Ali-Shir Nava'i

Work

Alisher served as a public administrator and adviser to his sultan, Husayn Bayqara. Mirkhvand composed his Timurid universal history under the patronage of Ali-Shir Nava’i. He was also a builder who is reported to have founded, restored, or endowed some 370 mosques, madrasas, libraries, hospitals, caravanserais, and other educational, pious, and charitable institutions in Khorasan. In Herat, he was responsible for 40 caravanserais, 17 mosques, 10 mansions, nine bathhouses, nine bridges, and 20 pools.

Among Alisher's constructions were the mausoleum of the 13th-century mystical poet, Farid al-Din Attar, in Nishapur (north-eastern Iran) and the Khalasiya madrasa in Herat. He was one of the instrumental contributors to the architecture of Herat, which became, in René Grousset's words, "the Florence of what has justly been called the Timurid Renaissance". Moreover, he was a promoter and patron of scholarship and arts and letters, a musician, a composer, a calligrapher, a painter and sculptor, and such a celebrated writer that Bernard Lewis, a renowned historian of the Islamic world, called him "the Chaucer of the Turks".

Among the many notable figures who were financially backed by Alisher include the historians Mirkhvand (died 1498), Khvandamir (died 1535/6) and Dawlatshah Samarqandi (died 1495/1507); the poets Jami (died 1492), Asafi Harawi (died 1517), Sayfi Bukhari (died 1503), Hatefi (died 1521), and Badriddin Hilali (died 1529/30); and the musicians Shaykh Na'i and Husayn Udi.

Literary works

Under the pen name Nava'i, Alisher was among the key writers who revolutionized the literary use of the Turkic languages. Nava'i himself wrote primarily in the Chagatai language and produced 30 works over a period of 30 years, during which Chagatai became accepted as a prestigious and well-respected literary language. Nava'i also wrote in Persian under the pen name Fāni, and, to a much lesser degree, in Arabic.

Nava'i's best-known poems are found in his four diwans, or poetry collections, which total roughly 50,000 verses. Each part of the work corresponds to a different period of a person's life:

• Ghara'ib al-Sighar "Wonders of Childhood"
• Navadir al-Shabab "Rarities of Youth"
• Bada'i' al-Wasat "Marvels of Middle Age"
• Fawa'id al-Kibar "Benefits of Old Age"

To help other Turkic poets, Alisher wrote technical works such as Mizan al-Awzan "The Measure of Meters", and a detailed treatise on poetical meters. He also crafted the monumental Majalis al-Nafais "Assemblies of Distinguished Men", a collection of over 450 biographical sketches of mostly contemporary poets. The collection is a gold mine of information about Timurid culture for modern historians.

Alisher's other important works include the Khamsa (Quintuple), which is composed of five epic poems and is a response of Nizami Ganjavi's Khamsa:

• Hayrat al-abrar "Wonders of Good People" (حیرت الابرار)
• Farhad va Shirin "Farhad and Shirin" (فرهاد و شیرین)
• Layli va Majnun "Layla and Majnun" (لیلی و مجنون)
• Sab'ai Sayyar "Seven Travelers" (سبعه سیار) (about the seven planets)
• Sadd-i Iskandari "Alexander's Wall" (سد سکندری) (about Alexander the Great)

Alisher also wrote Lisan al-Tayr after Attar of Nishapur's Mantiq al-Tayr or "The Conference of the Birds", in which he expressed his philosophical views and ideas about Sufism. He translated Jami's Nafahat al-uns (نفحات الانس) to Chagatai and called it Nasayim al-muhabbat (نسایم المحبت). His Besh Hayrat (Five Wonders) also gives an in-depth look at his views on religion and Sufism. His book of Persian poetry contains 6,000 lines (bayts).

Nava'i's last work, Muhakamat al-Lughatayn "The Trial of the Two Languages" is a comparison of Turkic and Persian and was completed in December 1499. He believed that the Turkic language was superior to Persian for literary purposes, and defended this belief in his work. Nava'i repeatedly emphasized his belief in the richness, precision and malleability of Turkic vocabulary as opposed to Persian.

This is the excerpt from Nava'i's "Twenty-One Ghazals", translated into English:

Without Fortune and prospect, I ignite the fire
Of impatience – the guards of prudence have vanished:
My caravan defenseless in the coming fire.
A lightening flash has struck and changed me utterly
As rushes burst and spread in a sea of fire...
Understand, Navoiy, I deny my suffering
As the Mazandaran forests turned red with fire.

Influence of Nava'i

In his poem, Nava'i wrote that his poems were popular amongst the Turkic peoples not only in Khorasan, but also amongst the enthusiasts of the poetry of Shiraz and Tabriz:

No Matter how many there are one – a hundred, a thousand,

All the Turkic languages belong to me.

Without warriors nor battles I conquered every country,

From China to Khorasan.

Sugar from the cane of my quill.

