Ilyas Yusif oglu Nizami Ganjavi (1141,Ganja - 1209,Ganja) -Azerbaijan poet and thinker. Was born in the artisan family, studied at the schools in Ganja, perfectly learned medieval century sciences by reading, especially, became close familiar with spoken and written literary of Middle East people.He knew turkish, arabic, persian, greece languages as well as ancient greek history and phylosophy, astronomy, medicine and geometry sciences. All his life he lived in Ganja , refused to be a palace poet, lived an earnest life .
In 1169/70 he got married to Afag (Appag), daughter of gipchag, who was sent by Seyfaddin Muzaffar , ruler of Darbend , as a slave.
In 1174 Mahammed,his son was born. Nizami Ganjavi started his creative work with lyric poems. His works show that he had created great divan (collected works) , became famous as the author of ghazal and complimentary poems. But less part of his divan which was consisted of 20000 couplets, as East narrators noted, has survived. Nizami Ganjavi had written lyric poems during the whole his creavity , later he has expressed his progressive social-phylosophic opinions, for the first time, in these poems.
The lyrics of Nizami Ganjavi is notable for humanist ideas of high mastership,secular attitude to love, human fade. But Nizami Ganjavi had gone to history of world literature as an author of 'Khamsa'' consisted of 5 poems written in the form of couplets. His first poem titlled ''Makhlanulasrar'' (Treasure of secrets) written in 1177, brought him great popularity . In 1180 he has completed his poem ''Khosrov and Shirin'' written by the order of III Togrul and has sent it to Mahammed Jahan Pahlavn. After Jahan Pahlavan's death, Gizil Arslan coming to crown has met the poet at his camp near Ganja and listened to his advises, has gifted him a village called Hamdunyan.
In 1188, I Ahsitan ,ruler of Shirvan asked him to write a poem on the subject ''Leyli and Mejnun''. Nizami Ganjavi wanted to refuse ,but he accepted it at his son's request and he created ''Leyli and Mejnun'' at short time for the first time in East. In 1196 he has written ''Yeddi gezal'' (Seven beautiful girls ) for Aladdin Korpa Arslan and at last he wrote ''Iskendername'' (in 1203) by the end of his life, where he rounded up his all literary -aesthetic, social-phylosophic views.
Humanist, public-political, social and moral ideals of that time, have been clearly expressed in Nizami Ganjavi's creativity which was the peak of the First East Renaissance. Humanty was the main criterion of the personality as to Nizami Ganjavi. He was against racial,national and religious separation and we find the representatives of Turkish, Persian,Arabic,Chenese, Indian,Negro,Greek,Georgian etc.nationals among his heros. Humanist poet is not against nationalitis, religious views of these heros which belong to different religion. His heros struggle for justice,happiness,high goals.
Respect to human personality, human labor are the main subject of the poet's creativity. Nizami Ganjavi was a patriot too. He was trying to link all events described in his poems with Azerbaijan and singing of past days of his homeland. Love Motherland for native people is conected with the idea of heroism in the creativity of Nizami Ganjavi . Nizami Ganjavi's creativity has greatly influenced on the development of Caucasusian , Middle East people's (Persian,Tajic,Indian ,kurd,turkmen,uzbek,gazakh,girgiz etc). literary , gone down to treasure of world culture.
Nizami Ganjavi's works have been translated into languages of many nations of the world . Unique manuscript copies of his works are kept at the famous libraries,museums and manuscript funds of many countries (Moscow,St.Petersburg, Baku, Dashkent, Tabriz,Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul, Delhi, London,Paris etc). There is a monumental tomb on Nizami Ganjavi's grave in Ganja.