Mausoleum of Nezami
آرامگاه نظامیThe poet's mausoleum outside Ganja
Nezami Ganjavi, who died around 1209, is one of the great narrative poets of Persian literature. He spent almost his whole life in Ganja, a city in the Caucasus now in the Republic of Azerbaijan, and wrote there the five long verse romances known together as the Khamseh, “the five”, among them Layla and Majnun and Khosrow and Shirin, which shaped the Persian romance for centuries and inspired painters across the Islamic world.
His grave lies just outside the city. An older tomb on the site had fallen into ruin, and a new mausoleum was built in 1947, in the Soviet period, then rebuilt in a grander form in 1991. The present building is a tall, ribbed cylindrical tower of reddish-brown stone, crowned with a band of ornament and set in a garden of lawns and paths.
Near the mausoleum stands a group of modern sculptures depicting scenes from the five poems, their lovers and kings rendered in bold figures. Inside the tower is the tomb itself. For visitors the site is less a museum than a place of quiet homage, and it offers a reminder of how far Persian poetry travelled, and how many places can claim a poet who wrote in Persian. Nezami is claimed with pride as a national figure in Azerbaijan, and read and loved in Iran and beyond.
Mausoleum of Nezami through time
Iranian historySeljuks, Mongols and Ilkhanidsسلجوقیان، مغولان و ایلخانان
Turkic and then Mongol conquerors took Iran in turn. The Seljuks built mosques and colleges; the Mongols brought catastrophe, then, as the Ilkhanids, became patrons of history-writing and art.
- Death of Nezami in Ganja
- New mausoleum of Nezami built near Ganja
- Mausoleum rebuilt in its present form
More in Arran and Shirvanاران و شروان
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Stories from the regionداستانها
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Not every Persian rug has a pile. The flatweaves of villages and tents are lighter, quicker and often bolder.
Afsharids, Zands and Qajars
A soldier-king who sacked Delhi, a regent who rebuilt Shiraz, and a dynasty that made Tehran the capital and lived through Iran's Constitutional Revolution.