Nizami Ganjavi

Nizami Ganjavi was a twelfth-century poet from the city of Ganja in the South Caucasus, today in Azerbaijan, and is regarded as the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature. He brought a colloquial and realistic style to the Persian epic and wrote in the double-rhymed masnavi form. His best known work is the Khamsa, also called the Panj Ganj or Five Treasures, a set of five long narrative poems that includes Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun, and the Book of Alexander. He avoided court life though he dedicated his poems to regional rulers, and little is known about his life beyond what his own verse reveals. His poems were later copied and illustrated in lavish manuscripts at the Persian and Mughal courts, and his heritage is claimed with pride in Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.