Jami
جامی
Sufi poet and scholar of Timurid Herat, author of Yusuf and Zulaykha and the Baharestan.
- Known for
- The Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones)
- Forms
- Masnavi, Ghazal, Prose and verse
- Places
- Heratهرات
- Razavi Khorasanخراسان رضوی
- Collection
- The Greats
Nur al-Din Abd al-Rahman Jami was born in 1414 in Kharjerd, in the district of Jam in Khorasan, from which he took his pen name. He spent almost all his life in Herat, the capital of the later Timurids, where he was a leading figure of the Naqshbandi Sufi order and a friend of the statesman and poet Ali-Shir Navai.
His seven masnavis, gathered as the Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones), include Yusuf and Zulaykha and Salaman and Absal. He also wrote the Baharestan, modelled on Saadi's Golestan, the Nafahat al-Uns, a book of lives of the Sufi saints, and Divans of lyric poems. He died in Herat in 1492 and is often called the last great poet of the classical age.
Booksکتابها
The principal works of Jami.
Yusuf and Zulaykha
یوسف و زلیخاJami's best-known poem, one of the seven masnavis of the Haft Awrang: the Quranic story of Joseph and the wife of his Egyptian master, here named Zulaykha, retold as a love that rises from the human to the divine. It was widely copied and illustrated in later Persian painting.
Read 2 poemsSalaman and Absal
سلامان و ابسالA short allegorical masnavi of the Haft Awrang, on the love of Prince Salaman for his nurse Absal, read as the soul's attachment to the body and the senses. Edward FitzGerald published an English version in 1856, three years before his Rubaiyat.
Read the poemThe Spring Garden (Baharestan)
بهارستانJami's book of anecdotes in prose and verse, written for his young son on the model of Saadi's Golestan. Its chapters, called 'gardens', deal with sages, saints, rulers, generosity, love, humour, poets and animals.
Poems by Jamiشعرها
In the original Persian, beside an English translation.
الهی غنچهٔ امید بگشای!
گلی از روضهٔ جاوید بنمای
O God, open the bud of hope!
Show a rose from the eternal garden.
O God, Open the Bud of Hope
دلا تا کی درین کاخ مجازی
کنی مانند طفلان خاک بازی؟
O heart, how long in this palace of illusion
will you play in the dust like children?
O Heart, How Long?
ای به یادت تازه جان عاشقان!
ز آب لطفت تر، زبان عاشقان!
O you whose remembrance refreshes the soul of lovers!
By the water of your grace the tongue of lovers is kept moist!
Your Remembrance Refreshes the Lovers
Jami in Iranian history
Iranian historyThe Timuridsتیموریان
Timur's campaigns were brutal, but his heirs made Samarkand and Herat capitals of Persian painting, poetry, astronomy and architecture.