Talk:Nizami Ganjavi/Archive 2

message: A certain user has changed the ethnicity of Shirin the Armenian princess to an Azarbaijani!  This is definitely uncalled for since all sources agree she was Armenian and a Christian and was not a Turkic speaking Azarbaijani.  This is totally unacceptable and I do not want to get Armenians involved in this discussion as well.  Indeed Turkic speaking Iranian Azarbaijanis did not exist back then and the process of Turkification occurred way after the Sassanids.  So let s leave it as scholars know it.  And if you need proof, here is when Khosrows advisor and friend looks for Shirin in Armenia:
برنده ره بیابان در بیابان   به کوهستان ارمن شد شتابان  
که آن خوبان چو انبوه آمدندی   به تابستان در آن کوه آمدندی  
چو شاپور آمد آنجا سبزه نو بود   ریاحین را شقایق پیش رو بود  
گرفته سنگهای لاجوردی   ز کسوت‌های گل سرخی و زردی  
And when there is a castle build for Shirin in Armenia:
ذپس از ماهی کز آسایش اثر یافت   ز بیرون رفتن خسرو خبر یافت  
که از بیم پدر شد سوی نخجیر   وز آنجا سوی ارمن کرد تدبیر 
And when Khosrows goes looking for her in Armenia:
که چون خسرو به ارمن کس فرستاد   به پرسش کردن آن سرو آزاد 
This is not a place to bring political situations of the last 20 years into what has been agreed upon by scholars. I will respond to the rest of the ethnic centeric viewpoint here.
The author also  has misquoted some of the verses of Nizami with really poor Persian (and one of them didn't exist) although the issue of Nizamis ethnicity has been settled by scholars.  Kurdish mother, and father of perhaps from Qom.  This is what Nizami scholars have said and there is absolutely nothing else from his poetry to gain more information.  We do not want to bring verses that are ethnic in nature weather pro or con.  Here is a very degrading one from Eskandar addressed to the King of Turks and Eskandar does not address anyone else like this and indeed has full respect for the King of Persia:
'''
1) He opened his mouth and cursed at Turks 2) and said: "Without discord/disbelief(fitnah) No Turk is born from a mother
3) do not expect anything from chinni except a movement of an eyebrow (In Persian poetry Chin refers to Uighyur western China and parts of Central Asia while Machin refers to mainland China. For example Ferdowsi calls the ruler of the Turks as Khaghan Chin) 4) because they are covenant-breakers and can not be trusted
5) The wise people of the past said it in truth 6) that there is no honor and faithfullness in chinni
7) They all have accepted Tang-Chesmi (meaning narrow eyes) (like in the mongolian race) (meaning also they can't see well..) 8) they have only seen greatness and wideness in the eyes of others
9) Have you not heared that their love is equal to hate 10) the heart of Turk-e-chinni is full of crookedness
11) If the Turk-chinni had any honor 12) then the earth would be clothed under chinn
(Part of Eskandar Nama)'''
Or the ones where Nizami wrote from the Shirvan shah desisting Turkish language and manners and Nizami praises him heavily.
Now this user wrote this verses and I will analyze it:
In this Ephiopia my Turkishness is not appreciated, That's why my tasty doga [hodgepodge, a traditional milk-based Turkic meal] is not eaten.  In Persian: "Torkiemra der in Hebesh neherend, lacherem dugbaje-hesh nehorend". (From: Seven beauties/Haft paykar, fourth epic poem of Nizami).
First the Persian is horrible:  It is Torkiyam raa dar in Habash Nakharand, laajaram Dooghbaayeh Khos Nakhorand.  
This is in the end of the story of moral advices and it is when the many moral advices have been given.  After finishing all the moral advices (which none of them have anything to do with ethnicity!), the poets complains that many people might not take his advice.  Here is wilsons translation after 200 lines of moral advice:
Be no disciple aspirationless 
do not be weak of faith in trust in God
I, solver of a hundred knotty points, am village-chief, but in the village not
If from the road a guest should chance to come, who will there be to set a tray for him?
Intelligence discerns what I now say, and what I aim at in this hint thrown out.
At destitution I am little vexed
of him who’s destitute is my complaint.
This Ethiopia likes not Turkish wares
hence it will have not palatable curds
Whilst in this furnace which one’s nature ripes as grape unripe I still was somewhat raw,
Fortune made use of me as grape unripe, made of me verjuice-tutty for the sight.
Since I have reached the state of the ripe grape, I’ve suffered often from the stings of wasps.
The wine which is a spiritual draught for earth
is not the grape worth more than this?
I follow up the path they know of me
hence frozen water I am called by them.
Water when it is frozen, as they say, is not a fount of water, but of gold.''
You see this has nothing to do with any sort of ethnicity!   And since Turk in Persian meant beautiful lover as opposed to Ethipions in  Persian poetry (and these were the mongloid turks as Nizami calls them repeatedly Cheshm Tang (narrow eyed)), he is saying that this moral beauty is not bought in this ugly Ethiopia (Habash).  This has nothing to do with ethnicity.  After 300 lines of advice, the teacher hopes that his advices will be taken seriously.  Else Nizami did not live in Ethiopia.  And he does not have even one verse of Turkish (assuming he could speak it) while there were certaintly Seljuqids who could have helped him if he wanted to compose.  The fact is that not even one verse of turkish poetry exists from the area before the Mongol invasion.  Rumi another Persian poets says: “Gah Tork, Gah Hindu, Gah Zangi, Gah Rumi” (sometimes I am a Turk, sometimes a hindu, sometimes a black, sometimes a Roman).  Turk (and these are central Asian Mongloid Turks) symbolically means a cruel lover, beautiful person, a plunderer and also sun (because of the yellow color).  A Hindu means dark, night, and also servant.  A Zangi (African) means night, total darkness.  Even his name is Rumi (Roman/Greek), but this does make Greek/Roman although he had 50 verses of Greek also.  A Roman means day, light, total whiteness in Persian poetry.   I hope this verse is resolved.
Secondly Doogh (yogurt drink and yogurt) is a Persian word etymologically and its Tukish equivalent is 'Ayraan'.  Dooghbaa is a traditional milk based drink but it is in no way Turkish as the word itself is Persian.  Sa'adi has referred to it in his poems as well.  The etymology is Persian (Dehkhoda).  In fact the turkish equivalent for Dooghbaa would be Ayraan-something.  Doogh is Persian meaning white (Yogurt) and baa means meal.  Like the other word Shoorbaa used for certain variety of soups.
The author then continues:
Turks, the power of which has risen (towered), Posesse the kingdom (governing) by means of justice (fairness). Since you cherish tyranny, cruelty, Then you are not a Turk, but a Hindu-robber (thief). n Persian: Dovlete torkan ke bolendi kereft, Memleket ez dadpecendi kereft, Chonke to bidadkeri perveri, Tork neyi hendu-ye bidadkeri". (From: Treasure of Mysteries (Secrets), first epic poem of Nizami). 
Again poor Persian and mispronunciation of words.  It is Dowlat Torkan ke Bolandi Gereft - Mamlekat az dad pasandi gereft 
This is actually a play on words.  The story is in Makhzan al-asraar and it is about a complaint of an old lady (pir-e-zan) to the Seljuq ruler Sanjar.  And since Turks in Persian poetry symbolically means ruler/plundered and hindu as a slave/plundered (this symbolism came to Persian poetry though the devastating campaigns of Ghaznavids in India).  It is saying that you are acting like a slave and not a master.  Again this has nothing to do with Nizami's ethnicity.  
The author continues:
Ganja, having tied me up, has firmly taken me, Iraq's wealth I hold without node" (From: Treasure of Mysteries (Secrets), first epic poem of Nizami. Note: Ganja, the capital of Arran/Azerbaijan, was part of the Seljuq Turkic Empire at the time of Nizami with capital in Baghdad -- hence Iraq. Meanwhile, Iran did not exist as a separate or otherwise independent or semi-independent unified state since the 7th century AD and until resurrection in 16th century under Shah Ismail Khatai Sefevi).
Actually Iran was a common term and it referred to a region.  Even the Seljuqs used Iran when referring to Iranian territories.  So does Nizami.  As does Qatran Tabrizi and many other poets.  Indeed Nizami refers to the Shirvan Shah not only as the ruler of Arran, but also one who is truly by heart the ruler of all of Iran.  What you might say is that “Iranian” state was not created until Safavids just like the republic of Azarbaijan was not created as a state until 19th century.  The Seljuqs although Turkic originally adopted Persian culture and manner.  And this has no bearing on Nizamis ethnicity since hundreds if not thousands of other Persian poets are known from the Seljuq era.  The word Iran is used 20 times in Nizamis poetry.  When he praises the Shirvan Shah he says: “In naameh naghz nagofteh behtar – taavoos javaaneh jofteh behtar – khaaseh molki cho shah sehrvan – shervaan cheh keh shahryaar Iran”  Translation: This well written story has never been better, It is as beutifull as young peacock throne, For a king like the king of Shirvan,  Not just Shirvan but all of Iran!”.  So Iran as geographical entity has been used many times before the Safavid era.  Specially it has been used in Samanid, Ghaznavid, Seljuqid..eras.
Now to  this  verse:
If my (dear) Turkic (wife Appaq/Afak) escaped from (my) tent, o God, (I beg you) take care of my Turkic-born (son Muhammed)!" (From: Khosrov and Shirin, second epic poem of Nizami)
First of all it is Afagh, not Appaq.  Secondly the verse before it is insulting:
چو ترکان گشته سوی کوچ محتاج 		به ترکی داده رختم را به تارج 
اگر شد ترکم از خرگه نهانی 		خدایا ترک زادم را تو دانی 
Cho torkaan gashteh sooyeh kooch mohtaaj
Beh torki daadeh rakhtam raa beh taaraaj
Agar shod torkam az khargah nahaani
Khodaayaa tork-zaadm raa to daani
After the death of the slave girl sent to him by the Sultan of Darband, Nizami writes:
‘’since Turks are indeed in need of migration, my wife plundered my belongings away in a Turkish manner,  if My Turkish wife escaped from the tent, O god you best know about my Tork-Zaad”
Nizami uses the word Tork-zaad (born of a Turkish mother).  Which in Persian literature lexicon  means a son of Turkish slave.  That is an Iranian or an Arab married to Turkish slave.  For example Ferdowsi says about Hormozd the Sassanid king whose father was a Turk: “Sokhan bas kon ze Hormozd Tork-zaad – keh andar zamaaneh mabaad aan nejaad” (End now the discussion and talk about Hormzod Tork-zaad, may such a race (half turk-half Persian) never exist any time!).  Look at Dekhodas dictionary for other examples.  So this verse actually shows Nizami was not a Turk,  else there would not be any need to use such a term..
Finally the word turk has gained many meanings in Persian literature like the word Qafchaq has.  It simply means a beautiful person and it is used heavily in this manner by Attar, Hafez, Rumi, Ferdowsi.. and etc.  So even this part about his wife Afaq can be taken to mean she was beautiful like Turks of Central Asia. 
Finally lets take a look at this verse:
From Khazar mountains till Chinese sea, Whole land I see full of Turks" (From: Iskender-nameh, 1199-1201, fifth and last epic poem of Nizami. Note: this quote is said by Alexander the Great in the poem).  
Actually in the Eskandar Nama, it is made clear that Azarbaijan is a Zoroastrian and Persian strong-hold.  This section is about the country of Russia and Alexanders incursion in Russia and how he uses Turks and Russians against each other.  Khazars borders has always been from the Darband upward.  Both the Sassanids and the Caliphates kept the border at the Darband and the mountains beyond until the Russians destroyed the Khazar empire.  So I do not see what this quote has anything to do with Nizamis ethnicity.  He mentions Indians, Blacks, Russians, Chinese, Turks, Persians, Romans.. in the Eskandar-nama.  So I am not sure what this author is trying to prove.
Finally Nizami  uses the word Parsi(Persian) (11) times all in positive manner.  The word “Iran” is quoted 20 times.  Indeed two of his epics is about full praisal of Sassanid Iran who were enemies of Khazars and Gok-Turks (first two Turkic empires).  And in the Alexandar (Dhul-Qarnain) story, the King of Persia is actually praised by Alexander and Azarbaijan is a Zoroastrian Persian strong-hold.  I can come up with literally hundreds of verses where he is either praising Iranian or Iranian culture or has some connection with Iran.  Culturally, Nizamis Persian poetry is clearly part of the Islamo-Iranian heritage.  So lets leave the discussion of his ethnicity to what serious Nizami scholars have agreed upon and is certain.  100% Kurdish mother.  Perhaps a father from Qom.  And Perhaps a Turkish slave as his wife named Qafqaz.  Shirin also is an Armenian in Khosrow o Shirin.  Alexander is Greek/Roman (and do not get into that macedonian argument since to Nizami he was Greek). Lili o Majnoon is Arab story.  So Nizami has a connection to everyone and is universal.  If there was anything else that would make his ethnicity clearer, then scholars would have already shown it.  So we will never know more than this with certainty.    BTW I also have PhD and lets not write ethnic based articles and then refer to it in Wikipedia.  I say lets honor Nezami instead of fighting.  His poetry pretty much speaks for itself with regards to the culture he belonged to.  Else pretty soon Iranians, Armenians, and people from the Azarbaijani republic and Kurds also will be bickering.  I have found many english translations of Nizami's verses (without any ethnic nature although clearly about Iranian Sassanid folklore) that I will put up soon in this article.  --Ali doostzadeh 05:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A certain user has edited the article from an ethnic centric point of view and I had to revert it

