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

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

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

Nizami Ganjavi Nizami Ganjavi (; 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, Muhammad(2006), "Tahlil-i Haft Paykar-i Nezami", Tehran.: p. 2: Some commentators h ...

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The ''Khamsa'' is in five long narrative poems: * '' 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'' () is a romantic Epic poetry, epic poem by the Persians, Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209). It is the second work of his set of five poems known collectively as Khamsa of Nizami, ''Khamsa''. It tells a highly el ...

'), 1177–1180 * ''Leyli o Majnun'' (, ' Layla and Majnun'), 1192 * '' Eskandar-Nâmeh'' (, 'The Book of Alexander'), 1194 or 1196–1202 * '' Haft Peykar'' (, '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 (), more commonly known as Sanai, was a poet from Ghazni. He lived his life in the Ghaznavid Empire which is now located in Afghanistan (At that time, Ghazni was considered part of the cultura ...

'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 (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

, who all have episodes devoted to them in

Ferdowsi Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) 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 single poet, and the gre ...

's ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

'', 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) The illuminated manuscript ''Khamsa of Nizami'' British Library, Or. 12208 is a lavishly illustrated manuscript of the ''Khamsa of Nizami, Khamsa'' or "five poems" of Nizami Ganjavi, a 12th-century Persian poet, which was created for the Mughal E ...

, created for the Mughal Emperor

Akbar Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...

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 26,000 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 in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

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

Sassanid The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

king, Bahram Gur 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 The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the begi ...

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 (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

's journey from

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

to the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock () is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. It is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture, the List_of_the_ol ...

heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

. The

archangel Archangels () are the second lowest rank of angel in the Catholic hierarchy of angels, based on and put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 5th or 6th century in his book ''De Coelesti Hierarchia'' (''On the Celestial Hierarchy'') ...

Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...

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

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See also

References