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In Our Time
Nizami Ganjavi
00:52:21
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great 12th-century Persian epic romantic poet.
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- [00:00]
Melvin Bragg
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Unknown Announcer
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Melvin Bragg
In our time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. Nizami Ganjevi, 1141-1209, is considered to be one of the greatest romantic poets in Persian literature. He was born in the city of Ganja in what is now Azerbaijan, but his popularity soon spread throughout the Persian Empire and beyond. Nizam is best known for his Hamsa, a set of five epic poems that contain a famous retelling of the tragic love story of King Khosrow and the Christian Princess Shirin. But he didn't only write romances. His poetry also displays a dazzling knowledge of philosophy, astronomy, botany and the life of Alexander the Great. With me to discuss Nizami Ganjevi are Christine Van Rumbacker, professor of Persian Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge, Nages Fazad, Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies at SOAS University of London, and Dominic Perviz Brookshaw, professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture at the University of Oxford. Dominic, who was Nizamin Kanjavi and what do we know about his early days?
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Nages Fazad
As with many most medieval Persian poets, it's very difficult to say with any accuracy how their life was certainly before they became famous. So with almost all medieval Persian poets, there is quite a lot of hagiography, there's quite a lot of writing that happens centuries after they've died, that looks back and sees them in a light that of course is full of praise, but isn't necessarily full of much accuracy. The things that we do know, as you said, he was born in Ganja, which nowadays is in Azerbaijan, and he wrote these really important poems, a number of them, for local rulers, whether they were in Ganja, whether they were in Baku, or whether they were in Maraq, which is in northwestern Iran nowadays. So he wrote within the Caucasus, he wrote for local elites, and at the time that he wrote, those local elites were powerful in their own right, within their own area, but they were linked into one of the great empires of the time, in his case, the late 12th century, the Seljuks. And he had contacts with the Seljuk elite, but he was very much a poet writing in the Caucasus and in northwestern Iran as we know it today.
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Melvin Bragg
Are we talking about a poet who connected different cultures through his work?
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Nages Fazad
So it's the Caucasus. So you have a very mixed ethnic and linguistic environment. You have quite a lot of Christians as well as of course Muslims. And that is reflected I think in the way that he wrote. He had characters and developed characters that were Christian such as Shirin. He really developed, developed into an elite Christian woman. And he was writing at a time in that place where a form of Turkish had become important. But of course he's writing in the elite literary language of his sphere, which is New Persian. And because he's writing in New Persian he's very quickly picked up and he is read and his works start to be copied and circulate in what was the Persephone world. So all the way through modern day Iran into Afghanistan into Central Asia and into India as well and then westwards into Anatolia. So if you became a famous poet in the medieval times as a Persian poet, you could have, in the way that they thought of the world, a kind of global success.
- [04:04]
Melvin Bragg
Thank you Nagas. His work is known as the Hamza or Quintet as we've heard. What, what does the collection include?
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Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
So the Hamseh, also known in Persian as Panj Gyanj the Quintet, the Five Treasures consists of five mega epics. The first one, Mahzan al Asror is a spiritual epic known as the treasury or the Book of Secrets. And this is followed by three magnificent romantic epics. So in the chronological order is Khosrow Shirin, the romance of the pre Islamic Sasanian monarch Khosrow and Armenian Princess followed by Laili o Majnun, the famous story known throughout the region. But he's put it into verse for the first time in Persian. Then comes Haft Peikar, the Seven Beauties or the Seven Domes. Again based on a pre Islamic life and adventures of a monarch. And finally by Iskandarnameh, the book of Alexander itself divided in two sections. Sharafnomeh the Book of Honour and followed by Erbal Nomeh the Book of Fortune.
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Melvin Bragg
It might be rather surprising to some people to see Alexander the Great included in this collection.
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Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
Well, you know, for some reason the region, not just the Persian speaking world but the Arab world too were mesmerized by Alexander to the extent that that not only Iranians did not loathe him for obviously everyone knows that he invaded Iran and ultimately in these Greek Persian wars. But finally they had, the Greeks had the upper hand and he supposedly destroyed Persepolis. But regardless of that he is a mythical figure. He is next to in Nesami's final chapter of his Skandarname he's almost a prophet. He's seeking the fountain of life. And there are many, many, many epics of Iskandar throughout the medieval time in Persian poetry.
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Melvin Bragg
Christine, what was the connection between poetry and the court at this time, and how did he fit in?