message: Folks,
After searching alittle bit for readily available materials, I found the following falsification by the republic of Azerbaijani historian and ultra-nationalists. See for example these links: 
Rewriting History: Recent Azeri Alterations of Primary Sources Dealing with Karabakh
Also this article shows that there are major debates right now about history and identity in the republic of Azerbaijan 
Falsification 1)
Thankfully the book of Ibn Azraq is available in both English and Arabic.  Indeed it has been translated into English.  Under the name A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times. The Early Artuqid State, Carole HILLENBRAND, 1990 (PIHANS, 66) , XIII, 260 pp.; .
Thankfully there is a glossary as well and I looked under Ganja.  On page 38 we read: Sultan Toghril Beg, son of Sultan Muhammad, who was the ruler of Ganja and Arran and he sent a shihna to them..  As the readers notice, this is totally different than what Mr. Baguirov claimed!  Indeed the Seljuqs controlled all of Khorasan, Esfahan, Kerman, Iraq (Both Persian Iraq and Arab Iraq).. and etc.  Indeed another Seljuq king by the name of Toghan Arsalan is called the lord of Arzan and Bitlis.  The immorality of falsification not withstanding,  it is like arguing that since the British controlled India and Hong King, then all Chinese and Indian scholars during their time of control were British!!  The next mention of Ganja is on pg 43: In the year 515 (1121-2) there as an earthquake in the city of Janza, which is Ganja.  Again nothing as Mr. Adil Baguirov claims!  The final time Ganja comes up in this text is on pg 58: As for Sultan Toghril Beg, he sired Arsalan-Shah whose mother was the wife of the amir Eldiguz.  He is now the Sultan from Isfahan, Hamadan, Azerbaijan and Arran up to the city of Ganja and Shamkur.  (My Note: like overwhelming majority of old sources Azerbaijan and Arran were two separate lands.).  So as you folks can see the first part of Mr. Baguirovs claim was a lie and no such statement was found in this historically important text.  Also note the hundreds of Iranian poets and writers from all over Iran under Seljuqid administration!  The absurdity of this argument was already rejected.  It is as absurd as saying that Greek scholars under the Persian empire of the Achaemenids were Persian!
Falsification 2)  
This falsification has to do with another big lie.  Mr. Baguirov claimed that: For his knowledge, the following writings in Azerbaijani Turki have been preserved from BEFORE the Ilkanid ear: historian Masud ibn-Namdar (12th century).  Indeed I not only did a Google search, but I checked couple of major University Libraries.  For example see here: .  As you can see, the book is in Arabic and it has been translated to Russian.  And the title of the book is: Majmūaat qisas wa-rasāiil wa-ash'ār (The complete collection of stories, articles and poems) and the long title is completely Arabic.  Note again the book is in Arabic and has nothing to do with Azerbaijani Turkic language!  
The above two falsifications is a major breach of Academic honesty (there are much more: 1) where is Turan mentioned in the story of Khusraw o Shirin 2) Where is Afrasiyaab mentioned in this story?  And much more….  One can safely say the same thing about the other wild theories of Mr. Adil Baguirov.  Indeed he does not know Persian and yet he wants to claim himself as a great scholar and makes condemnations about scholars.  Indeed the character assassination of the Russian scholar that said Nizami had nothing to do with Azerbaijani Oghuz Turkic speaker is indeed tragic.  Surely, Mr. Baguirov does not have the reputation of Iranian studies scholars in top Russian universities.   
Comment 3)
Now those are two major falsifications right in-front of the readers.  I am not going to use multiple insults like Mr. Baguirov does, but as we can see, the materials outputed by the people of the republic of Azerbaijani is not reliable.  I emailed Prof. Kamran Talattof of the Arizona state University about the claims of some Azerbaijani scholars and he wrote back: It seems that many of these former soviet republics have been trying to make history and construct cultural background in the process of their attempt for nation building. The official websites of the Republic of Azerbaijan featured Nezami as one their own many years ago. This happened at the time when our own officials did not care much about our cultural heritage. .  So Dr. Talattof agrees (unlike Mr. Baguirov claims) that Nizami Ganjavi was not a Turk.  Another major orientalist figure, probably the biggest figure I will mention so far is Prof. J. Rypka.  In his article: Poets and prose writers of the late Saljuq and Mongol periods Jan Rypka Published in The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 5, 1968 , he writes (on pg 568):Hakim Jalam al-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas b. Yusuf b. Zaki b. Mu’ayyad Nizami, a native of Ganja in Azerbaijan, is an unrivalled master of thoughts and words, a poet whose freshness and vigour all the succeeding centuries have been unable to dull.  Little is known of his life, the only source being his own works, which in many cases provide no reliable information.  We can only deduce that he was born between 535 and 540 (1140-46) and this his background was urban.  Modern Azerbaijan is exceedingly proud of its world-famous son and insists the he was not just a native of the region, but that he came of its own Turkich stock.  At all events his mother was of Iranian origin, the poet himself calling her Raisa and describing her as Kurdish.  The only fact known about his youth is that he was orphaned early..  As people can see, here is the major orientalist on Persian poetry, (his multivolume work History of Iranian Literature is well known), who totally ignores the theory of the republic of Azerbaijan and shows that they are acting nationalistic.  This is all the information we will ever have about Nizami for certainty and so polemics must be put to rest. 
 
Comment 4)
One of the claims of Mr. Baguirov was that the Iranian academics do not use the critical editions or do not have access to it or..  But the most critical and academic publication of Nizami’s work has been done by Dr. Barat Zanjani.  Indeed Dr. Barat Zanjani not only uses previous critical editions from the USSR, Germany and etc, but he shows about 30 examples out of many on mistakes of the USSR edition.  The reason is that because the USSR scholars did not understand Persian well like a native speaker, they have made some editions that lack meaning.  Indeed some of them were really ridicolous.  Professor Zanjani has used more manuscripts   and his edition is more complete than the USSR edition.  If there is any need, I will demonstrate it with some of the poor corrections of the USSR edition. 
Comment 5)
Another strong pro-Iranian verses (amongst many and I have already brought some negative verses on Turks (three or four times)). 
نژاده منم دیگران زیردست
نژاد کیان را که یارد شکست
Nezhaadeh manam Digaran Zirdast
Nezhaadeh Kiyaan raa keh yaarad shekast
Of the noblest race I am, the rest heed my command,
Can any bring defeat to the royal Iranian (Kayanid) Race?.
Nizami also praises Romans/Greeks much more than Turks (whom he belittles sometimes harshly).  He praises Ferdowsi although no one that has any Turkic consciousness would do so.  He is accused by his ultra-orthodox opponents of praising the ways and cultures of Zoroastrians.  So one line verses without context and without several verses below and above and without the use of understanding of the language of time and symbolic poetry, is indeed another wrong step which is taken by Azerbaijani republic theoreticians.  Indeed I can also write the part about the Khaghan of Turks in the main page and also the big insult from ShirvanShah on the Turkic language and manners.  So lets not over do it.
Comment 6)  
Virtually all scholars acknowledge that excellent sophisticated poetry is a proof of high culture.  And the medium of this high culture was indeed the Persian language.   Nizami Ganjavi will never be part of Turkish culture because he contributed to Persian culture.  He lives through his medium of expression and the culture that he enriched.
At least from the 8/9th century there is Persian poetry from the area, according to Tabari.  Indeed Tabari (under events of 235 Hijra which is equivalent to 849 A.D) says about the ruler of the area:
‌حد ثني انه انشدني بالمراغه جماعه من اشياخها اشعاراً لابن البعيث بالفارسيه و تذكرون ادبه و شجاعه و له اخباراً و احاديث
Rough translation:
Mohammad  al-ibn Ba’ith (the ruler of the area) composed poetry in Persian(bel-Farsyah) in Maraga..
Also Middle-Persian was spoken in the area as can be seen by the names of the cities of the area and multiple inscriptions in Middle Persian. 
We know the Shaddadid Kurdish dynasty of Arran were removed by the Seljuqs around 1067 and their capital was Ganja.  The main backbone of the Seljuqs (who were part of the nomadic Oghuz tribes) were Oghuz Turkic tribes.  These tribes did not posses high culture and literature and they were very recent migrants in the area.  Indeed the Turks and specially the Oghuz tribes are derided by the Iranian poet Qatran Tabrizi (1009-1072) .  Qatran calls Turks: Khoonkhaar (bloodsuckers), Ghaddaar (exceedingly honorless), Makaar (Liars and falsifiers), Afat (a tragedy!).   Ironically Qatran Tabrizi is also molded into an Oghuz Turk in the republic of Azerbaijan!  Note I have no problems against anyone that claims to be a descendant of Oghuz Turks today, but a lot of Persian/Arabic poetry and literature is also replete with the barbarism of Turks and specially Oghuz Turks.  I have already mentioned that Stalin made a nonsense comment about Nizami having Turkic work!  Well pseudo-scholars of Azerabijani republic, have always attempted to attribute falsely any Turkic piece they can find to Nizami although we know that all the work left by Nizami is Persian and this is in all the biographies.  But furthermore  out of the Russian sources mentioned by Mr. Baguirov (which are useless when it comes to ethnology due to the fact that no one could have challenged Stalins views), the term Azerbaijani can be taken to mean simply born from the current republic of Azerbaijan (which existed with this name only from 1918) and historically for the most part has been called Arran and Shirvan.  So it does not necessarily mean an Oghuz Turk was meant by some of these scholars although again their work regarding ethnographics is useless due to the final verdict of Stalin and what is important is to show modern sources from Western Scholars of the last 15-20 years.  Going back to the issue of Oghuz Turks, the nomadic Oghuz Turks had their own culture and Nizami had a different culture as evidences by his work.  Indeed comparison of Nizami and Ferdowsi shows major intersections whereas comparison of Nizami and Dede Korkord shows two totally different worlds in many aspects.  So culturally Nizami is not related to Oghuz Turks in any fashion. 
Comment 7)
Encyclopedia Iranica has clearly mentioned Shirin as an Armenian.
Indeed this is proven by going through many different books of Persian literature and two examples were given by Vahshi Baqfi and Amir Khusraw Dehlavi.
Comment 8)
Finally, the term Persian language poet instead of Persian poet is not used and the correct term is Persian poet.  Nizami is indeed today alive through his work and so that is indeed the true nature of Nizami.  Because a Persian poet means more than ethnicity and it means culture as well.  Since Persian was indeed a cultural language and Nizami belongs to this cultural through his masterpieces.  Nizamis poetry is the best proof of the Persian cultural heritage as his stories give scholars detailed information about pre-Islamic Iran.
Finally as per ethnicity, although I am  sure that Nizamis father was Iranian (most likely Kurdish),  but since Nizami does not tell us anything directly about his father, then we must just confirm that his mother was Kurdish and be neutral.  So he was at least half Iranian and one can not claim him to be a Turk by modern ethnic standards!  Even if he was an African, he is assimilated to Iranian culture.  Some of these facts could be hard for a person from the republic of Azerbaijan, and I do not want to spread bitter feelings. But the republic through the USSR’s effort has totally turned its back on its in Iranian heritage, its history has been manipulated and it is trying to build a separate non-existing heritage based on falsifications. 
Any revision of the current article and to claim Nizami Ganjavi as an ethnic Turk is an allegation that has not been supported by scholars of the modern times and Western scholars.  Also I have done babelfish translation of Mr. Baguirovs diatribe on Nizami and it seems all of it is very much answered above. Indeed it has been shownn false by variety of arguments, some which were given.  So  stop the historical revisionism and let this article like the Encyclopedia Britannica and other major Western sources, be neutral.  
--Ali doostzadeh 08:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Falsification by Mr. Adil Baguirov as well as some comments 

