Moulana Mahammad Suleyman oglu Fizuli Baghdadi (born in 1494 in Karbala city, Iraq and died in 1556)- Azerbaijan poet, thinker,writer in Turkish,Arabic and Persian languages.He got early schooling in Karbala and continued it in Baghdad.He lived at Najaf and Hulla cities in Iraq for some time. He studied sciences of middle century (logics,medicine,mathematics and humanitarian sciences), he studied in detail the religious-philosophical trends, greek philosophy through Arabic tranlations, learned classic Arabic,Turkish, Persian and Indian literature. Though, he has written works titled ''Bangu Bade'' (Tiryek and Sherab) dedicated to Shah Ismayil Khatai, complimentary poems for I Shah Tahmasib and his generals,various khans(kings), yet never had any interest in the life of palaces .
Fizuli presented some complimentary poems to Sultan Suleyman and met Khayali and Yahya bey, Turkish poets, who came Bagdad with Sultan's army.The work titled ''Leyli and Mejnun'' (1537) was written by him at the request of these poets whom he was calling as ''The delicacies of Rum''. Fizuli has written complimentary poem, ghazal, quidrains, murabbe, gita, tarribbend and tarjibend in 3 languages.
In his old age he has written philosophical complimentary poems such ''Yeddi jam'',''Ansul -galb'', ''Sahat and Maraz''. He compiled his complimentary poems in a separate book form, named divans (collected poems)in Turkish, Persian and Arabic languages.
Fizuli wrote the best masterpieces of lyrical poetry in Turkish. The poem ''Leyli and Mejnun'' which was the peak of his creativity is a unique work for Azerbaijan as wll as the East and the world poetry. However, the subject of ''Leyli and Mejnun'' which was brought to written literature for the first time by Nizami Ganjavi, has been written by many Turkish, Persian, Indian, Uzbek and Tajic poets, yet Fizuli's work written in native language differs from previously written poems on this subject due to its originality.
Fizuli has created the best examples of the artistic prose in native language in the history of literature of Azerbaijan. Fizuli was familiar with ancient Greek and eastern philosophy. His philosophical views mainly have been described in ''Matlaul-etigad'' written in prose form in Arabic.
Aristotle,Plato, Empedoki,Democrit and other greek philosophers opinions, philosophical heritage of Nizami had had influence on Fizuli.His literary philosophical views are reflected in other works of Fizuli.
After Nasimi, Fizuli has secured higher place for our literary art language with his best masetrpieces of work written in native language, which had great influence on classics in Azerbaijan, on poetry of other Turkish people and created a literary school. His works have been published many times in Tabriz ,Baku, Istanbul, Ankara, Egypt, Dashkent, Bukhara, Ashgabad and have been appreciated by world orientalists.
400 years of the Poet's death was observed all over the world.
The compilation of his works, based on old copies available, was published in 5 volumes in Azerbaijan.