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Christine Van Rumbacker
Well, I would say that in medieval and pre modern times, for any artistic enterprise, patronage was not an option. It was the key. It was absolutely indispensable. And only a happy few poets had a position, gained a position at court.
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Melvin Bragg
How did you get one?
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Christine Van Rumbacker
Well, they had to fight like tigers to get one. How did they fight? They would fight. They would have poetry contests. They would prove that they were able to present the best poems, the best lines. And the prince, the patrons, the rulers, were extremely interested in poetry, and they were really deciding on a person for his artistic excellence. But also what he was saying, how he was saying. So this was a very important decision and a very important position for these poets. Less lucky poets had to scramble throughout their lives in the hope of getting commissions and maybe such a position as well. Now, for Nesami, as we have said, apparently he had no court position at all. Does that mean that he was scrambling? We have no real proof of that. What is certain is that he is writing for court, for very sophisticated audiences. But he receives specific commissions from rulers for each of his narratives. They come to him with a plan. So he must have been well known during his lifetime. And keeping in mind what considerable knowledge and education the poetry of Nesami is reflecting, it means access to libraries, extremely high information networks. So we can wonder whether maybe he was actually born in an important family, but we don't know. In fact, he shows he's really fastidious in his tastes for selecting patrons. And I will just say a few lines that he has written about that. So he says, I am looking for an intelligent audience, the type that will not damage the fame of the jeweler. So he's using the metaphor of the pearl for poetry and of a jeweler for the poet. If the buyer of pearls is as blind as an oyster, one should not sell anything to such a despicable individual. According to me, the buyer should be a jewel connoisseur, who meanwhile, also scatters jewels without cant.
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Melvin Bragg
Thank you. He made great use of Masjavi style. I think that's how you pronounce it. What was that style? Can you give me an example?
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Christine Van Rumbacker
So the Masnavi. I'll have to go into some hardcore theory here. This is poetry. So a verse is speech expressed according to a meter. That is the words are assembled following a set pattern of long, overlong and short syllables. For example, short, long, long, short, long, long, short, long, long, short, long. That is a meter, the epic meter. This rhythm is what The Shahnameh, the 60,000 verses of the Shahnameh have been built upon. Next, every verse is divided into two half verses. And third, there is a rhyme which is particularly important. It occurs at the end of each verse, or also it can occur at the end of each half verse, in which case we call this an internal rhyme. And finally, there are specific forms of poems, often chosen in relation to the contents of the poems. For long narratives, the poets will choose preferably. And that is what Nesami did, the Masnavi form. And that is sometimes a form that carries on for thousands of verses because it has only an internal rhyme which changes at every line. So the poet can go on and on. He just needs to have two words rhyming at a time. Some meters will be preferred for certain genres of topics. We have the epic meter, but Nesami is also using typically romance meters, which he's using in Khoso and Shirin, for example.
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Melvin Bragg
Thank you very much, Dominic. Let's take a look. Then closer look at his retelling of the love story of Khosrow and Shirin. First of all, what is this legend and what's its source?
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Nages Fazad
So the key source for Nes Ami was the really important book of Kings, the Shahnameh, that is completed at the beginning of the 11th century. And what Nes Ami does in relation to the story of the very late Sasanian, so late pre Islamic king Khosrow ii, is that he takes a part of the Shahnameh story about Khosrow that does talk about Khusro and a wife called Shirin, but it's a very short part of the Khosrow story. And he then extracts that and amplifies it and develops it into this full narrative in which he either develops characters that are kind of alluded to in the Shahnameh, or he adds characters and he takes us in terms of the narrative down paths that perhaps, you know, Ferdowsi and the myths and the legends that Feodor C. Drew on didn't really take the reader down. Nes Ami is the master of making really quite intricate, complex stories out of quite limited source material.
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Melvin Bragg
Can you tell us the outline of the story?
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Nages Fazad
It's a very complex story. I mean, the really important thing about Khusra and Shirin, in my opinion, there are two really important things. Things one is, and this comes up again and Again, in the way that Nez Ami writes about kings, and we see it also in the Shahnameh Ferdowsi is that kings are, particularly when they are young, they are rash, they are immature, they need to develop their humanity, they need to develop justice, they need to be empathetic, they need to reflect on their mistakes and learn from them. And that's certainly what Khusrau is and what Khusrov does through the story. So that's a really important thing about Khusra and the kings that crop up in these romances. What Shirin does and what almost all of the female characters do in Nezami's tellings is that they help to guide and educate their male counterpart. So they are educators, they are admonishers. They are women who have more kind of intellectual but also definitely emotional maturity.
