into his work, leading to a style that is much more emotional and sensitive than anything that had graced Persian literature before. Yet “Khusraw and Shirin” is no fragile work; the tale endorses loyalty and commitment, even as it shows an increased appreciation for the importance of individuals, from noblemen to commoners.

Enlisting the Persians

As outsiders, the Seljuq sultans recognized that they required Persian help to rule effectively. They therefore enlisted numerous bureaucrats, and established the role of a top minister, called a vizier, who, as a Persian, could advise the Turkish sultan and implement his policies among the population. The Seljuqs also showed great interest in adopting elements of Persian culture that would prove their sophistication and authority in contrast to more rough-hewn kinsmen such as the Turcomen. To this end, they promoted Persian literature.

The madrasahs, or colleges, founded by the Seljuqs spread to almost every moderate-sized city and even to the smaller towns. Whether Nizami studied in such a madrasah is unknown, but he appears to have been part of a new social class created by these colleges and by the Seljuq administration, a category of urban intellectuals formed to meet the needs of the bureaucracy, such as record-keeping, accounting, educating princes, and so forth.

The decline of Seljuq power in the eastern domain after the mid-twelfth century left many members of this new category stranded. The Seljuqs had increased the size of what might be considered a “middle class”—lesser bureaucrats, merchants, artisans, and military officers. Now, in the period of decline, these urban dwellers were inclined to seek out associations of like-minded people to give their lives meaning and order. Young and restless men were especially attracted to these associations, which resembled professional guilds or social clubs. Closely related to them were the orders of Sufis (Muslim mystics), established about a century before Nizamfs lifetime. It is quite likely that Nizami belonged to one or another of these groups. Some argue that he was a Sufi, or kept close contact with a Sufi order, others that he belonged to an association of professionals, perhaps artisans, a view supported by the role of Farhad the stonemason in “Khusraw and Shirin.”

Composition and reception

The exact circumstances of the composition of “Khusraw and Shirin” are unknown but is speculated that Nizami probably wrote the tale as a memorial to his wife Afaq after she suffered an untimely death. Further speculation holds that she bore him a child, Muhammad, and that Nizami worked certain passages into his tales to instruct this son in the ways of virtuous living. Whatever truth there may be in these speculations, the romance became one of the most popular in Persian literature. Turkish literature too adopted (and adapted) the tale, going so far as to modify it, making Farhad and Shirin into a romance in its own right and relegating Khusraw to a minor role.

“Khusraw and Shirin” initiated a trend in Persian literature that would continue for centuries, inspiring other accounts of the tale and prompting Persian versions of the Arabic tale love story “Layla and Majnun” and of the Greek adventure-romance of Alexander the Great. The tale also affected the works produced in related arts. So rich in visual detail is Nizami’s romance that several episodes constitute some of the most beloved subjects in Persian painting—for example, Khusraw’s glimpse of Shirin at the woodland pool.

—Caroline Sawyer

For More Information

Boyle, J. A., ed. The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Bürgel, Johann-Christoph. “The Romance.” In Persian Literature. Ed. Ehsan Yarshater. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988.

Chelkowski, Peter. “Nezami: Master Dramatist.” In Persian Literature. Ed. Ehsan Yarshater. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988.

Frye, Richard. Golden Age of Persia. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996.

Nizami Ganjavi. The Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance. Trans. Julie Scott Meisami. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1995.

_____ “Khosrow and Shirin.” In Mirror of the Invisible World. Trans. P. Chelkowski. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975.

_____ Khusraw va Shirin. Ed. Vahid Dastgirdi. Tihran: 1333.

Soucek, Priscilla. “Farhad and Taq-i Bustan: The Growth of a Legend.” In Studies in Art and Literature of the Near East, in Honor of Richard Ettinghausen. Ed. Peter Chelkowski. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah, 1974.

Yarshater, Ehasan, ed. The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.