“FARHAD AND SHIRIN” – A SUFI POEM IN ALISHER NAVOIY’S KHAMSA

Abstract

Farhad and Shirin is the second poem in the great thinker and poet Alisher Navoiy's Khamsa, completed in 1484. Before Navoiy, this work was widely known in the form of Khosrow and Shirin. The hero on whom the legend is based, Khosrow Parvez, was in fact a historical figure; he ascended the throne of Iran in 590 AD and in 628 was killed by his son Sheruya. According to the Navoi scholar Dilnavoz Yusupova, his love for Shirin—an Aramean or Armenian girl—is recorded in many historical sources. In particular, Navoiy himself provides information about Khosrow Parvez in the section dedicated to the history of the Sasanids in his work Tarixi muluki Ajam. However, in literary tradition, the story of Khosrow and Shirin was first mentioned by Firdausi in his epic Shahnameh. Later, the Azerbaijani thinker Nizami Ganjavi turned it into a separate romantic-adventurous poem. His Khosrow and Shirin was translated into Turkic by Qutb Khorezmi in 1340.