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Melvin Bragg
Can I turn to you, I guess, to develop the way he deals with women in a completely different way, as I understand it, than it happened before.
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Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
He's quite unique in depiction of his female characters and the most magnificent of them is Shirin. All these women are literate. There are a whole host of correspondence, the letters that Shirin and Khosrow exchange. For example, she is a fantastic rider, a hunter, knows all that she needs to know about music, she sort of patrons a musician at the court. But it is, you know, they are real grown up women. Of course, the stories, like, you know, equivalents of Romeo and Juliet are there aplenty. But Shirin, in the story of Khosrow, Shirin is the epitome of a woman who knows her limitations but also is aware of her own strengths. She does not compromise morally, she does not compromise on the principles of the life of the elite. And Nezami absolutely adores her. In this story. He often says that he poured his love into the creation of the character of Shirin. And some people say that it's because this was at a time when his own beloved first wife had died. But this actually carries through in all his other epics. That these women are so real one can associate them with the true characteristics of a formidable female hero.
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Melvin Bragg
There's even more to say here. Christine, would you like to add to this?
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Christine Van Rumbacker
I can, yes, because Husseran Shirin is such a delightful piece. Nes Ami when he's writing Khosrow and Shireen is really at a full mature glory. He's in full mastery of his literary and poetical toolbox and he's composing high art. But he's also incredibly entertaining and he's also sharpening our wits. He has very high expectations of his readers. And what I particularly love is that this is a poet who plays with his readers, who teases and challenges them at every turn. And it's very important for me, an author with a wonderful sense of humor. And I would like to give two examples, if I may.
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Melvin Bragg
Please do.
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Christine Van Rumbacker
In Khosrow and Shireen, Nesami uses what we now call defamiliarization. So as Dominic and Nargis said, he uses an episode from an older book, the Shahnameh, which tells of a story of an infamous, actually love story between a besotted Sasanian king and an ambitious harem girl. It leads to a huge sordid scandal that rocks Iranian monarchy. The Grandees are boycotting the council of the king. They cannot accept for the king to marry a lowly woman. And what will they do with the children born from this marriage? The Grandees basically tell him if this Shireen was the last woman left on earth, still an Iranian king must not marry her. This is not what you should be doing. The king doesn't listen, marries her, and it will lead eventually to the end of the Sasanian dynasty. Now, this is in the older story. And now Nesami comes and he says in his introduction that his narrative is going to be about Eshk Bazi love games. And he chooses in order to do that, this particular scandalous couple. And he surprises all his readers because he's transformed this rather wicked female character of the Shirin of the Shahnameh into that radiant princess, as Nargis said, an ideal wife. Personally, if I may say, I'm quite upset at Shirin because she's so perfect that I frankly hate her sometimes because I think I can't compete with such a. How could a normal person compete with such perfection? But. So that is his technique, which is humorous in itself, but he's also presenting throughout the mas navi of Khusrou and Shirin really funny episodes. So the young princess Shirin falls in love with a picture of Prince Khusrau and she will stick to that love throughout. All sorts of misery that this young prince and later king is taking her through. He's not worthy of her pure soul. He tries to seduce her and feeling this, he marries a courtesan. And then he comes back to her and he asks Shirin to forgive, give him. She does that and eventually they marry. But at the end of the wedding banquet, the king is so drunk that Shireen is going to put her old wet nurse in bed with him. And we're not quite sure that he notices that rather than to live through a rotten wedding night, I would like.
- [18:20]
Nages Fazad
To read just a few short lines. But in these lines, which are from the Haftpeikar, so one of his later works, Nezami does something that he does again and again, which is praise the art of writing poetry praises poets. He says elsewhere that poets are like the nightingales of the throne of God. And here he praises poetry itself, which in translation of Julie Mesami is discourse or poetry is like to a flawless soul the keys to unseen treasure holds it, knows the story yet unheard, and reads the yet unwritten word. Look round of all that God has made. What else save discourse or poetry does not fade? The sole memorial of mankind is discourse. All the rest is wind. And here Nes Ami is doing what he does at the beginning of all of these great stories that he tells, which is to praise his art in part to attract patronage, but also to say that what I am presenting here is the most elevated of the arts.
- [19:56]
Melvin Bragg
Is it important that the collections are set in a pre Islamic world?