message: Ali Doostzadeh (great work by the way) has posted a large amount of evidence.  I have not seen any convincing evidence like the ones Ali posted by the opponents.  The evidence posted is irrefutable is it not?  This reminds of me of a quote:
Do not consider the intestinal conflicts of sects: For, not having found the truth, they went to the invention...
~ Hafez Shirazi
Iranian Patriot 00:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Evidence 

message: quote: "Extensive comments and corrections are necessary to Ali Doostzadeh’s talk, since he either is very partial, preferring to concentrate on one and not another, or severely misinterprets some facts or mistranslates and misattributes, or is outright false on others. This is a continuation of the general policy of chauvinism, discrimination and racism displayed by some extremists and which results in the well-known events underway right now in South Azerbaijan’s (North Iran) cities of Tabriz and Urmiya, where 100,000’s Azerbaijanis are protesting the denial of their basic rights and general discrimination by the Iranian government and few Persian chauvinists (chauvinism, an extreme form of nationalism, is present in all cultures and people, by no means limited to any one nation in particular). By the way, the constant references that one writes in a “bad” Persian language are another testament of this – although, if I were on the place of the author, I would pay attention to the horrible English spelling and grammar, as well as mistyped Russian (e.g., “sovietkaya kultura” instead of “Sovetskaya kul’tura”) and even mistranslated Persian/Farsi (on that a little bit below)."AdilBaguirov 05:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Persian Chauvanism Accusations 

message: I don't see anything wrong with that article from the Armenian Professor.  And BTW that book mentioned by the Armenianan article is not originally Azarbaijani, but it is Persian.  The original Persian uses the word: Ghair-Mellat. Here is the actual quote:
اول شهری که در ولایت قاراباغ بنا شده شهر و قلعهء بردع است که سر رودخانه ترتر و در سه فرسخی رود کور واقع است و اهل آن شهر در قدیم ارمنی و یا غیر ملت بودند.
Before modern nationalism, there was three main Millats (nations) in the area (Christian, Muslim and Jews).  The author who is a Muslim uses the term Ghair-Millat(non-Millat)(non-muslims) and this term has long usage.  Indeed it has always referred to religion and sects.   See Dr. Touraj Atabaki's excellent book on the usage of Millat in Islamic times.  Indeed in Qajar Iran,  a French Person would of the same Millat as an Armenian.  So one must be familiar with lexicon of the Qajar usage of this term and again this shows that some of the non-Iranian scholars from the USSR are not well versed in Persian as a native who knows Persian literature is.
Also the Britannica articles says Azerbaijan has given scientists but it does not say those scientists belong to the culture of Oghuz speaking Turkic people.  Remember in the other talk we had in another thread, you said even if ancient Azarbaijanis were Iranic, today they are Turks.  Well Nizami ganjavi does not change his identity just because of the gradual and sometimes forceful Turkification of Azarbaijan that occured starting around his time.  (A new discovery of an old manuscript by the name of Safineyeh Tabrizi from the Ilkhanid era still shows the people of Tabriz speaking Persian and Pahlavi dialects.)  Just like the many ancient Greek scientists do not belong to the culture of modern Turkey even though genetic evidences shows Anatolians share more with modern Greeks than any other Turkic speaking group.  And a Persian poet does not just mean the author used the Persian language or is ethnic Persian.  It means he was involved in the Persian culture and expressed his philosophical, moral, cultural feelings in the language and is alive and known through the culture and language he contributed to.  You see if Einstein wrote a book in English, he is an English writer of Jewish origin.  As for Nizami we are 100% of Kurdish mother and I would even say his father was about 99% chance Kurdish (although he didn't leave us sufficient information to make 100% sure).  But poet is much more important than a scientist when it comes to identity because a poet expresses cultural ideas and thus belongs to the culture that he developed and that nourished him.  Nizami's major work are about the Sassanid dynasty and also the Irano-Islamic legend of Alexandar (which is found in large parts of Shahnameh as well).  So there is a very important cultural element here that can not be overlooked and even if Nizamis other half was a Martian, he would still be a Persian pory in the cultural sense.  Because Persian was his cultural language and legacy of the culture he left behind.  Indeed culture is much more important than ethnicity in my opinion.  For example Stalin was a Georgian, but he acted like a Russian.  Or ataturk was originally Albanian/Macedonian but he became the father of Turks.  
While I am at it,  let me just add another point or two about one of the other false statements of Mr. Baguirov.  Mr Baguirov said: Of course the fact that there are such great Turkic eposes as Dede Korkut and Oghuz Nameh, which are oral stories from at least 1300 ago, and oldest manuscript of which was written in 1053.  And this claim is very big lie.  There is only two manuscripts of dede Korkut work (compare it to say Shahnameh with 1000+ manuscripts).  Dede-Qorqod contains about 150 Persian words and 300 Arabic words.  It talks about Iranians (tats) with beards (Oghuz Turks at that time were mainly mongloid like Turkomens) doing Azzan while Iranians were not Islamified yet 1300 years ago.  It talks about the land of Rum, while at that time it was not even at the hands of Muslims!   Dede Korkut (the culture of Oghuz Turks) is totally from the Oghuz culture.  .  Indeed to show that is not as old as Mr. Baguirov and other ultra-nationalists claim, the word "istanbul" is found in this book.  And I quote: The merchants set out on their long journey and traveled steadily for many days and nights. They came at last to the city of
Istanbul.  
The name Istanbul was chosen fairly recently (in 1453) for the former constantinope and assuming Dede Qoqod was written in 1453, then there is no way a manuscript exists that is 400 years older.   As per the second part of the above sentence and Oguz-Nama, I haven't seen anything reliable from Mr. Baguirov about Oguz Nama.  But there is a work by a certain Rashid al-Din Tabib of the Ilkhanid era in PERSIAN commonly also known as Oguz-Nama..  Author:  Rashīd al-Dīn Tabīb, 1247?-1318  and the book is written in the Ilkhanid era and has been translated to Turkmen and other languages.  
But Dede Korkut/Oguz Nama (the culture of Oghuz Turks) is totally different than the culture of Nizami/Ferdowsi. Dede Korkut is indeed the authentic true Oghuz-Turkic culture.  .  So is Kur-Oghlu which is mainly Turkic stories.  See this interesting article (and note the site is not academic but yet I believe this article to be accurate) on how again Stalin manipulated history with regards to this folk story.  Note the author makes another point which is well known and I have already made:   At the time, the Turkish sultans didn't consider themselves to be Turks, but rather a cosmopolitan people, the Osmanli. In fact, they preferred to follow Persian and Arabic customs and offended the nomadic Turks by insulting their traditions and culture. The Osmanlis behaved not as the ethnic brothers of the nomadic Turks, but as their enemies and conquerors. This is what I mean by Persianization and this occured to the Ghaznavids as well as the latter Seljuqids.  Also their empire usually was run by Iranian vazirs who did all the administration work and indeed some of them intermarried with the Seljuqids like the famous Nizam Al-Mulk.  So the royal Seljuqids even if originally Turkic,  mixed with the locals and started to upholad their custom.  Another question comes up is why didn't western Oghuz Turkic have any significant literature from the begining of Islam, all the way down to the start of the Ottoman empires?  The reason is that you need a complex culture and civilization to produce masterpieces and it does not come overnight.  The complexity of the stories of Shahnama/Panj-Ganj relative to Dede Korkut is obvious and shows two different civilizations and culture.  The fact is the Oghuz-Turkic culture was not established yet fully around the time of Seljuqids and it took several centuries after to produce Turkish literture.  Much like the Scythians of the old days who were nomadic but in around 2000 started settlements and became the ancestors of very complex and cultured Iranian people: Soghdians and Chorasmians.    
Also one can do a comparison between Nizamis work and Ferdowsi's work and see that they are from the same culture and why Nizami has expanded on some of the stories of Ferdowsi and the same themes.  Culturally Nizami contributed to a civilization and that is Persian-Iranian culture and civilization.  What is even  the use of claiming him as a Turk, when he was not one and even if there was a 0% chance he was, he was assimilated fully and did not leave even one line of Turkish literature and did not contribute to their heritage.  
I didn't even want to bring these issues up and I have a lot more sources to inject into this article about wide range of matters.  Specially about Oghuz Turks and their behavior and culture and one will clearly see that Nizami did not have anything to do with this group.  Still I don't want to do this, but unfortunately some users are trying to push this article in the wrong direction.  
But since I believe in the greatness of Nizami, here is my proposal which stands already and is supported by Western Academics (Wilson, Clinton, Meysami, Talattof, Rypka..) as well as many important USSR academics after the breakup of USSR: We say his mother was an ethnic Kurd.  He was a Persian poet (definition of Persian poet does not mean ethnicity).  Both these terms are used in Western literature.  But say his heritage is shared by Kurds and the people of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Tajikistan.  (Which is true).  He was born in Ganja in the republic of Azerbaijan.  (although Qom theory could never be discounted 100% and I could make 1001 arguments by interpolating verses and referring to scholars and etc.).  He lived under the Seljuqs.  Shireen was an Armenian princess (like the Encyclopedia Iranica and other Persian poets have also confirmed and she is known as Armenian in Persian/Kurdish cultures).  All these facts should be mentioned.  All these facts are already incorporated in the article.  
But manipulations of these facts by some  pan-Turkist nationalist is not welcomed and is aggression on Iranian heritage.  Also today we do not judge ethnicity by 12th century standard and Nizami although most likely fully Iranian, is at least half Kurdish(Iranic) (unanimously agreed by all scholars).
In no way I am going to accept that he was half Oghuz Turkic, when the overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise and Western scholars have not mentioned this either and neither did any historians and biographers of the old ages that wrote about Nizami.  Indeed the few Turks that contributed to Persian or Turkic literature and whose name has come up in biographies have been mentioned as Turks.  Like Hasan Oghlu of Asfarain.  The Nomadic Oghuz Turks that were encroaching on Anatolia and Caucasia were not cultured enough at that time to produce the Nizami Ganjavi.  
Indeed if necessary I will against my own will, but for the sake of truth, bring many many quotes from Persian and Arabic poets and writers about the barbarism of Oghuz Turks at the time.  So lets not call him an Oghuz Turk when scholars have not said such a thing in the West and outside of the Stalinstic era USSR (which no one can oppose Stalin).  To say he was an Oghuz Turk (which modern Azarbaijanis from the republic identity themselves as), is historically inaccurate and is not supported by Western scholars and many scholars of the USSR.  Also what I have noticed is that some plagarist might write a book that references some primary sources incorrectly and plagarize them and misquote them.   And then another plagarist will refer to the primary source through the first plagarized source!, but will not mention the plagarized source.  This method is used a lot by pan-turkist historians.  Indeed with all the errors I have shown by Mr. Baguirov, one needs to be cautious and makes sure any statement he makes comes from the primary source and not a secondary source quoting the primary source. 
I also btw have some research on the physical features of Turks and Oghuz Turks from Arabic/Persian literature and they are mongloid  and it is clear to most scholars that Azarbaijan rebublic experienced a linguistic shift without much DNA variation.  Kaputsins strong statement and Stalins manipulations have been already mentioned and I won't go through.  Note I am not even pushing a nationalistic line and this is what Western scholars say.  (Persian poet, Kurdish mother).  If I wanted to be nationalistic, I would make 10001 reasons like Mr. Baguirov about his father being from Qom (since it is in some manuscripts as well as some history books) and he was Iranian.  
So friends lets end this issue.
--Ali doostzadeh 23:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Millat in the correct context 

