Amazingly I’m still struggling to link this guy with “Layla” despite having no illusions he exists. Rumi is just too much of a ‘go to’ answer, and I really should try to appreciate the differences between the two.
Questions
The Nizami Mausoleum can be found just outside which Azerbaijani city, with a clue being given by the two-word term he is also commonly known as?
GANJA (As in Nizami Ganjavi)
An inspiration for the Derek and the Dominoes song “Layla”, which narrative poem by Nizami has a title referring to two lovers, Layla and her lover Qays, the latter known by an epithet that suggests he is a bit on the ‘crazy’ side?
LAYLA AND MAJNUN
“Layla and Majnun” is one of five long narrative poems that make up which collection by Nizami? It is known by two names, one meaning ‘Quintet’ and another meaning ‘Five treasures’.
KHAMSA / PANJ GANJ
A ruler of the Sassanian empire, which princess was Khosrow II’s lover in the title of a work by Nizami that is included in his “Khamsa” collection of narrative poems?
SHIRIN
What does the word ‘Namêh’ mean in the Nizami narrative poem “Eskandar-Namêh”, that word also making up part of the title in Ferdowsi’s work “Shahnameh”?
BOOK
A masterpiece of erotic literature that is alternatively named for Sassanian emperor Bahram V, how many ‘beauties’ feature according to the title of Nizami’s “Haft Peykar”, part of his “Khamsa” collection?
SEVEN (Haft means 7 in Persian)
Part of Nizami’s “Khamsa” collection of five narrative poems, the “Mahkzan ol-Asrar”, roughly meaning ‘Treasury of Mysteries’, is what type of poem? Written in rhyming couplets, it is perhaps better recognised in the title of a famous work by 13th-century poet Rumi that is considered to be one of the great works of Persian literature.
MASNAVI / MATHNAWI