- [20:01]
Nages Fazad
I think it is very important. I think it's very important in relation to the female characters that we've talked about. So Shireen in particular, as we have said, is a character that can be developed into a really strong character, in part, I think, because it's pre Islamic, but also because she's a Christian. And that gives a little bit more space to Nes Ami to create a woman, at least of his time in the 12th century, who is very kind of bold and powerful. It's not really until the Mongol period, which comes after Nezami and the immediate post Mongol period, that we get women who are much more involved in political life in the Iranian world. But he's writing that in a period before in the haftpay cash. He also uses Sassanian, so pre Islamic history and folklore in order to create stories. And one of the stories that he creates is interestingly about a slave girl rather than by an elite woman. And again, I think because it's in a pre Islamic context, Nes Ami is slightly freed in the way he talks about that slave girl. And the really key thing about her in the Shahnameh, she is called Azadeh, which means in that context a woman who's too free with her speech. He develops her into a woman who tests the king, but the thing that is testing about her is the way she speaks to the king, the way she speaks truth to power. And I think because it's a pre Islamic context, he's able to do that in a much freer way than he would with a Muslim or Islamic context.
- [21:37]
Melvin Bragg
Thank you. I guess. Can you respond to that? But also I'd like to get more poetry and this is a good chance to do it, to do that.
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Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
Well, this wonderful epic of King Khosrow and Princess Shirin begins with these opening lines. Nezami says he asks the divine to help him, the poetic voice, to do justice to the epic he's about to compose. And he says, arusiro KE parvardam bejonash moborek rui gardon darjahonas bechash mechuddy Barnomynast folas. And he says, this bride that I have developed by pouring my heart and soul into, please, O Divine, make her luminous in the world. I almost give her longevity through my poetry and make the king to be mesmerized, besotted by her beauty, for his own fortune is absolutely based on her presence. And in this story, Shirin is really that anchor that keeps this really wayward, this rather predatory monarch on the straight and the narrow. And she knows that one thing that will hold him interested is the fact that she will not be with him until they are married. And one amazing feature of this story is that he has many occasions. I mean, he has had so many wives and there have been wives who've been bartered, for example, by the Emperor of Greece, you know, the Rome, eastern Rome as it is, as part of peace treaties, he has to marry this rival king's daughter and so on and so forth. But whenever it comes to Shirin, no means no. And this love which was preordained when he was a young man, he was promised this woman in a dream. And it sort of really. The story runs throughout until they're eventually married. Not as young people they are. By this stage he must be in his 40s and she's probably late 30s and she is his moral compass. And this runs throughout the poem till it's absolutely heartbreaking. Tragic end.
- [24:17]
Melvin Bragg
Christine, can we turn on to the story of Layla and Majnun? What's the story here and what's Nizami's aim?
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Christine Van Rumbacker
Yeah, Layla, Majnun is in a sense also a study of love. But this time Nizami portrays the difficulty, the heartbreak of the misery maybe of this incarnate love. So he's not enthusiastic at first when he receives the commission to gather loose legends and to create the story of this couple of young star crossed Arabic couple, he's a bit out of his comfort zone, which is the luxury and the glory of the Sassanian Empire. So here the story of these two lovers is influenced by what is called Udri love, the Arabic tradition of non physical, non carnal love that is somehow similar to the courtly love that the Crusaders brought back on their way home. So the young boy is thwarted in his young love. The father of Laili does not want to give his daughter to him. He runs away into the desert and he becomes a hermit. He lives with animals. He becomes a Majnun, a madman and a poet. And we see that he now brings misery to every character in the story. He cries a lot and his sad verses are carried by the desert breeze, the caravans to Layli, who also cries a lot. She's now married against her will to a man whom she will not allow to touch her. Majinun's father dies of grief. Laili's husband dies in torment. Laili herself dies. And Majnun, prostrated on her tomb, also dies. And as Ami describes all this misery in really wonderful verses, he creates an incredibly intense story. It's deeply moving and it's infinitely sad and disturbing. It's almost as if he denounces mystic love, or at the very least he's not recommending it.
- [26:22]
Melvin Bragg
How was this received?
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Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
This poetry is mostly performed. There are reciters at court and it's really for elite audience. There would be on different occasions, banquets or significant days, festivals where the poet himself would usually would recite it and. But not always there would be musicians, minstrels, professional singers, if you like. So predominantly, unlike modern days, where we sit and quietly read our poems, perhaps on the underground, in this period, this is very much a public performance with the added drama and, you know, leisurely, they would have hours where they will sit and listen to this. And when you see this structure of Masnavi that Christine described, there are repetition, the lines are repeated, because it's quite hard to remember what had gone before. And of course, later on, these books were reproduced in the shape of these magnificent manuscripts, and gradually they were perhaps read more rather than performed. But in this period it's predominantly recited at public occasions, but not necessarily every member of public.