message: ...should be moved to Wikisource. I nominate Ali to do the job. ;) —Khoikhoi 05:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's the Persian Wikisource and here's the English one. —Khoikhoi 05:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The poems "The Labors of Ferhad" and the full text of "The Seven Beauties" 

message: Before I go on, I’d like to ask Mr. Doostzadeh to either call me Dr. Baguirov, and not “Mr. Adil” (?!). Adil is a first name, in case he didn’t know, and it’s Semitic (Arabic), like “Ali”. Also, I’d like to ask for everyone to be constructive as well as, refrain from making insulting remarks like “what an big time idiot a person has to be” or “to show the real stupidity of Mr. Baguirov” as Mr. Doostzadeh has done more than once (I wonder if he would dare to say that to my face as courageously as from behind the comfortable seat by his computer). 
Mr. Doostzadeh seems to have a lot of time on his hands to drum-up his lengthy accusations and claims. By simply reversing the ideas and assertions put forward by this author (legitimate accusations of bias and racism when it comes to Azerbaijani history and historic figures on the part of such chauvinists as Mr. Doostzadeh), he might think he did smth worthy of being proud of. Mr. Doostzadeh is way out of his league when he makes yet more irrelevant, baseless and groundless assertions about “Azarbaijani Chavaunism” (sic!) – one only needs to compare human rights reports from US State Department, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UN and PACE (EC) on the treatment of minorities in Azerbaijan (quite positive) and Iran (outright negative). This is objective reality and easy to verify, yet has little to do with our discussion, and it is unfortunate that Mr. Doostzadeh retorts to such mud-slinging. 
Indeed, it is somewhat inappropriate to hear an Iranian chauvinist talk about human rights in other countries. With Iran currently ablaze in protests against the very racism and chauvinism that I’ve identified Mr. Doostzadeh displaying, and with majority of Iranians of all ethnic backgrounds wanting freedom and democracy in their country, well realizing that the mullah regime has arrested the development of that nation, it is rather strange to hear such biased – and most importantly unwarranted and unneeded remarks – as Mr. Doostzadeh decides to make. If this is discussion about Nizami, it would help to stay as much as possible on the track. 
And Mr. Doostzadeh’s comments on the cartoons reminds me of the official propaganda mouthpiece of the mullah regime. Indeed, they have tried to do a primitive damage control in the initial days of the incident, claiming that the cartoonist was ethnic Azerbaijani – even though all South Azerbaijanis vehemently deny that. Although what would that change, there are often a few bad apples on any apple tree. The cartoon incident was the last straw for many, and that’s why we saw up to 100,000 Azerbaijanis protest in Tabriz and other cities, that’s why now there are at least 40 dead due to the Iranian army, along with Basij’s and Ettalaat’s [Iranian KGB] repressive forces trying to control the situation. Mr. Doostzadeh acting as if an agent for these organizations, is parroting and spinning their propaganda stories for Western consumption, as if people don’t have eyes or ears or brains. Go and see for yourselves what the repressive mullah regime is doing to its citizens: http://www.ForAzerbaijan.com and http://www.GAMOH.org. Stories have been printed by AP, Reuters, BBC, etc. Unlike what Mr. Doostzadeh alleges, repeating the Goebbels-style mullah regime propaganda, neither the cartoonist, nor the editor of the official “Iran” newspaper were ethnic Azerbaijanis – and both were dismissed, although that is too little, too late. 
Secondly, as even such Iranian nationalist as Dr. Motlaq, the first editor of an academic edition of Shahnameh of Firdowsi (published only in 2004) wrote, Iranians used the Russian-language edition of Shahnameh for decades due to lack of their own academic edition and to this day he admits that the academic methods by non-Iranian scholars in editing ancient and otherwise old texts are superior to that of Iranians themselves. Thus, it shows that without Soviet and Russian-language scholarship Iran’s own history, heritage and scholarship would suffer tremendously. As I’ve outlined before, knowledge of Russian language and familiarity with Russian-language scholarly sources are essential to any serious researcher, in all fields, especially in humanities and in its subject, history of literature. One cannot forget that there have been always large numbers of Iranians coming to study and learn from the people of ex-USSR, be it in nuclear science (to which, besides the point, Azerbaijani scientists contributed quite a lot) to literature. It is that’s why that such an Iranian-American scholar, prof. Talattof remarks that “In the former Soviet Union and in the Republic of Azerbaijan, interest in Nizami has always been impressive” («The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric», edited, introduction, and major contributions by K. Talattof and J. Clinton. New York: «Palgrave Macmillan», 2001, p. 190). 
On the contribution of Azerbaijanis to the Iranian literature in general and even to founding (!) of literary criticism in Iran one can read from another well known Iranian (Persian) specialist, Dr. Iraj Parsinejad – who calls none other than Azerbaijani (Turk) Mirza Fath’Ali Akhundzade (Akhundov) as the “founder of modern Iranian literary criticism” (this is despite the fact that Akhundov was not only born not in Iran but in (North) Azerbaijan, but lived, studied and died there too, spending only brief time in Iran and other countries). Similarly, Dr. Parsinejad names several other ethnic Azerbaijanis – so many, that they make-up over half of his book dedicated to literary criticism in Iran. But the most ironic is of course how M.F.Akhundov, a foreign citizen (Russian Empire), who was neither born nor spent significant part of his life in Iranian Empire, who was an Azerbaijani Turk, who clearly worked for Azerbaijani people and his nation, wrote a lot in Russian, Azerbaijani and Farsi, is declared as the founder of Iranian literary criticism and otherwise a top Iranian writer, critic. This is surreal. After such imperialistic approach it becomes clear why Nizami, who had nothing to do with Iran, is declared as Iranian or even Persian, and so many falsifications are many such as the Qom issue, etc.   
When Mr. Doostzadeh is completely cornered and out of arguments, he claims that “the general policy of wikipedia is to use what the most recent scholars think about Nizami and not scholars from 50 years ago from USSR. What Mr. Adil Baguirov needs to show, is actual sources from foreign scholars after the USSR breakup”.
By this “logic”, we cannot use Vahid Dasgirdi, who wrote in 1930s, and Said Nefisi, wrote in 1950s, just to name a few scholars whom Mr. Doostzadeh has been mentioning extensively (and which he of course regrets now), as all of them wrote more than 50 years ago. Not to mention the resurrected from naphthalene certain M.Kapustin who wrote his paid-for-by-Armenian-propaganda article in 1988 (in case Mr. Doostzadeh didn’t realize yet, USSR ceased to exist in 1991). Yes, it was a paid-for propaganda article as neither was Kapustin a scholar, nor a Nizami specialist, nor was it coincidence that a simultaneous and similar article by an Armenian author was also published in a Soviet Armenian newspaper as I already revealed. By the way, Mr. Doostzadeh is repeating the baseless claim that Kapustin is a “scholar” of “Iranian studies” – perhaps Mr. Doostzadeh and his supporters would care to present at least ONE article or otherwise scholarly credentials of this WRITER, not Iranian SCHOLAR, on Iranian history/literature? It is weird for me to see non-Russian speakers, who know little about USSR and its history in general, talk about “scholarship” of some Russian writer, who happened to pen what some Persians chauvinists (and certain Armenian circles) want to see, yet try to dismiss such celebrated, authoritative, recognized Soviet academics and scholars as Marr, Bertels, Krachkovskiy, Shaginyan, Aliyev, and others. Also, this is yet another testament of the sub-par standards of Mr. Doostzadeh – what is a “scholar” for him is just a writer, publicist for the rest, as of course it is obvious Mr. Kapustin is no scholar of Iranian studies. 
Secondly, ex-USSR scholars *are* “foreign scholars” – it depends what Mr. Doostzadeh means by “foreign”, but from his Iranian-centric perspective ex-Soviet scholars are undoubtedly “foreign”. Or maybe what worries Mr. Doostzadeh is the usage of great and authoritative Soviet and other Russian-language sources – which neither Mr. Doostzadeh, nor other like-minded Persians chauvinists understand or comprehend. This unfortunately has to be said, since Mr. Doostzadeh constantly tries to insult and engages in repeated mud-slinging with regards to languages. By the way, no less than 30 million ethnic Azerbaijanis speak Persian, sometimes as their first, native language. Likewise, I do not think anyone would be as mad as to claim that since 99% of Iranians do not read or understand Pahlavi, then the whole heritage of that era, of Middle Persian language, does not belong to them. If Oscar-winning director and screenplay writer Rustam Ibragimbekov, top detective novel writer Chingiz Abdullayev and celebrated poet and Nizami specialist Samed Vurgun, all from Azerbaijan, wrote/write almost entirely in Russian – does it mean they are not Azerbaijani poets and writers? And why is great Kafka a German writer despite being Jewish and living in Czech capital Prague? 
Furthermore, as I clearly argued before, no serious Nizami scholar has the right to ignore Russian-language scholarship on Nizami – and no one does that or even attempts to do that aside from the likes of Mr. Doostzadeh. Every serious Nizami researcher, be it Iranian prof. at Oxford Julie Meisami or Iranian prof. at U. Arizona Kamran Talattof, pay homage to their Azerbaijani and Russian, Soviet and Russian-language colleagues in general – whilst revealing how ideologically and otherwise biased are many Iranian scholars.  
Mr. Doostzadeh is showcasing a dangerous ideology, when he pulls all stops to prevent celebrated and authoritative Soviet scholarly sources, well-known and cited in the academic circles worldwide, from being introduced to Wikipedia, whilst simultaneously trying to introduce no-name researchers and sometimes even just writers under the guise of “experts/scholars on Iranian studies”. It is unfortunate that Mr. Doostzadeh engages in such unscholarly, not to mention unethical, activities. 
Indeed, all those tall tales about “tainted” Soviet scholarship and other irrelevant misdirected and misguided accusations, then: 
1) it is not for a Persian chauvinist, a non-scholar, to determine, as even such true Iranian scholars as Prof. Talattof acknowledge how really tainted Iranian scholarship is and was. Here’s the appropriate quote from his 2001 book: “Adhering too rigidly to any point of view can be problematic, however, as when the editor Pizhman Bakhtiyar eliminates verses that undermine his interpretation. Similarly, some editors such as Sarvatyan [and I should add that Mr. Doostzadeh can be congratulated with being a worthy pupil of Sarvatyan] will sift through many manuscripts of a work to come up with a rendition that suits their purposes”. (ibid., pp. 7-8). As I wrote before, Talattof goes on to name seven (7) Iranian editors of Nizami’s works as “ideologically motivated”.
2) Soviet scholarship was never biased in favor of Azerbaijan, always against – none of the encyclopedias or other sources were edited by ethnic Azerbaijanis, but by Armenians for example. That’s why we find such ancient chronicles (historians) as Koryun (Georgian) and Agaphangelos (Greek) declared “Armenian” by the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (edited by an Armenian, with an additional three Armenians on the board of editors). 
3) To sum-up, the baseless claims about the Soviet or Communist system and its bias supposedly affect Nizami ethnicity, are ridiculous. Mr. Doostzadeh is once again forgetting that we base our knowledge of Nizami being an Azerbaijani Turk due to not only historic and other indirect, third-party sources, but Nizami’s own admissions and quotes – which were professionally and well-translated, unlike what Mr. Doostzadeh reads. 
Also, why would the Soviets need to falsify ethnicity of Nizami when so many different Iranian peoples lived in USSR? Why not declare Nizami Kurdish – the Kurds never had a famous poet attributed to them and this was their chance, after all USSR setup a so-called Red Kurdistan autonomy in USSR and supported the Kurdish Republic of Mahabbat in Iran in 1940s? The first ethnic Kurdish becoming a full professor was also from USSR, from Azerbaijan – prof. Aliyev.  
Also, why was this even needed when Azerbaijanis were not exactly “poor” in poets – we have great Fuzuli (Fizuli) and Nasimi (Nesimi), not to mention few others? Furthermore, why not conceal the ethnic background of another great Azerbaijani poet – Khagani Shirvani – whose father’s (Tat or otherwise of Iranian origin) and mother’s (Greek, Nestorian) ethnicity was public knowledge and clearly spelled out in all books I’ve seen. Where’s the “bias” here, why was it only towards Nizami?
Why did Soviets not always acknowledge that Amir Khosrow Dehlevi was ethnic Turk, despite living in India and writing mostly in Farsi? Indeed, USSR was anti-Turkish state, that claimed lands and privileges from such Turkic states as Turkey, from changing the ethnic make-up of countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgizstan. The longest resistance to Soviet rule was from Turkic people – in Azerbaijan throughout 1920s and in Turkmenistan until 1930s! Almost 200,000 Azerbaijanis – that’s more than half of their population at the time – were deported from Armenia into Azerbaijan in 1947-1953, with half of them dying during forced relocation (i.e., during Stalin and only ending with his death).
