The ''Khamsa'' ( fa, خمسه, 'Quintet' or 'Quinary', from

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

) or ''Panj Ganj'' ( fa, پنج گنج, 'Five Treasures') is the main and best known work of

Nizami Ganjavi Nizami Ganjavi ( fa, نظامی گنجوی, lit=Niẓāmī of Ganja, translit=Niẓāmī Ganjavī; 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, ...

Description

The ''Khamsa'' is in five long

narrative poem Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be s ...

s: * '' Makhzan-ol-Asrâr'' (, 'The Treasury or Storehouse of Mysteries'CHARLES-HENRI DE FOUCHÉCOUR, "IRAN:Classical Persian Literature" in ''Encyclopædia Iranica''), 1163 (some date it 1176) * ''Khosrow o Shirin'' (, '

Khosrow and Shirin Khosrow and Shirin ( fa, خسرو و شیرین) is the title of a famous tragic romance by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), who also wrote Layla and Majnun. It tells a highly elaborated fictional version of the story of the love ...

'), 1177–1180 * ''Leyli o Majnun'' (, '

Layla 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 ...

'), 1192 * ''Eskandar-Nâmeh'' (, 'The Book of Alexander'), 1194 or 1196–1202 * ''

Haft Peykar ''Haft Peykar'' ( fa, هفت پیکر ''Haft Peykar'') also known as Bahramnameh (, ''The Book of Bahram'', referring to the Sasanian king Bahram Gur) is a romantic epic by Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi written in 1197. This poem forms one part of ...

'' (, 'The Seven Beauties'), 1197 The first of these poems, '' Makhzan-ol-Asrâr'', was influenced by

Sanai Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi ( fa, ), more commonly known as Sanai, was a Persian poet from Ghazni who lived his life in the Ghaznavid Empire which is now located in Afghanistan. He was born in 1080 and died between 1131 ...

's (d. 1131) monumental ''Garden of Truth''. The four other poems are medieval romances. Khosrow and Shirin, Bahram-e Gur, and

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

, who all have episodes devoted to them in

Ferdowsi Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi ( fa, ; 940 – 1019/1025 CE), also Firdawsi or Ferdowsi (), was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a sin ...

's ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,00 ...

'', appear again here at the center of three of four of Nezami's narrative poems. The adventure of the paired lovers, Layla and Majnun, is the subject of the second of his four romances, and derived from Arabic sources. In all these cases, Nezami reworked the material from his sources in a substantial way. The ''Khamsa'' was a popular subject for lavish manuscripts illustrated with painted miniatures at the Persian and Mughal courts in later centuries. Examples include the Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208), created for the Mughal Emperor

Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...

in the 1590s. A ''Khamsa'' manuscript created for Prince Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal emperor, is now in the

Khalili Collection of Islamic Art The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art includes 28,000 objects documenting Islamic art over a period of almost 1400 years, from 700 AD to the end of the twentieth century. It is the largest of the Khalili Collections: eight collections ...

. Its illustrations of Bahram Gur depict the character as Aurangzeb.

Gallery

File:Brooklyn Museum - Page from an Illustrated Manuscript of the Khamseh by Nizami.jpg, Page from an Illustrated Manuscript of the "Khamsa" by Nizami.

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

. File:Folio from a Khamsa-c.jpg,

Sassanid The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

king,

Bahram Gur Bahram V (also spelled Wahram V or Warahran V; pal, 𐭥𐭫𐭧𐭫𐭠𐭭), also known as Bahram Gor (New Persian: , "Bahram the onager") was the Sasanian King of Kings (''shahanshah'') from 420 to 438. The son of the incumbent Sasanian sha ...

is a great favourite in Persian tradition and poetry. Depiction of Nezami's "Bahram and the Indian Princess in the Black Pavilion", ''Khamsa'', mid-16th century

Safavid Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...

era. File:Muhammad during the Isra and Mi'raj - from Nezami's Khamsa dated 1494.jpg, A manuscript from Nizami's ''Khamsa'' dated 1494, depicting

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...

's journey from

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...

to the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock ( ar, قبة الصخرة, Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra) is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site also known to Muslims as the ''al-Haram al-Sharif'' or the Al-Aqsa Compound. Its initial ...

heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

. The

archangel Archangels () are the second lowest rank of angel in the hierarchy of angels. The word ''archangel'' itself is usually associated with the Abrahamic religions, but beings that are very similar to archangels are found in a number of other relig ...

Gabriel In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Gabriel (); Greek: grc, Γαβριήλ, translit=Gabriḗl, label=none; Latin: ''Gabriel''; Coptic: cop, Ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ, translit=Gabriêl, label=none; Amharic: am, ገብር� ...

is seen to Muhammad's right with multiple wings. File:Layla and Majnun2.jpg, A scene from the romance "

". The thwarted lovers meet for the last time before their deaths. Both have fainted and Majnun's elderly messenger attempts to revive Layla while wild animals protect the pair from unwelcome intruders. Late 16th-century illustration. File:Miraj by Sultan Muhammad.jpg, 1543 illustration of the

Mi'raj The Israʾ and Miʿraj ( ar, الإسراء والمعراج, ') are the two parts of a Night Journey that, according to Islam, the Islamic prophet Muhammad (570–632) took during a single night around the year 621 (1 BH – 0 BH). With ...

from the ''Khamsa'', probably created by the court painter Sultan Muhammad. This version was created for the Persian Shah Tahmasp I.Bowker. ''World Religions''. p. 165. File:Khalili Collection Islamic Art mss 1023 fol 082a.jpg, Khosrow and Shirin meet'','' illustration from Prince Aurangzeb's Khamsa, 1640s

References

{{reflist Nizami Ganjavi Medieval Persian literature Persian poetry Memory of the World Register in Iran

Description

Gallery

See also

References