- [27:46]
Melvin Bragg
Does his work have a moral message that this. This is how you should lead a better life, or.
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Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
Absolutely, undoubtedly, it's very much didactic composition. But he does bring in his own frustration. So, for example, Laeliomajnun, I think it took him something like four months to compose, because he wasn't really that enamored with this old tale, the tale that's Been learned in Mesopotamia for a long time. But other works like Hosrushirin, I think took over 10 years. But throughout, the themes that recur are the impermanence of life, you know, things you do not cling on to, what you have today. Greed, arrogance, lack of loyalty, lack of appreciations, and adherence to this order of hierarchy. Monarch, his son, divine authority, the soldiers. But greed is very much the most despicable of vices, if you like, but totally a work of wisdom, works of ethics for life.
- [28:56]
Melvin Bragg
Thank you, Dominic. Can we explore in a little more detail what we've already touched on, how his treatment of women is, it seems to me, from what I've read, dramatically different from those who preceded him.
- [29:10]
Nages Fazad
I think it was. The thing that is really interesting for me, as someone who works more on lyric poetry than narrative, is that lyric poetry. So the short poems in Persian, the Qazal or the longer odes at court, the panegyric, they are filled with erotic content. But the erotic content there is normally the celebration of young male beauty by an older male. It's male homoerotic. And females don't really feature in lyric poetry in Persian, it's in the narrative poetry that you get these celebrations of female beauty and power. What happens with Nes Amin is that he then becomes so popular that he is imitated by later poets. And the two poets that are really important in imitating him are Amir Khosrow in Delhi and Jami, who is basically in what is now Afghanistan. And they write imitations and add to the stories that he has done in his quintet. And again, they have really powerful female characters. It's in the Mongol period and the immediate post mongol, so the 13th century and the 14th century and going forward that women, elite women, start to become really powerful in political life. And so someone like Nes Ami kind of came slightly before that, but the others that imitated him, they had examples of powerful Muslim women who were rulers, who were influential. And so their poems that they sometimes even also wrote for these women, but their poems spoke to these powerful political women that they could see before them.
- [30:52]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
One of the most famous scenes in Khosrow Shirin is when Shirin, who has also seen a portrait of Khosrow and is smitten and encouraged by some courtiers, decides to gallop her way from modern day Armenia to western Iran to meet this Khosrow to find him. And of course, what we mustn't also forget in Nes Ami is the depiction and presence of animals. You know, the horses is they are just amazing. The steeds that he introduces and develops. So she has the world's most beautiful fastest horse, Shabdis. So up she gets on this horse and gallops for about 11 and 12 days to come to Iran, to Khosrow's court, to see if he's really as beautiful and handsome as his portrait. And she's exhausted and she decides to stop. She comes across this pond and decides to cool off. And what is unprecedented there we have in every detail, she takes off all her clothes, puts on this little diaphanous sarong if you like, and cools herself in this pond. And the descriptions of this beauty, this is unheard of. And as Dominic said earlier, this could only be developed in a pre Islamic setting because imagine this episode being performed and recited in a court with all the, you know, levels of society there. And what is extraordinary, Khosrow, meanwhile, he has the same idea. He's galloping his way to Armenia and he's exhausted and he stops off and goodness, there he sees this vision of this beauty bathing in water and he is decent enough to look away because she suddenly is aware of his presence and just undoes all her braided hair to sort of, you know, cover herself. And in that moment when he shyly looks away, her beloved, loyal horse is there. She leaps on the horse and gallops away. So these ideas could only really be set in the pre Islamic context and don't really happen till much, much, much later. It's, you know, this, this true, this is not divine, beloved. This is a human, beautiful woman.
- [33:22]
Melvin Bragg
Can we switch a little now, Christine, to his interest in philosophy, science and the life of Alexander the Great?