Finally, why not declare other poets, like Firdowsi or Jami or Rudaki or others as non-Persian, and instead simply “Tajik”, if there was some “conspiracy” against Iran and Persians? 
That’s because there was no “Azerbaijani bias” in Soviet scholarship – only Armenians and those ideologically motivated Persian chauvinists can claim such absurd and comical assertion – to cover up their on bias and favoritism by some Soviet and Western scholars or writers. 
Finally, it might be good to spell properly the Russian transliterations – I’ve already kindly provided the correct spelling, it’s not “sovietkaya kultura” but “Sovetskaya Kul’tura”, and that publication was not a “magazine” but a “newspaper”. Mr. Doostzadeh, stop copying non-scholarly flimsy quotes from non-specialists such as Kapustin, abandon those .
Mr. Doostzadeh’s excuse that “by the way when judging a Persons ethnicity, we do not use 12th century time, but the modern time, where both female and male lineage are important” is shaky and strange. Unless Iran and Azerbaijan have changed overnight in modern times, the culture and tradition in those nations prescribe that nationality passes through father, not mother. This doesn’t deny any mother’s rights, or freedom of choice for the child, or otherwise – but nationality passes through father, not mother. It is strange that I have to explain this to Mr. Doostzadeh. Also, in modern time Nizami would have openly called himself Azerbaijani instead of just Turk. 
About Armenian revisionism – I can give Mr. Doostzadeh many examples of when Armenians did that (in fact, I did give an example with at least two ancient chroniclers in the GSE), so the recollection of one Azerbaijani supposedly doing that (Mr. Doostzadeh probably means the article by prof. G.Burnutian, who makes several mistakes in his writings) has no bearing on the issue. Mr. Doostzadeh as an Iranian and ethnic Persian should be concerned with plagiarism, revisionism and propaganda from Iran – it is no secret that there is plenty of that in Iran and it would keep Mr. Doostzadeh very busy. Also, Mr. Doostzadeh should not threaten me with escalation of discussion – if he wants to do that, I won’t stand still either. 
I’d like to catch Mr. Doostzadeh on his offer to “whereas I can use tons of Armenian scholars from now when the USSR censors and Stalin are not at work”. First, there are no serious Nizami experts in Armenia or otherwise scholars who can dwell on this issue. I, for one, can bring in one such “scholar” in whose “professional” opinion, Nizami was ethnic Arab (LOL!). And second, Mr. Doostzadeh is still clueless as to who exactly was M.Shaginyan. She was not just “some Armenian” (?!), but the #1 Armenian poetess of the 20th century – there is no if’s, but’s or any exceptions, she was the top Armenian poetess, Nizami expert and translator, best, most authoritative, number one, prima, uno in Armenia! And she published her book in 1955, two years AFTER Stalin’s death, just in case Mr. Doostzadeh didn’t realize this. Thus, sorry for contradicting once again, and affirming how incorrect Mr. Doostzadeh is, but it is simply impossible for him to bring anyone of the statue of M.Shaginyan from Armenia to the table. All Armenian writers, no matter how many, would be easily silenced by the towering authority of this woman. 
Also, Mr. Doostzadeh should know that the top advisor, right hand and official to Stalin and all other Soviet leaders until 1970s was Anastas Mikoyan, an ethnic Armenian who fought and killed Azerbaijanis in the first quarter of the 20th century. Mikoyan held a number of high-ranking positions, including as leader of Azerbaijan. Also, Mr. Doostzadeh does not know, that the leaders of Azerbaijan (First Secretary of the Communist Party) in 1920, 1926-1929, and 1933 were ethnic Armenians (and in between of these years, it were always ethnic Russians). So while it’s nice to see Mr. Doostzadeh so scared and senseless from the mythical abilities of tiny Azerbaijan, they do not correspond to realities. There was simply no pro-Azerbaijani bias in Soviet scholarship, quite the opposite.  
But just to cool chauvinists and propagandists down, in 2002, Russian President Putin in St. Petersburg clearly stated that Nizami was “…the outstanding son of Azerbaijan, poet and thinker Nizami.” [In Russian: “У нас сегодня очень радостное, торжественное событие – мы открываем памятник выдающемуся сыну Востока, выдающемуся сыну Азербайджана, поэту и мыслителю Низами”]. So much for Kapustin’s propaganda! LOL!
Then, I know very well that 12th century Dari is very similar to modern Persian, and never said anything otherwise -- Mr. Doostzadeh should stop his cheap insinuations and claims. But in our discussion we obviously talk a lot about subtleties and details – and thus, Mr. Doostzadeh’s admission that “Iranians can read Persian language of 12th century with almost no problem” with key word being “almost”. Mr. Doostzadeh repeatedly acknowledged that he has to verify the meaning of certain words with Dekhoda dictionary, and yet has still failed to properly translate Nizami’s verses such as about at-Tabari and al-Bukhari, not to mention his confusion with Afak/Appaq being Turkic and a first wife, and Shirvanshah Akhsitan I letter to Nizami in Leyli and Mejnun. 
Thus, I rest my case – although this incident shows that Mr. Doostzadeh is unconstructive, biased and ideologically motivated, as he is trying to dispute everything and anything, without any merit in doing so. It would have been very strange if everyone were able to understand perfectly their language from 8-9 centuries before – neither Russians, nor English, nor especially Armenians (whose two languages/dialects are about 50% different today than grabar in those times) can claim that!  
Furthermore, Mr. Doostzadeh doesn’t need to “explain” anything about Iraq – unlike him, I am using academic editions of Nizami’s work, under professional, scholarly translations and if the non-Azerbaijani translators made the determination to translate Iraq as such, meaning Arabic Iraq, then that’s how I provide it too. Once again, the capital of the Seljuk empire and caliphate was Baghdad, Iraq, and Nizami lived in Seljuk Empire, in Azerbaijani Atabek state and was an Azerbaijani Turk. Thus, translation of it as simply Iraq is correct and appropriate. Here’s the poetic translation by a Western specialist based on G.H.Darab’s literal translation into English which reiterates the Soviet translation I’ve provided previously:
“Ganjeh has imprisoned me; or treasure of Irak would have so easily been mine.
For the whole world has cried, “O young man, where is Ganjeh and who is Nizami?”
(poetic translation into English by Paul Smith, “The Treasury of the Mysteries”, pp. 249-250)
Thus, here once more Mr. Doostzadeh is displaying his unconstructive stance and jumping the gun. 
Whom Nizami dedicated his poems is EXTREMELY important for many obvious and not-so-obvious reasons, especially in the light of Mr. Doostzadeh, like all Persian chauvinists, trying to present the fact that Nizami sometimes based his male hero on a Sassanian king as an “argument” for Nizami’s Persian ethnicity. And of course forgets whom did Ferdowsi write the Shahnameh for and thanks to whom was Persian language and culture saved (a Turk, albeit not Azeri Turk). 
Mr. Doostzadeh is once more showcasing his trouble with comprehension and understanding of simple concepts when he declares that “That Jalal Khalegh Motlaqi used many editions and one was the Shahnameh of Moscrow, has no bearing on the issue of Nizamis ethnicity”. Indeed, this was not claimed – instead, I clearly provided Dr. Motlaq’s statement to show that 1) even he considers non-Iranian scholars as superior to Iran’s own despite the latter’s native language proficiency advantage, and, 2) all Iranians relied on supposedly “tainted” Soviet (Russian) edition of Shahnameh – which is actually pitiful and even ridiculous, such a big country as Iran, with some of its representatives obsessed with claiming everything as Iranian, with so many Persian chauvinists around, so much money, and supposedly loving and cherishing their #1 poet, did not have an normal scholarly, academic edition of that epic until 2004! Unbelievable!!!! 
Instead of wasting time on claiming Nizami, along with others, from Azerbaijan, it would be better for Iranians to concentrate on protecting the history and heritage that is undoubtedly theirs, such as providing commentary from Dr. Motlaq’s book. It seems like the great Russian proverb “Neighbors fruits from the tree are sweeter than one’s own” best describes this ridiculous situation. 
The “user” never “agreed” to Nizami’s “mother tongue is Kurdish”. Don’t put words into mouth and don’t misquote please. It seems like reading comprehension and grasp of simple matters suffers in my interlocutor. Nizami’s mother, like father, died very early, he didn’t remember them well and could not learn Kurdish from her – if she spoke it at all. Even today many Kurds prefer to speak Turkish, Farsi or Arabic which they know better than native Kurdish (of which there are even now three distinct dialects like Kurmanji – which one Mr. Doostzadeh think Raiseh spoke?) By the way, no one is denying that Kurds are Iranian, and thus Nizami had partly Iranian heritage – I’ve always maintained that, including in my Russian-language article reference to which is being constantly removed by Persian chauvinists. Yet Nizami is clear that he views himself as an Azerbaijani (Arrani) Turk, or even Ganja Turk, since at the time the fragmentation by cities was prevalent everywhere, including in Europe (Venice Italian, Genoa Italian, Bavarian German, Castillia Spaniard, Moscow Rus, Kiev Rus, Crimean Tatar, etc).  
In any case, Turkic people were well present in the Caucasus much before Nizami, as I mentioned, there are numerous even Armenian chronicles (Buzand, Khorenatsi, Gevond), as well as Georgian and Byzantian chronicles who write about massive numbers of Turkic people settling since at least 5th century A.D. 
Here’s another quote from Georgian source, O. Tkeshelashvili, G. Kacharava, Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia, 1979: “In 627 Tbilisi was invaded and destroyed by Byzantine and Turk hordes; in 736-738s - Arab military leader Marvan II Ibn Mohammed invaded the city. The Arab invasion had dire results for Tbilisi which in the thirties of the 8th century became the residence of the Arab emir. In 764 Tbilisi was sacked by nomad Turks. In 853 in order to strengthen the caliph rule in Tbilisi the city was invaded by Arab military leader - Buga Turk. In 1037-51s King Bagrat IV tried several times to occupy Tbilisi, but due to unstable political situation existing in the country by that time, it became impossible. In 1045 the ruling power came into the hands of the city aristocracy - Council of Elders, Tbilisi monks. In 1068 Tbilisi was invaded and occupied by the Turkish Seljuks under the military leadership of Alp-Arsland.”
In 576, a large number of Hun Sabirs, a Turkic people, were resettled into Ganja (Sakashena) (Byzantian historians, Moscow edition, pp. 411-412), and thus the “country of Huns” became the land between Araxes and Kura rivers, i.e, Arran (see: Georgian chronicle. S.Takayshvilli, p. 1, 5, in M.Melikset-Bek. History of the appearance of Huns in Eastern Transcaucasus. M., pp. 710-711. Also see A. Artamonov. Studies, M., p. 54. The leaders of those Turkic Huns were called “Tarkhan’s” by Arabic historians (al-Balazuri, p. 209, at-Tabari, III, p. 1179, 1192).
In the V century, in Mughan (Azerbaijan), Huns were also settled, called Turks by Byzantian historians (Pheophilact Simmokatta, M., p. 36, 77, 102, 160). These Huns founded the city Ak-gun (White-day), or Balasagun in Arabic rendition (Marquardt, Eransahr S. 119).
In Arabic language sources, we see many references to Turks in Azerbaijan prior to Arab conquest. Omeyyad caliph Muawiyya asked his Yemeni scholar, Abid bin-Shariye, about Turks and (South) Azerbaijan, to which Abid replied: «Azerbaijan – country, populated by Turks from ancient times” (اشيم  كتاب هائی التيجان حيدراباد , Ibn Hashim- Kitab Altijan, Hejdarabad; Togan A. Zeki Validi, Umumi turk tarihine giris, s. 166, Kirzioglu M. Fahrettin, Dede Korkut Oguznameleri, s. 27). This story is repeated in a Persian chronicle by anonymous author in 1126. (مجمل التواريخ و القصص , Mejmul al-tavarikhe ve al-geses, p.103).
A Turkic emir, already Muslim by then, Mubarak at-Turki, built a castle in Kazvin and gave his name to it (ديوان لغات ايلترك, Divan lugat al-turk, P.K.Zhuze).
And of course, despite having Turkic and Iranian elements, Caucasian Albania (Arran) was probably primarily a Caucasian state, with Caucasian languages, not Indo-European or Altaic. Hence, vague and non-definitive statements like “Kurds have been in the area much longer” if meant towards Caucasus cannot be substantiated and compared properly. 
Meanwhile, of course there is “such a thing” as an Azerbaijani Kurd culturally. Why can Kurds of Iran be “Iranian”, but Kurds of Azerbaijan cannot be “Azerbaijani”? After all, Azerbaijani is a nationality, not ethnicity – encompassing Azeri Turks, Tats, Talysh, Lezgins, Avars, Kurds, Persians, Jews, Ingiloy, Tsakhur, Turkmens, Turks, Karapapah, etc. In fact, when convenient to his argument, Mr. Doostzadeh claims himself that: “So culture takes primacy”.
Nizami belonged to the distinct and different Caucasian region and Azerbaijani school of poetry – that too is well acknowledged by Dr. J.Meisami, prof. M.Shaginyan, E.Bertels, French professor F.Charmoy, Czech researcher Jan Rypka, Marr, and others. Here are some of their conclusions, which I will simply leave in Russian w/o translation:
«Дело не в том, что закавказских [азербайджанских – прим. авт.] литераторов и ученых было много, гораздо более важным элементом является их своеобразие. Не столько совпадение во времени, сколько это своеобразие является поводом для объединения  в самостоятельную группу, у истоков которой, собственно, уже стоит Катран [Тебризи – прим. авт.]» (Рипка Ян, История персидской и таджикской литературы, М., Прогресс, 1970, стр. 199).
 