Was strewn not only on Khorasan, but also on Shiraz and Tabriz

Moreover, Nava'i stresses that his poems received recognition not only amongst the Turkic peoples, but also amongst the Oghuz Turks:

The Turks devote their heart and soul to my words.

And not just the Turks, but also the Turkmen as well.

These words prove the bayt below of the poet Nematullah Kishvari, who lived and worked in the Aq Qoyunlu during the rule of Sultan Yaqub, and who was envious of the Timurid court:

Kishwarī's poems are not inferior to Nawā'ī's.

If only lucky fate would send him a protector such as Sulṭan Ḥusayn Bayqara.

This means that the Aq Qoyunlu saw the environment of the Ḥusayn Bāyqarā court as a model environment.

Nava'i had a great influence in areas as distant as India to the east and the Ottoman Empire to the west. His influence can be found in Central Asia, modern day Turkey, Kazan of Russia, and all other areas where Turkic speakers inhabit.

• Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire in India and the author of Baburnama, was heavily influenced by Nava'i and wrote about his respect for the writer in his memoirs.
• The Ottomans were highly conscious of their Central Asian heritage; Süleymân the Magnificent was impressed by Nava'i and had Divan-i Neva'i, Khamsa, and Muhakamat added to his personal library.
• The renowned Azerbaijani poet Fuzûlî, who wrote under the auspices of both the Safavid and Ottoman empires, was heavily influenced by the style of Nava'i.
• The role of Nava'i in the Turkmen literature and art has been considered significant since several classic Turkmen poets regarded him as their ustad (master). Turkmen poet Magtymguly refers to Nava'i on numerous occasions in his poetry calling him a brilliant poet and his master.
• Bukhara Emir Muzaffar presented the manuscript of Navoi's Divan to British Queen Victoria in 1872.
• Nava'i is considered the national poet of Uzbekistan in Uzbek culture. The province of Navoi is named in his honor, as well as many other landmarks such as streets and boulevards. It is an ongoing trend for Uzbek authors and poets to take inspiration from his works.

Legacy

Nava'i is one of the most beloved poets among Central Asian Turkic peoples. He is generally regarded as the greatest representative of Chagatai language literature. His mastery of the Chagatai language was such that it became known as "the language of Nava'i".

Although all applications of modern Central Asian ethnonyms to people of Nava'i's time are anachronistic, Soviet and Uzbek sources regard Nava'i as an ethnic Uzbek. According to Muhammad Ḥaidar, who wrote the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, Ali-sher Nava'i was a descendant of Uighur Bakhshi scribes, which has led some sources to call Nava'i a descendant of Uyghurs. However, other scholars such as Kazuyuki Kubo disagree with this view.

Soviet and Uzbek sources hold that Nava'i significantly contributed to the development of the Uzbek language and consider him to be the founder of Uzbek literature. In the early 20th century, Soviet linguistic policy renamed the Chagatai language "Old Uzbek", which, according to Edward A. Allworth, "badly distorted the literary history of the region" and was used to give authors such as Alisher Nava'i an Uzbek identity. According to Charles Kurzman, "Ironically, given Navoi's distaste for the Uzbeks of his day, his legacy is being corralled for [a] strain of nationalism-building: the revaluation of the Uzbek language."

In December 1941, the entire Soviet Union celebrated Nava'i's five-hundredth anniversary. In Nazi-blockaded Leningrad, Armenian orientalist Joseph Orbeli led a festival dedicated to Nava'i. Nikolai Lebedev, a young specialist in Eastern literature who suffered from acute dystrophy and could no longer walk, devoted his life's last moments to reading Nava'i's poem Seven Travelers.

Many places and institutions in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries are named after Alisher Nava'i. Navoiy Region, the city of Navoiy, the National Library of Uzbekistan named after Alisher Navoiy, the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre, Alisher Navoiy station of Tashkent Metro, and Navoiy International Airport – all are named after him.

Many of Nava'i's ghazals are performed in the Twelve Muqam, particularly in the introduction known as Muqäddimä. They also appear in popular Uzbek folk songs and in the works of many Uzbek singers, such as Sherali Jo‘rayev. Alisher Nava'i's works have also been staged as plays by Uzbek playwrights.

In 2021, an international spiritual event dedicated to the 580th anniversary of Ali-Shir Nava'i was held at the House of Friendship in Astana, Kazakhstan. A similar event was held in Herat, Afghanistan, and one in 2026 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Many monuments and busts in honour of Alisher Navoi's memory have been erected in different countries and cities such as Tashkent, Samarkand, Navoiy of Uzbekistan, Ashgabat of Turkmenistan, Ankara of Turkey, Seoul of South Korea, Tokyo of Japan, Shanghai of China, Osh of Kyrgyzstan, Astana of Kazakhstan, Dushanbe of Tajikistan, Herat of Afghanistan, Baku of Azerbaijan, Moscow of Russia, Minsk of Belarus, and Lakitelek of Hungary.