- [33:30]
Christine Van Rumbacker
Yes. So Nezami's verses are always full of imagery related to sciences. But also most of his narratives are occasions to illustrate philosophical theories, Nezami explains. In the Book of Alexander, Nezami explains that he has chosen this particular Alexander character as his central character because his legend makes him an ideal case, he says, for the three Persona of the ideal ruler. Now that is a theory that was developed by a major philosopher in the 10th century who is called Farah B. Who looks back at Plato and Aristotle and integrates that in Islamic philosophy in his utopia, which is called the Virtuous City. He describes the ideal ruler of the ideal state as that extraordinary figure who is a political and military leader, who is also a top philosopher and who is three someone who reaches prophethood. And now Alexander is an excellent choice because he was a famous conqueror. He was also a pupil of Aristotle, so he must be aware of philosophy and he's identified with a prophet mentioned in the Qur'an as the double horned one, the dual canine. Early on in the book of Alexander, we have an intriguing episode. And I will tell you that episode because it illustrates an essential Platonic tenet. Do not trust your senses, but use your intelligence to confirm what you see or what you hear. This is the dispute, the monosere, between the painters of Chin and the painters of Rum. So during a royal banquet, there is a discussion starting on who are the best painters in the world. Is it the Rumis, the Romans? Or is it the Chinese, the people from China or Central Asia? The king organizes a test. The two teams are gathered in a big room divided by a curtain. Each is given carte blanche to decorate the walls on their side. And once they are ready, the king takes place in the middle of the room and the curtain is removed. And what a surprise, both walls are identical. There is no difference at all between the two paintings. The vizier, who represents the active intellect orders to replace the curtain in the middle of the room. And the wall that was painted by the room remains the same, while the wall painted by the Chinese becomes blank, empty. And the vizier now understands that while one team was painting, the other was polishing the wall until it became a mirror reflecting the opposite wall to perfection. And the king was unable to understand that because he trusted his vision, his senses. So clearly Nesami's literary creation of Alexander is really based on this discovery of philosophy and understanding what it is like to be an ideal king.
- [36:39]
Melvin Bragg
Dominic, what's the state of the reading of his poetry in the modern world?
- [36:45]
Nages Fazad
It's important to understand the new Persian, which is the form of Persian that emerges after the Islamic conquest, so really emerges as a literary language in the 9th and 10th centuries of the Common Era, by the time we get to certainly, I would say the, the beginning of the 11th century, it becomes almost in its literary form, in poetry, it almost becomes fixed as a language. And so there isn't really until the middle of the 19th century, end of the 19th century, too much difference, at least in poetry and Persian, between the 2 10th century and as I said, the middle of the 19th, it's very, very stable. And that means that Even nowadays, when 20th century, in particular in Iran and Afghanistan, Tajikistan, the Persian speaking world, the modern Persian speaking world, if you are literate and educated enough, you can access the medieval poetry of someone like Nezami, because it isn't too far from the literary idiom of today. If it's taught in schools and it used to be taught much more in schools in Iran 40, 50 years ago than it is nowadays. But if it's taught in schools, that obviously also helps. But Iranians in particular and other Persian speakers are, you know, a language group of people who are very, very close to poetry even today. They see so much of their cultural identity in poetry almost uniquely in the world. And so you have these phenomena in the diaspora, especially with students. They've done their bachelor's in Iran, they come to study in Europe or North America and they might be doing engineering, medical sciences, but very often in their universities, they gather together, they organize literary poetry reading groups together, and they sit and they read Nezami and they read Hafez and they read Rumi and they find inspiration for their life through that. And they connect together despite political differences, very often through high culture of the medieval period. It's a fascinating thing.
- [38:53]
Melvin Bragg
Nages and Christine, briefly you could tell me how has this their poetry permeated other cultures?
- [39:00]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
Laelio Magnun Re emerges in so many different iterations in other parts of the region, in South Asia and throughout Middle East. And it was really a standard for how you compose these romantic long narrative poems. A whole range of local poets for centuries to come. Even Rumi, even Sa'di, they all were influenced by it and they either actually give him credit or mention these characters. And to this day, you know, when you mention about its modern day reception in 2008, the late Abbos Kiorostami, the Persian director, he made this film, it's called Shirin and just, it's really just performing. There are only female actresses who sit there and sort of have to respond to the narration of this story, for example. So it continues. The role of these women, particularly that he has created, are absolute role model saviors for activists.
- [40:07]
Nages Fazad
Now I just want to say that as it spread also in later centuries and was imitated in Persian, it also then gets imitated in related languages. So you get versions of these stories told in Ottoman Turkish slightly later, and you get versions in Chagatai, which is a Central Asian Turkic language as well. And then you get them in Hindustani or Urdu in the South Asian Muslim languages and then beyond. So as we say normally the kind of Persianate world which didn't necessarily always use Persian as a literary language or used it alongside other vernaculars, also then imitates Nes Ami and his stories.