Эту же мысль подчеркивает Е.Э.Бертельс: «все авторы охарактеризованной группы, начиная с Катрана, обнаруживают известную общность стиля. Она настолько велика, что говорить об азербайджанской школе XII в., мне кажется, мы имеем полное право» (Бертельс Е.Э. «Избранные труды. Низами и Физули». М., Восточная литература, 1962, стр. 74).
 
Согласен с этим заключением и другой известный востоковед, академик Марр: «Низами является своим для Кавказа, в частности для той этнической группировки, которая до последнего времени сохраняла персидскую традицию в своей литературе, то есть для Азербайджана, где гянджинский поэт все-таки более в почете, чем в Персии» (Ю.Н.Марр. «Антология азербайджанской поэзии». М., 1939, с. XIX). 
 
М.Шагинян, отмечая особую роль проф. Ф.Б.Шармуа (1793-1869) как одного из пионеров «Низамиведения», пишет: «Шармуа первый заложил основы нашей науки о Низами как о культурном явлении Закавказья. Шармуа первый отметил особенности его словаря, некоторое отличие его языка от языка персидских классиков…» («Этюды о Низами», стр. 66). Шагинян развивает свою мысль дальше: «…в противовес западноевропейским ученым, рассматривавшим великого азербайджанского поэта вне зависимости от его происхождения и культурного окружения, Шармуа впервые обратил внимание на принадлежность Низами к Азербайджану и на отличие не только Низами, но и других поэтов, живших и творивших в Гяндже и в Средней Азии, от поэтов персидских» (там же, стр. 67). 
 
М.Шагинян продолжает: «…Низами несравненно теснее, нежели с другими странами Передней Азии, оказался связанным с культурой Кавказа. Наибольшее количество подражаний его поэмам падает не на персидских, а на тюркских поэтов» (там же, стр. 14).
Nizami lived in Seljuk empire, in the Azerbaijani Atabek state – a Turkic-ruled and Turkic-dominated, especially in his city, state, whilst Iran did not exist and was split into several states, including Turkic-ruled – and nearly all of it under the domain of Seljuks and other  Turkic people. Thus, Nizami while being a Persian-language poet and contributing to Persian poetry and being one of the greatest such representative, was neither Persian nor Iranian. Unlike Ferdowsi and other Persians, Nizami clearly did not dedicate his works to the greatness of Iran or Persia. He often centered on Ganja and Barda – both Azerbaijani cities. His main heroines, based on his wife Afak/Appaq, were either from Barda or Turkic like Shirin, Mihin-Banu, Nushaba, as well as Fitne, Turktaz, Turknaz, Togrulbek, Afrasiyab and in the opinion of some Nistandarjahan, Shapur, Farhad. 
It is yet again funny to read Mr. Doostzadeh’s baseless attack on me: “4) The user claims that I said Nizamis third wife was Afaq. This is just a false lie…” Frankly, I am tired of Mr. Doostzadeh’s groundless accusations and outright falsifications, and would like him to read his own words and print them out for better memory and comprehension: “There is also a theory put forth by the Azarbaijan republic scholars that Nizami's third wife could have been Turkish of Qipchaq” Ali doostzadeh 08:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Mr. Ali Doostzadeh's falsifications, misquotes, mistranslations and unscholarly behaviour 

