Ahmad ibn Umar ibn Alī, known asNizamī-i Arūzī-i Samarqandī (Persian:نظامی عروضی) and also Arudi ("The Prosodist"), was a poet and prose writer[1][2] who flourished between 1110 and 1161. He is particularly famous for hisChahar Maqala[3] ("Four Discourses"), his only work to fully survive. While living in Samarqand, which was part of Persia at the time, Abu’l-Rajaʾ Ahmad b. ʿAbd-Al-Ṣamad, adehqan in Transoxiana, told Nezami of how the poetRudaki was given compensation for his poem extolling the virtues of SamanidAmirNasr b. Ahmad.[4]
APersian native ofSamarqand inTransoxiana, his date of birth and death is uncertain. He was most likely born at the end of the 11th century. What little is known of his life can only be found in his bookChahar Maqala.[5][2] He spent most of his time inKhorasan and Transoxiana,[6] and served as a court-poet to theGhurids for 45 years.[1][2] In 1110/1, he was at Samarqand, where he gathered material about the Persian poetRudaki (d. 941). In 1112/3, he metOmar Khayyam andal-Isfizari at a banquet inBalkh. In 1115/6, he resided inHerat. The following year, he lived in poverty inNishapur, and thus went toTus with the goal of gaining the favour of theSeljuk princeAhmad Sanjar, who governed Khorasan. There he visited the tomb of the Persian poetFerdowsi, and gathered material regarding him.[5][2] He also metMu'izzi, apoet laureate of the Seljuks, who helped him progress his career in poetry. With the help of the latter, Nizami succeeded in gaining the attention of Sanjar. In 1120/1, he was told about the story of Ferdowsi and theGhaznavid sultanMahmud by Mu'izzi. In 1136, he went back to Nishapur and visited the tomb of Omar Khayyam. Nizami accompanied theGhurid rulerAla al-Din Husayn (r. 1141–1161) in his war against Sanjar, and after the former's defeat at a battle near Herat in 1152/3, he hid himself in the city for a period. Nizami most likely composed theChahar Maqala a few years later (in 1156), which he dedicated to the Ghurid prince Abu'l-Hasan Husam al-Din Ali.[1] The rest of Nizami's life is obscure, he may have studied astrology and medicine.[5][2]
Nizámí-i'Arúdí’s TheChahár Maqála, or Four Discourses, is a book consisting of four discourses on four different professionals that Nizami believed a king needs to have in his palace; in the preface of the book, Nizami discusses the philosophical or religious ideology of the creation of the world and the order of things. While he was primarily a courtier, he noted in his book that he was an astronomer and physician as well.[7] He reports in the work that he spent time not only in his native Samarqand, but also in Herat, Tus (where he visitedFerdowsi's tomb and gathered material on the great poet), Balkh, and Nishapur, where he lived for perhaps five years.[5] He also claimed to have studied under the astronomer-poetOmar Khayyám, a native ofNishapur.[8]
In the introduction to theChahar Maqala, Aruzi elaborates on issues ofNatural Science,epistemology and politics. An identifying feature of Nizámí-i'Arúdí’s writing is the preface, "OnCosmography", is the extensive use of double balance sentences that gives the impression of belief inbinary oppositions, or juxtaposition of two opposite things in everything. Also Nizámí-i'Arúdí’sscholastic Islamic ideology holds that a langue or a kind ofmetanarrative keeps things in order and is surrounded by smaller objects. Thislangue is God, who is ever-existent. He is a champion of theancient Persian concept ofkingship which, for the sake of legitimation, is expressed in Muslim vocabulary. His elaboration on the classes of society is influenced by Persian as well asGreek conceptions, especially those ofPlato.[1]
TheChahar Maqala has been translated into several languages, such asEnglish,French,Swedish,[9]Turkish,Urdu,Russian andArabic.[5]
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