- [40:46]
Christine Van Rumbacker
Christine and I would also talking about present day influence of Nesami, I think we have to say something about the way he is seen as the poet in Azerbaijan, which is the region where Nezami actually lived at the time. Now, they have immense pride in Nesami and they call Nesami their national poet. Scholars will be studying Nesami in Persian, but the children, the population known as Ami in Turkish or Azeri translations, as is the situation in Iran, students learn it at school. They follow his ethical sayings as role models for their lives. So it's really very much a life. And I could also Perhaps mention, in 2015, we had the opening ceremony of the European Games in Baku. Well, during the ceremony, they featured Nesami. They had ballet scenes inspired by his Masnavis, really bringing Nesami to the notice of the international crowds and showing the country's admiration for the poet.
- [41:54]
Melvin Bragg
Well, thank you all very much. Thanks to Nages Farsad, Christine Van Rumbacker and Dominique Pervyse Bruckshaw. Next week, the habitability of planets. What would it take for life to emerge away from Earth and to survive and thrive, where we might find it and what it might look like. Thanks for listening.
- [42:14]
Christine Van Rumbacker
And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.
- [42:20]
Melvin Bragg
What would you like to have said you didn't have time to say?
- [42:24]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
I want to promote the power of a language that somehow seems to have survived all the conflicts, all the conquests. I mean, we've gone from the arrival of a totally new culture, arrival of Islam in Iran, and then we progress. We have the soldiers, the Turkic tribes coming, then the Mongols who completely flattened this land, not to mention earlier Greeks, but that didn't have so much influence on the language. And on in goes, and it's just, you know, we. We can read this out. This is a poetry that was written 800 years ago. And if you recite it, the speakers of this language, they could be in modern day Afghanistan, they could be in Tajikistan, in Iran, they could be in la, London, Dubai, wherever Iranians congregate. They will sit spellbound. They will follow it. Maybe not 99%, not the entirety of it, but they will understand. And I think this is pretty unique. And the themes we recognize. You know the names of this. I have cousins called Khosrow Shirin, and we didn't mention the amazing architect, engineer, sculptor, Farhad who appears in Khosrow Shirin. There is a third love interest. And you know, just to have so many Iranians or Indians or others called Farhot Khos Rashidin, the horses. If anyone owns a horse now, they will call it Shabdis or Raksh beforehand. We just take it for granted. But this phenomenal language that has somehow come through unscathed and in fact happily taken the good features of the conquering cultures and has formed it. Iranian culture absorbs, for example, Iskandar, he's suddenly in the shahnameh. He actually is half Iranian. Did you know that? And it's just as if doesn't matter. He wasn't a baddie, he was just one of us who slightly got a bit separated. But his mother was Iranian, for example. So I always, because I come from this culture, I somehow feel that I underestimate this amazing characteristic of it.
- [44:55]
Nages Fazad
Dominic I wanted to say two things. One speaks to what Christine was saying about Azerbaijan, the modern nation state and its relationship with Nes Ami, which is very interesting. And of course in Iran there is a kind of mirror relationship with that, where the modern nation state of Iran also claims Nes Ami very much as an Iranian poet. And I think to do both of those things is really to do an injustice to him and the time in which he lived. And you know, he was connected as any poet was connected in this medieval world, in that part of Asia was connected to a huge area of land where Persian either was both the native language and the literary language or was used as a language of high culture. And so he's not really the poet of any nation state. You know, he's the poet of a cultural moment in time. And his legacy is one that, you know, as we've said, spread west and east and was very long lived.
- [45:57]
Melvin Bragg
Christine.
- [45:58]
Christine Van Rumbacker
Well, speaking about the legacy of Nesami spreading west, spreading to us, one famous example, which I think we really need to mention here is that Puccini's opera Turandot is based on one of the stories that Nesami tells in his Haft Baker, in his Seven Beauties. In one word, a princess has got to choose a husband to rule next to her. And she sets all sorts of very difficult tests to the suitors. They all die and their heads are put on the walls of the city. But the beauty of the princess and the challenge bring constant new hot headed young men to the. To the slaughter. To the slaughter, absolutely. And now one of them will get through all the challenges. And finally she's asking him four questions, four riddles. And what Nesami does is to make these riddles silent. So it's with objects, metaphoric objects. The two future the princess and the under suitor are in different rooms. They don't speak to each other, they don't see each other, they don't know each other, they correspond with objects. And finally the suitor will crack the riddles and marry the princess. Now, the story taken over through Italian translations and all sorts of passages, the story that Puccini puts in his opera is really the same thing. He puts that in China rather than in Iran, but basically it's the same thing. And what I think we do not understand when we listen to Puccini's opera and we consider that Turandot is a belle femme sans merci. He's a cruel woman. No, she's afraid. And she wants to test her future husband and only will marry the one who understands what her riddles are about.