message: To sum-up:
1) As I have repeatedly shown, Mr. Doostzadeh is clearly biased and partial stemming from his obvious racism and chauvinism towards anything positive for Turks, lowering himself as much as mistranslating and deliberately misunderstanding key Nizami’s quotes, taking words out of context of verses and withholding translation of even sentences that follow immediately after his selective, ideologically-motivate translations.
2) Iranian researchers have been identified by Iranian (e.g., prof. Talattof, 2001), A
rmenian (Shaginyan, 1955), Jewish-Russian academician Marr (1925, 1930s) as biased and not trustworthy: “[a]s when the editor Pizhman Bakhtiyar eliminates verses that undermine his interpretation. Similarly, some editors such as Sarvatyan will sift through many manuscripts of a work to come up with a rendition that suits their purposes”. (see K.Talattof, pp. 7-8). As I wrote before, Talattof goes on to name seven (7) Iranian editors of Nizami’s works as “ideologically motivated”, and that’s obviously not the limit.
3) To the contrary, Soviet and Russian scholars were the first to make the most complete academic, scholarly, critical editions of all five Nizami’s epic poems as well as remnants of his Divan, and produced more papers, articles, and books on Nizami’s poetry than any other “foreign” country. Iran, on the other hand, did not have anything comparable save Vahid Dastgirdi’s 1930s work and more recent works in the past few years which have not been critically analyzed by the world scholarly community and academia. Taking into the account Talattof et al description, and the situation in unfree Iran under the rule of religious fanatics and mad-men like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is highly doubtful that world-class scholarship free of distortions and bias can be produced. Unlike Soviet Union, Iran has a stake in making sure that Nizami, along with other Azerbaijani poets, belong only to itself and not Azerbaijan. 
4) Despite myself providing several very important verses from different epic poems of Nizami, which unlike others I provide more fuller citation and attribution, making it easier to verify and in general, in a more academic, orderly way, they are constantly removed and purged from Wikipedia by Mr. Doostzadeh and his supporters – whilst I have never deleted the one-sided, taken out of context quote about Iran, out of respect for all of Nizami’s heritage. If he wrote it, I fully acknowledge it and bow to it. Not so for ideologically-motivated biased writers as Mr. Doostzadeh and some other chauvinists. No one has the right to delete – indeed, vandalize – appropriate, accurate and well-cited short quotes of Nizami on his page.
5) The general level of Nizami’s page before my edits was full of not only bias, but simple errors – for example, dates of Nizami’s five epic poems were nearly all incorrect, sometimes by twenty (20!!!) years, despite all modern scholars, among them primarily Soviet one’s, proving without a shadow of doubt the more or less precise dates, based not on blind following of error-laden later biographical compilations (all done centuries after Nizami’s death), but calculations from the academic (critical) editions of his manuscripts – since Nizami often left not overly complicated “codes” of when did he start and/or complete his works. In addition, the order of writings was all wrong – for example, the Wikipedia before my edits stated that Iskander-nameh was Nizami’s 4th epic poem, whilst Haft Paykar (Seven Beauties, Seven Portraits) was his 5th – whilst it is well known that the opposite is true. Despite me making those correction, Mr. Doostzadeh’s ideologically-motivated followers kept on reverting the page back to the one with those gross mistakes. 
6) Mr. Doostzadeh is not as well acquainted with Nizami’s works and other important historical details as needed for providing the necessary context for unbiased and non-partisan authorship of articles at Wikipedia. For example, he confuses Shirin as the dauther of Mihin-Banu, and therefore Mihin-Banu as mother of Shirin – whilst Shirin is her niece and Mihin-Banu is thus her aunt, as is clear in the text. Mr. Doostzadeh claimed – on top of much more many mistaken assumptions – that Afak/Appaq was Nizami’s third wife, instead of first. Mr. Doostzadeh at first even denied that Nizami’s Divan is at least partially available to this day – none other than Vahid Destgirdi has conducted excruciating research in making it available to the public, and all scholars accepting that anywhere from 60 to 100 lyrical poems of Nizami’s Divan are authentic.
7) Of course, the list can be continued with more serious “mistakes”, revealing Mr. Doostzadeh’s intentions and bias. Despite at first claiming that I am wrong in saying that there is a difference between modern Persian and 12th century Persian Dari literary language – and immediately contradicting that flawed assertion by saying that: “Iranians can read … with *almost* no problem” [emphasis mine] – he then goes on and makes several critical mistakes in translating the verses, like mistaking Nizami’s admission about reading/researching at-Tabari and al-Bukhari for Tabari and Bukhari dialects of Persian langauge. This silly mistake was done despite the fact that all scholars translate it the way I provided it, and of course stem solely on Mr. Doostzadeh’s unconstructive and chauvinistic wish to contradict everything and anything I say.      
Mr. Doostzadeh’s then goes on to both deny that Mihin-Banu and Shirin were Arran’s queen and princess who lived in Mughan and Arran (historic regions of Azerbaijan, along with Shirvan and others) especially in the winter months, mistaking them, deliberately, for Armenians, based on his intentional misunderstanding of a few quotes and deliberate ignorance of others. He also ignores that the other heroine of Nizami, Nushaba from Iskander-nameh, was also a Barda queen. Of course, Nizami modeled them all after his Turkic (Kipchak) wife Afak/Appaq, which he himself admits in the Khosrov and Shirin verse I have provided. 
The whole issue of Afak/Appaq/horison, Turkic-born/slave/Muhammed, etc., where Mr. Doostzadeh completely confused himself and lost track of his bias (which is what usually happens to ideologically-motivated chauvinists), is just so funny and ridiculous, that should be referred to the text directly, where I discuss it in more details.  
8) Mr. Doostzadeh also keeps bringing up the Qom issue, albeit now after discussion with me he is extra-careful and always puts disclaimers to protect himself. The information on Qom is absolutely wrong – especially if we consider what many Persian-language biographers and writers claim, there is absolutely no evidence on Nizami’s father originating from Qom – zero, zilch! Meanwhile, one quote attributed to Nizami about himself (thus, there is already a contradiction, as before it was father, now himself) being from Qom, was proven absolutely wrong and false and is not contained in the earlier manuscripts, which are more reliable. In fact, not only did Soviet (Russian, Jewish and Armenian, as well as Azerbaijani) scholars reject this later addition and proved it to be false, but it was not recognized by serious Western lovers of Nizami, such as the great Gete and prof. Charmoy. Similarly, both XV century Daulet-Shah and XIII century Aufi biographies of Persian-language poets say Nizami was born in Ganja.
Although even if it was, I’ve provided plenty of quotes from mostly Arabic as well as Persian sources about Iran and its surroundings, from Afghanistan to Iraq, not to mention Caucasus and Azerbaijan, being full of Turkic people from CENTURIES before Nizami, most importantly from 5th century AD to the Arab conquest, and of course their numbers could only increase with the advent of various Turkic dynasties ruling Iran, Central Asia and Azerbaijan in the time before, during and after Nizami. 
Of course, let us not forget that there is a Qom village in the mountains (Kukhistan) of Azerbaijan, not very far from Ganja (no more than 150 km).
Yet what is more important in this issue is that this information either has to be mentioned with many disclaimers and comments such as about massive population of Turkic people in Iran, not to mention Azerbaijan – as well as similarly contentious, yet not false information such as I provided – or not provided at all. There can be and should be no double standards like what is displayed now. 
9) Nizami mentions the following Turkic or otherwise words spelled in Azerbaijani fashion:  munjug instead of bundjug (beads), usaq (boy, child), alichaq, yataq, bichaq, chariq, papax, chorab, etc. All these words are from books about Nizami by Azerbaijani researchers such as prof. Aliyev. If needed, the full citation or even scan of the page can be provided. 
Similarly, Mr. Doostzadeh ignores that dooghbaa, dogh, dogha, is a traditional milk-based Azerbaijani Turkic meal, and has many other culinary derivatives from that word “doghramagh” with the root being “dogh” such as “doghrama”, “doghramach”, “ovdugh”. I do not think anyone would be mindless enough to dispute that such a meal as dogha/dooghbaa is prevalent more in “nomadic” cultures – which means Turkic as Mr. Doostzadeh loves to remind. That food is regarded as 100% Azerbaijani as the art of mugham music or gulesh martial arts by everyone in Azerbaijan, as well as relevant culinary books. Hence, Nizami’s masterful quote reaffirming his Azerbaijani Turkic self-identity, as out of all possible choices and words to choose from, he did not use pilaf, or corn/bread-based or otherwise sedentary, non-nomadic agriculture products, but one of most famous samples of nomadic cuisine: “In this Habash [Ethiopia] my Turkishness is not appreciated, That's why my tasty dooghbaa/dogha [Turkic milk-based hodgepodge] is not eaten”. 
10) Mr. Doostzadeh continually ignores or contradicts clear-cut evidence of Nizami’s Azerbaijani Turkic self-view, identification and nationality, his very favorable view of Turkic people in general in all his poems as fair, just, courageous, and beautiful. Mr. Doostadeh’s pulls all stops trying to contradict the uncontradictable about this – despite the fact that none of the serious modern Western scholars, including of Iranian origin like prof. Meisami and prof. Talattof, claim Nizami being ethnic Persian, preferring to avoid this issue (and considering the politicizing of this issue and violent reaction from Persian chauvinists, it is easy to see why no one in the West, not to mention Iran, would dare to call Nizami as an Azerbaijani Turk). 
11) In addition, what makes Nizami an Azerbaijani poet is not his Turkic identity and ethnicity – Azerbaijan has always been home to people of Caucasian, Semitic and Iranian origin. Also, all Persian, Arabic language and script literature and heritage, as well as Alban script, Orkhon script, Mongol-Yughur script, Pehlevi script, etc., are of course also part of Azerbaijani culture, tradition and heritage if they were done on the historic territory of Azerbaijan by the people who today are collectively known as members of the Azerbaijani nationality. If tomorrow there will be someone of clearly Iranian, Semitic or Caucasian origin who becomes famous in Azerbaijan, should they be called Azerbaijani or Iranian? The answer is obvious. Thus, even if Nizami were to be of not Turkic stock, but Iranian, Semitic (Arabic) or Caucasian, he would still be Azerbaijani by virtue of being born, living and passing away on the territory of the land he loved and epitomized, leaving such a fond memory and love instilled in each and every Azerbaijani, especially those from Ganja, dedicating so many verses and references. Existence of Azerbaijan Republic is a reality, however uncomfortable and irritating for some, and thus are the realities on the ground. It is incomprehensible, how can Iran claim both unquestionably ethnic Azerbaijani Shahriyar poet from Tebriz and clearly Turkic by father Nizami from Ganja as “Iranian”, along with going as far as claiming M.F.Akhundov as “father of modern Iranian literary criticism”. Imagine, if Turkey, or Turkmenistan, tomorrow declare that all famous people of Turkic heritage, irrespective of the lands they lived in, are “Turkish” or “Turkmen”, instead of Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Tatar, Kyrghiz, Kazakh, Uyghur, Karachay, etc.
Thus, Wikipedia’s entry should: 1) not have any reference to Qom unless extensive comments are provided such as existence of Qom village in North Azerbaijan, the quote itself being false in the opinion of authoritative scholars and absent from all earlier manuscripts, and Iran having significant Turkic population from before Nizami.  
2) It should say clearly that Mihin-Banu and Shirin were Arrani (Azerbaijani) queen and princess, and their capital was Barda. Just like Nushabe from Iskandar-nameh. 
3) Nizami’s father and self-view was Turkic, and he was an Azerbaijani poet irrespective of his ethnic background. 
--AdilBaguirov 18:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary of the debate with Mr. Doostzadeh and corrections of his bias and falsifications 

