Is there at least a grain of truth in the legendary stories of great love, which the whole world knows about thanks to world literature? Yes, there is. The story of Leyli and Majnun…
I am proud that, although indirectly, I was also involved in this story, which began approximately one thousand three hundred and forty-five years ago! Approximately – plus or minus five years.
Osiris and Isis, Tristan and Isolde, Tahir and Zuhra, Farhad and Shirin, Romeo and Juliet…
Is there at least a grain of truth in the legendary stories of great love, which the whole world knows about thanks to world literature? Yes, there is. The story of Leyli and Majnun…
Arabian Desert. Seventh century AD. A young man named Qais ibn al-Mulawwah ibn Muzahim, by the way, a young poet from the Arab tribe of Banu Amir, fell in love with a girl from his own tribe named Leyli al-Amiriya. As a simple-minded poet and an honest man, Qais came to Leyli’s father and asked for her hand. But her father had other plans and being related to Qais was not included in them. The guy was refused, and the girl was soon married to another honest man. That would have been the whole story, if the young man had resigned himself to the situation, especially since Leyli and her husband left for Iraq, fell ill and died. That is, even a theoretical reunion between Qais and her became completely impossible. And what does the young man do? Resign himself? No. He goes into the desert and there alone reads poems to himself about Leyli or writes her name in the sand with a cane. Humane relatives bring him food in the desert, suspecting that the guy has probably gone crazy. Finally, in 688, the dead body of the unfortunate Qais is found near the grave of an unknown woman. The tribesmen remembered this sad story and retold it for many years, naturally adding their own invented details. The deceased’s earthly name was gradually forgotten, and the Arabic nickname “Majnun Leyla” – “Crazy because of Leyli” or simply “Obsessed” – that is, “Majnun”, remained with him. By the way, the poems, they say, were good and mostly written before their author went crazy…
Read: Majnun Layla as Seen by a Spanish Poetess
The twelfth century. Azerbaijan. The city of Ganja. The poet Nizami Ganjavi writes the poem “Leyli and Majnun”, telling a love story. The brilliant Azerbaijani poet, who wrote in Farsi, manages to create a new, vivid poetic image of Majnun from real, confirmed and esoteric sources. The story of Leyli and Majnun, as told by Nizami, becomes a story of eternal love that became a victim of an intra-tribal war; four hundred years later, this very reason would form the basis of the plot of Shakespeare’s story of Romeo and Juliet! Similar stories about lovers become common plots first in Persian, and then in all Eastern literature.
The twenty-first century. The year 2011. Andalusia. The southern coast of Spain. The young Spanish beauty and poetess Virginia Fernandez Collado takes part in a creative competition in her hometown of Ciudad de Almeria and triumphantly wins. Soon her poetry begins to be widely published in Spain, Chile, and other Latin American and Spanish-speaking countries – in literary periodicals, in co-authored and author’s books. She gains real popularity, and her husband becomes an outstanding poet and philosopher who fled Timbuktu because of the tribal war and the threat of violent death, the handsome Ismael Diadier Haidara – the main custodian of the Katia Foundation – medieval Arabic manuscripts of Spanish origin. Virginia Fernandez Collado, in love, writes a book of poems “Songs of Leyla”. Baku. Azerbaijan. 2022. The story of Leyla and Majnun so captures the imagination of the world-famous Egyptian poet, journalist, novelist, travel writer and translator Ashraf Abu al-Yazid that he, as the editor-in-chief of the Silk Road Literature series, takes advantage of my invitation to visit Azerbaijan in September 2022. While in Baku, Ashraf and I visited the beautiful Fountain Square, which Ashraf inspired and passionately called Poets’ Square, because next to it is the beautiful building of the Nizami Museum of Azerbaijani Literature with six statues of the most brilliant poets of Azerbaijan.
Ashraf remembered the trip to Azerbaijan for the presentation of his book of poetry in my translation “Street in Cairo”, meetings with the head of the Writers’ Union of Azerbaijan, poet Anar, and acquaintance with the homeland of the author of “Leyli and Majnun”, poet Nizami. Caracas. Venezuela. 2023. Doctor of Applied Economics, Master of Financial Consulting Professor Virginia Fernandez Collado presents the Egyptian poet and Manhae Prize laureate Ashraf Abu al-Yazid with the legendary book of her poetry “Layla’s Songs” – the embodiment of the reciprocal feeling of modern Layla to the modern Majnun – the resident of Timbuktu Ismael Diadier Haidara.
Thus, the story of almost one and a half thousand years ago found a happy ending for the first time!
Thanks to Ashraf and Virginia Fernandez Collado for the idea of writing this article.
Read: Depictions of the Romance of Laila and Majnun in Sindhi Tombs
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Eldar Akhadov was born in Baku in 1960. He lives in Krasnoyarsk (Russia). A member of the Union of Writers of Russia and other writers ‘organizations of Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, a member of the Russian Geographical Society, Co-Chairman of the Literary Council of the Assembly of Peoples of Eurasia, a member of the PEN International Writing Club. The author of 63 books of poetry and prose. Laureate of the State Literary Prize of the Governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous district, laureate of the National Prize “Silver Feather of Russia”, “For the Good of the World”, “North is a Country Without Borders”, silver medal of the IV All-Russian Literary Festival of Festivals and Silver medal of the IV Eurasia Literary Festival of Festivals.
