page_title: Layla and Majnun
section_title: Persian adaptation and Persian literature
hierarchical_section_title: Layla and Majnun / History and influence / Persian adaptation and Persian literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Story of Mejnūn - In the Wilderness فارسی: داستان لیلی و مجنون
context_page_description: Majnun Layla is an old story of Arabic origin, about the 7th-century Najdi Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Mullawah and his ladylove Layla bint Mahdi. "The Layla-Majnun theme passed from Arabic to Persian, Turkish, and Indian languages", most famously through the narrative poem composed in 584/1188 by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, as the third part of his Khamsa. It is a popular poem praising their love story. Lord Byron called it "the Romeo and Juliet of the East."
  Qays and Layla fall in love with each other when they are young, but when they grow up Layla's father doesn't allow them to be together. Qays becomes obsessed with her, and his tribe Banu 'Amir and the community gives him the epithet of Majnūn. Long before Nizami, the legend circulated in anecdotal forms in Iranian akhbar. The early anecdotes and oral reports about Majnun are documented in Kitab al-Aghani and Ibn Qutaybah's Al-Shi'r wa-l-Shu'ara'. The anecdotes are mostly very short, only loosely connected, and show little or no plot development. Nizami collected both secular and mystical sources about Majnun and portrayed a vivid picture of the famous lovers.
context_section_description: The story of Layla and Majnun was known in Persia as early as the 9th century. Two well known Persian poets, Rudaki and Baba Taher, both mention the lovers.
  Although the story was known in Arabic literature in the 5th century, it was the Persian masterpiece of Nizami Ganjavi that popularized it dramatically in Persian literature. Nizami collected both secular and mystical sources about Majnun and portrayed a vivid picture of the famous lovers. Subsequently, many other Persian poets imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. Nizami drew influence from Udhrite love poetry, which is characterized by erotic abandon and attraction to the beloved, often by means of an unfulfillable longing. Other influences include older Persian epics, such as Vāmiq u 'Adhrā, written in the 11th century, which covers a similar topic of a virgin and her passionate lover; the latter having to go through many trials to be with his love.
  In his adaptation, the young lovers become acquainted at school and fell desperately in love. However, they could not see each other due to a family feud, and Layla's family arranged for her to marry another man. According to Dr. Rudolf Gelpke, "Many later poets have imitated Nizami's work, even if they could not equal and certainly not surpass it; Persians, Turks, Indians, to name only the most important ones. The Persian scholar Hekmat has listed no less than forty Persians and thirteen Turkish versions of Layli and Majnun." According to Vahid Dastgerdi, "If one would search all existing libraries, one would probably find more than 1000 versions of Layli and Majnun."
  In his statistical survey of famous Persian romances, Ḥasan Ḏulfaqāri enumerates 59 'imitations' (naẓiras) of Layla and Majnun as the most popular romance in the Iranian world, followed by 51 versions of Ḵosrow o Širin, 22 variants of Yusuf o Zuleikha and 16 versions of Vāmiq u ʿAḏhrā.
caption: Majnun in the wilderness
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