Leyli and Majnun

''Layla & Majnun'' ( ar, مجنون ليلى ; '''Layla's Mad Lover) is an old story of Arab origin, about the 7th-century Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his ladylove Layla bint Mahdi (later known as Layla al-Aamiriya).

"The Layla-Majnun theme passed from Arabic to Persian, Turkish, and Indian languages", through the narrative poem composed in 584/1188 by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, as the third part of his ''Khamsa''. It is a popular poem praising their love story.

Qays and Layla fell in love with each other when they were young, but when they grew up Layla's father didn't allow them to be together. Qays became obsessed with her. His tribe Banu 'Amir and the community gave him the epithet of ''Majnūn'' ( "crazy", lit. "possessed by Jinn"). Long before Nizami, the legend circulated in anecdotal forms in Iranian ''akhbar''. The early anecdotes and oral reports about Majnun are documented in ''Kitab al-Aghani'' and Ibn Qutaybah's ''Al-Shi'r wa-l-Shu'ara'.'' The anecdotes are mostly very short, only loosely connected, and show little or no plot development. Nizami collected both secular and mystical sources about Majnun and portrayed a vivid picture of the famous lovers.Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing, Dr. Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Brill Studies in Middle Eastern literature, Jun 2003, . excerpt: 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. Subsequently, many other Persian poets imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. Nizami drew influence from Udhrite love poetry, which is characterized by erotic abandon and attraction to the beloved, often by means of an unfulfillable longing.

Many imitations have been contrived of Nizami's work, several of which are original literary works in their own right, including Amir Khusrow Dehlavi's ''Majnun o Leyli'' (completed in 1299), and Jami's version, completed in 1484, amounts to 3,860 couplets. Other notable reworkings are by Maktabi Shirazi, Hatefi (died 1520), and Fuzûlî (died 1556), which became popular in Ottoman Turkey and India. Sir William Jones published Hatefi's romance in Calcutta in 1788. The popularity of the romance following Nizami's version is also evident from the references to it in lyrical poetry and mystical masnavis—before the appearance of Nizami's romance, there are just some allusions to Layla and Majnun in divans. The number and variety of anecdotes about the lovers also increased considerably from the twelfth century onwards. Mystics contrived many stories about Majnun to illustrate technical mystical concepts such as '' fanaa'' (annihilation), ''divānagi'' (love-madness), self-sacrifice, etc. Nizami's work has been translated into many languages. Arabic-language adaptations of the story include Shawqi's play ''The Mad Lover of Layla''.

Story

Qays ibn al-Mullawah fell in love with Layla al-Aamiriya. He soon began composing poems about his love for her, mentioning her name often. His obsessive effort to woo the girl caused some locals to call him "Majnun." When he asked for her hand in marriage, her father refused because it would be a scandal for Layla to marry someone considered mentally unbalanced. Soon after, Layla was forcibly married to another noble and rich merchant belonging to the Thaqif tribe in Ta'if. He was described as a handsome man with reddish complexion whose name was Ward Althaqafi. The Arabs called him Ward, meaning "rose" in Arabic.

When Majnun heard of her marriage, he fled the tribal camp and began wandering the surrounding desert. His family eventually gave up hope for his return and left food for him in the wilderness. He could sometimes be seen reciting poetry to himself or writing in the sand with a stick.

Layla is generally depicted as having moved to a place in Northern Arabia with her husband, where she became ill and eventually died. In some versions, Layla dies of heartbreak from not being able to see her beloved. Majnun was later found dead in the wilderness in 688 AD, near Layla's grave. He had carved three verses of poetry on a rock near the grave, which are the last three verses attributed to him.

Many other minor incidents happened between his madness and his death. Most of his recorded poetry was composed before his descent into madness.

It is a tragic story of undying love much like the later ''Romeo and Juliet''. This type of love is known as "virgin love" because the lovers never marry or consummate their passion. Other famous virgin love stories set in Arabia are the stories of ''Qays and Lubna'', '' Kuthair and Azza'', ''Marwa and Al Majnoun Al Faransi'', and ''Antara and Abla''. This literary motif is common throughout the world, notably in the Muslim literature of South Asia, such as Urdu

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