- [47:48]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
And the name of the opera itself, Turon Ducht Durht, Persian being an Indo European language, do so. And Turan is the Persian word for the Chinese empire, so the daughter of China, the Chinese princess. Another thing which we cannot ignore are the magnificent manuscripts that exist of these epics of Nesami. I mean, they are spellbinding, and we're so lucky that we can just go online search for them. And of course, my two colleagues are at institutions that have some of the magnificent manuscripts, and British Library, they are phenomenally beautiful. It's really been a gift for centuries, a gift to artists to outdo each other as they produce new copies of these epics.
- [48:45]
Christine Van Rumbacker
And speaking about these incredible manuscripts, we must realize that it's a hugely expensive thing to commission. So the fact that princes throughout history were ready to put on the table a huge amount of money to have a workshop. Who's working on the most expensive paper, Chinese paper, with the most expensive pigments, gold, lapis lazuli, silver with the most incredible calligraphers, the quality of the ink, which is still as black as on the day it was put on that paper nowadays, so many centuries later. So to have people who are ready to put so much money just to own a copy of Nesami's work already tells us something about how he was regarded at the time. And it's also, I think, at the back of their mind is the idea to transform this poetry, this oral poetry, into something that is, that is written down, that will survive through centuries, you know, making sure that it will survive, because it's transformed into such a piece of very expensive art.
- [49:53]
Nages Fazad
Dominic it's just very interesting how we have that tradition. So we have all the imitations that happen, different languages. And in Persian later, we have the manuscript tradition that becomes so important. But what also happens is that because these stories become so popular in the Masnavi form, they also then get incorporated later in the 13th, 14th, century going forward into lyric poetry. And so everyone knows these stories. And so when a lyric poet wants to say something about a crazed lover or a really powerful woman or, you know, either bad or good love relationship, all they have to do is say, so and so is like Shirin. So and so was like Majnun, or so and so was like Khusra or Farhad or whoever it is as a kind of shorthand. And the person listening to a poem that's only nine lines long knows, ah, I know which part of the narrative that is, I know what the poet means. And so there then develops this really interesting interface between epic and romance. The narrative, poems and lyric, it all kind of entwines together. And that lyric poetry, the short stuff, is very much, often of, not initially, but later of a kind of lower socio economic form of poetry or a poetry that circulates throughout different classes of society in a way that an elite manuscript couldn't.
- [51:16]
Melvin Bragg
Right, yeah. Well, I think that's time to conclude. And our producer, Simon Tillerson is about to enter with gifts.
- [51:26]
Nages Fazad
Tea would be great.
- [51:27]
Christine Van Rumbacker
I'm happy with the water, yes.
- [51:29]
Nages Fazad
Melvin, do you want tea or coffee?
- [51:32]
Melvin Bragg
I'll have some tea, I think.
- [51:33]
Nages Fazad
Three teas. Thank you very much. That was great.
- [51:38]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
In Our Time with Melvin Bragg is.
- [51:40]
F
Produced by Simon Tillotson and it's a.
- [51:42]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
BBC Studios audio production.
- [51:45]
G
One winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
- [51:51]
Melvin Bragg
We're still looking for Lucan all over the world.
- [51:54]
G
Lord Lucan is said to have killed the family nanny and to have attacked his wife before disappearing. Why has this, of all crimes, captured our imagination?
- [52:03]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
It's partly that the evidence is so murky.
- [52:06]
G
As I try to get to the bottom of the case, my preconceptions are blown apart.
- [52:11]
Dominic Perviz Brookshaw
I mean, this.
- [52:12]
G
This is a pretty weird stuff to have in a box, isn't it? What on earth is this for? The Lucan obsession with me. Alex von Tunzelman from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.
- [52:31]
Unknown Announcer
Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation.
- [52:46]
F
It felt a really safe and welcoming space after the yoga classes. I felt amazing.
- [52:52]
Unknown Announcer
But soon that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker. A journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders.
- [53:05]
F
I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards. I have nothing.
- [53:10]
G
The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.
- [53:16]
Unknown Announcer
World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series, we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry with a hope of a spiritual breakthrough. Gives way to disturbing accusations.
- [53:32]
G
You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize.
- [53:40]
F
And it's like this. The secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't understand.
- [53:59]
Unknown Announcer
Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network.
- [54:02]
F
I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future.
- [54:26]
G
To bring it into the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power.
- [54:37]
Unknown Announcer
World of Secrets Season 6 the Bad Guru Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.