message: Folks sorry about any spelling mistakes, but the logical content of the response below is very clear and shows why Mr. Baguirov  can not show one proof of Nizamis father being Turkic and he has turned to thousands of unrelated issues.  One gain Mr. Baguirov made a host of false claims.  I am not here to write millions of lines of irrelevant commentary and political rhetorics, but let me just point out some of the falsifications from before and some of the news one..  I did not make any comments on the Iranian cartoon and the issue of the Azerbaijni cartoonist irrelevant to this discussion.  Secondly I already pointed out some mistakes in Mr. Baguirov’s arguments and falsification and let me repeat them briefly:
Falsification 1)
Thankfully the book of Ibn Azraq is available in both English and Arabic.  Indeed it has been translated into English.  Under the name A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times. The Early Artuqid State, Carole HILLENBRAND, 1990 (PIHANS, 66) , XIII, 260 pp.; .
Thankfully there is a glossary as well and I looked under Ganja.  On page 38 we read: Sultan Toghril Beg, son of Sultan Muhammad, who was the ruler of Ganja and Arran and he sent a shihna to them..  As the readers notice, this is totally different than what Mr. Baguirov claimed!  Indeed the Seljuqs controlled all of Khorasan, Esfahan, Kerman, Iraq (Both Persian Iraq and Arab Iraq).. and etc.  Indeed another Seljuq king by the name of Toghan Arsalan is called the lord of Arzan and Bitlis.  The immorality of falsification not withstanding,  it is like arguing that since the British controlled India and Hong King, then all Chinese and Indian scholars during their time of control were British!!  The next mention of Ganja is on pg 43: In the year 515 (1121-2) there as an earthquake in the city of Janza, which is Ganja.  Again nothing as Mr. Adil Baguirov claims!  The final time Ganja comes up in this text is on pg 58: As for Sultan Toghril Beg, he sired Arsalan-Shah whose mother was the wife of the amir Eldiguz.  He is now the Sultan from Isfahan, Hamadan, Azerbaijan and Arran up to the city of Ganja and Shamkur.  (My Note: like overwhelming majority of old sources Azerbaijan and Arran were two separate lands.).  So as you folks can see the first part of Mr. Baguirovs claim was a lie and no such statement was found in this historically important text.  Also note the hundreds of Iranian poets and writers from all over Iran under Seljuqid administration!  The absurdity of this argument was already rejected.  It is as absurd as saying that Greek scholars under the Persian empire of the Achaemenids were Persian!
Falsification 2)  
This falsification has to do with another big lie.  Mr. Baguirov claimed that: For his knowledge, the following writings in Azerbaijani Turki have been preserved from BEFORE the Ilkanid ear: historian Masud ibn-Namdar (12th century).  Indeed I not only did a Google search, but I checked couple of major University Libraries.  For example see here: .  As you can see, the book is in Arabic and it has been translated to Russian.  And the title of the book is: Majmūaat qisas wa-rasāiil wa-ash'ār (The complete collection of stories, articles and poems) and the long title is completely Arabic.  Note again the book is in Arabic and has nothing to do with Azerbaijani Turkic language!  
The above two falsifications is a major breach of Academic honesty (there are much more: 1) where is Turan mentioned in the story of Khusraw o Shirin 2) Where is Afrasiyaab mentioned in this story on the same verse as Jamshid?  And much more….  One can safely say the same thing about the other wild theories of Mr. Adil Baguirov.  Indeed he does not know Persian and yet he wants to claim himself as a great scholar and makes condemnations about scholars.  Indeed the character assassination of the Russian scholar that said Nizami had nothing to do with Azerbaijani Oghuz Turkic speaker is indeed tragic.  Surely, Mr. Baguirov does not have the reputation of Iranian studies scholars in top Russian universities.   
Falsification 3)
While I am at it, let me just add another point or two about one of the other false statements of Mr. Baguirov. Mr Baguirov said: Of course the fact that there are such great Turkic eposes as Dede Korkut and Oghuz Nameh, which are oral stories from at least 1300 ago, and oldest manuscript of which was written in 1053. And this claim is very big lie. There is only two manuscripts of dede Korkut work (compare it to say Shahnameh with 1000+ manuscripts). Dede-Qorqod contains about 150 Persian words and 300 Arabic words. It talks about Iranians (tats) with beards (Oghuz Turks at that time were mainly mongloid like Turkomens) doing Azzan while Iranians were not Islamified yet 1300 years ago. It talks about the land of Rum, while at that time it was not even at the hands of Muslims! Dede Korkut (the culture of Oghuz Turks) is totally from the Oghuz culture. [16]. Indeed to show that is not as old as Mr. Baguirov and other ultra-nationalists claim, the word "istanbul" is found in this book. And I quote[17]: The merchants set out on their long journey and traveled steadily for many days and nights. They came at last to the city of Istanbul.
These were all major falsifications which Mr. baguirov chose to ignore in his latest message.  Now lets see what new stuff Mr. Baguirov has falsified a new since a week ago.  As per Mr. Adbil Baguirov lets remember he chose to use insults many times and now he asks for respect.  I have a PhD in an unrelated field like Mr. Baguirov but I will not call him Dr. and He can call me Mr.  But I am willing to keep tone free from any rhetoric and irrelevant comments as much as possible.  
All the mumbo-jumbo about the UN and etc. is not related to the issue of Nizami’s father.  So I won’t even get sidestepped.  But here is are some new false comments by Mr. Baguirov.   
Falsification 4)
Another false claim of Mr. Baguirov:  Ferdowsi was ordered Shahnameh by a Turk, as was the case with many other non-Turkic poets. .  This statement is false today (had Mr. Baguirov read any of the recent scholarship of Ferdowsi including that by Dr. Khaleghi Motlaq).  Indeed Ferdowsi started his work during the Samanid era.   How many unsubstantiated claims is Mr. Baguirov going to make?  He then continues: It was a Turk who ordered the poem, it was him who, despite the not very favorable language, paid for it, and it was him who ordered to transcribe it on many manuscripts and thus save it for the future generations  Again repeateding the same statement without doing any research!  Indeed Ferdowsi as shown by his biographers started the Shahnameh before Mahmud came to power! .    (I can act like Mr. Baguirov and make tons of insults after correcting him on this issue, but lets just proceed).
Falsification 5).
And indeed Mr. Baguirov falsifies another quote from the panj-Ganj and claims:  Look at this verse from Khosrov and Shirin: “My Kipchak idol! My sensual fragile crop (herb, plant)! Died, like Shirin, you too, my Afak (Appaq).
The fact is such a verse does not exist!  Else Mr. Baguirov show us the original verse if you are truthful.    The original verse is this Mr. Baguirov! 
درین افسانه شرطست اشک راندن
گلابی تلخ بر شیرین فشاندن
بحکم آنکه آن کم زندگانی
چو گل بر باد شد روز جوانی
سبک رو چون بت قبچاق من بود
گمان افتاد خود کافاق من بود
Indeed I am not sure what educated person would translate the last two verses: Sabok roo chon bot-e-Qabchaq man bood – Gomaan oftaad khob ke-Afaaq man bood into:My Kipchak idol! My sensual fragile crop (herb, plant)! Died, like Shirin, you too, my Afak (Appaq)  Indeed the word shirin is not even in the same like as the idol of Qifchaq!  This is a major falsification.  You see there is a big difference here!   FROM now on we should demand Mr. Baguirov to use the original Persian verse as Nizami Ganjavi did not write in Turkic or Russian!   What has happened here is that line 2 and line 5 have been mixed.  Whereas line 1 and line 2 which are the full couplet have nothing to do with bote-e- Qapchaq.  As per the absolute majority of sources, again on this matter of interpretation of this verse, if such a false translation of the Persian was made by the USSR scholar, then their opinion really has no value.  Indeed Nizami Ganjavi does not use the word Apaq even once whereas Persian has p.  Indeed Nizami Ganjavi uses the word Afaq as 46 times in his poetry to mean horizon!  Indeed no ancient source has mentioned that Nizami Ganjavi had a wife named Afaq.  So in this matter Mr. Baguirov needs to prove his point by the original Persian and not just quote some scholar.  There is no verse where Shirin and Bot-e-Qapchaq are used in the same couplet.  Indeed Said Nafisi who is a native speaker of the language is more authotarative than the translator who madeup such a false verse!  MR. Baguirov by using verses that does not exist has shown that he completely lacks any credibility to discuss issues about Nizami’s wife.  He is only copying polemic materials and indeed he has no choice since he can not read Nizami in its original language.
His verse did not exist.  But the above persians verses can  be taken as metaphor and there is no reason for me to take side on this issue, since we will never know for 100%.  All we know is that even if she was a Turkic slave given by the ruler of Darband, this does not make Nizami’s father a Turk!  And furthermore we know that there is no manuscript with Apaq and Nizami uses the term  Afaq about 46 as meaning horizon and it would be rare for a poet to suddenly mean a different thing by using this word!  And also at the same time, call other rulers, the ruler of Afaq!, which would be lewd!  So about Nizami’s first wife which was given to him as a servant/slave by the ruler of darband as a gift, we simply do not have much information to make anything clear  Said Nafisi on page 12 in his 1982 version of his book on Nizami Ganjavi has totally shown that “Gomaan oftaad khod ke-afaagh man bood” means that Nizami Ganjavi considered her to be all of his horizon.  Which makes much more sense.  
Now I will make some comments and the they will show more falsification of history and verses by Mr. Baguirov.  
1)
MR. Baguirov wants to impress us with USSR scholarship and mentions the Shahnameh.  But the Russian version of the Shahnameh has become obsolete.   Indeed the Moscow edition was compiled between 1966-1971 and now after 20-30 years it has been replaced by the Sayyaghi and now the Khaleghi Motlaq edition.  We do not reject USSR scholarship, but there is no doubt that USSR scholarship was tainted by many ethnic and religious biases.  As mentioned in the following article.
See the following article, the first one in English and the second one in Persian about USSR scholarship and Nizami Ganjavi: 
Stalin and Nizami
Fiftieth  Anniversary of a great Falsification
Indeed all we need to show is that Stalin got involved and falsely claimed that Nizami had Turkish verses!  As the article above shows.  There is nothing else we need to prove on this matter that USSR scholarship was tainted!  Indeed hundreds of scholars were sent to Siberia just for expressing their opinion that Stalin or Mir Ja'far Bagheroff did not like.   The question is that after Stalin put up his verdict about Nizami’s ethnicity and he did not mention anything about his Kurdish background, could USSR scholars freely express their opinion about his ethnicity.  The answer is no as the following articles shows:
Fiftieth  Anniversary of a great Falsification
Only after the breakup of USSR Armenian and Russian scholars protested the former claims made by the republic of Azerbaijan on Nizami.  So while no scholars in any fields of humanities rejects the works of USSR scholar, still some aspect of them are under serious consideration.   That is why many of the republics have totally rewritten their history after the breakup.  
2)  Another mistake Mr.  Baguirov makes is that he calls Mirza Fath Ali Akhunzadeh a Turk.  For MR. Baguirov’s information, Akhunzadeh in his biography says: although some think I am a Turk from Azerbaijan, but my father was actually a Persian from Rasht (Gilan).  
Here is his actual words:
من اگرچه علي الظاهر ترکم اما نژادم از پارسيانست. جدم حاجي احمد از رشت آمده در آذربايجان توطن اختيار کرده است. پدرم ميرزا محمد تقي و من خودم در آذربايجان تولد و پرورش يافته‏ام 
Transliteration:
Man agarcheh ala' al-zaaher torkam amaa nezhaadam az paarsiyaanast.  Jadam Haji Ahmad az Rash Amadeh dar Azarbaijan Tavaton Ekhtiyaar kardeh ast.  Pedaram Mirza Mohammad Taghi o Man khodam Azarbaijan tavalod o parvaresh yaafteh-am"
Also one does not deny that Turks later on adopted Persian poetry but we are here talking about Nizami Ganjavi’s father.  So Mr. Baguirov’s point again has nothing to do with the issue.  Also Persians could have written Turkish as well, and one example here is Akhoundzadeh who is ethnically non-Turkic according to his own biography.  
3)  Mr. Baguiorv should know that in the main wikipedia article there is no mention of Vahid Dastgerdi and Said Nafisi!  So I am not quoting old sources.  The latest about Nizami Ganjavi’s ethnicity has come from Prof. Meysami, Rypka, Bashiri, Talattof and etc and Encyclopedia Britannica.   Mr. Baguirov has no right to call M. Kapustin weird names just because this scholar who actually knows Persian made very strong statements that is not liked by Pan-turkists.  Indeed this scholar made his statement in 1988 which makes a very good source.  Although USSR ceased to exist in 1991, things were much more open in 1988.  Furthermore, Mr. Baguirov has to now show us a picture of suitcase that shows Mr. Kapustin receiving Armenian money!!  Such absurd claims actually shows that Mr.  Baguirov can not counter the arguments of major Iranian scholars.  Indeed he is in no status to do so.  And it can easily be seen that Nizami Ganjavi does not have anything to do with Turkish culture.  All one has to read is Ferdowsi and Dede-Qorqod and see which culture Nizami belonged to!
4) Much comments about things unrelated to Nizamis father are not necessary.  Indeed Mr. Baguirovs arguments have all been answered and that is why Western scholars also do no call Nizami Ganjavi Turkic.  But the Armenian article of that scholar which showed that the Azerbaijani republic published books have deleted Armenians is indeed DAMNING.  It shows that the Azerbaijani republic scholars have no credibility and will do anything in order to deny other ethnic groups historical rights.  I will also bring a clear false verse madeup by Azerbaijani scholars.  Indeed the verse does not have proper style and rhym!
 
5) Mr. Baguirov writes:  Why not declare Nizami Kurdish – the Kurds never had a famous poet attributed to them and this was their chance, after all USSR setup a so-called Red Kurdistan autonomy in USSR and supported the Kurdish Republic of Mahabbat in Iran in 1940s?’’ Because the number of Kurds was not as great as Azerbaijani Turks and Kurds did not have their own state!  And many other reasons.  The fact is we can see the tainted of USSR scholarship when Stalin claims that Nizami has some Turkish works!  And no even challenged him! Indeed who is going to challenge Stalin in the USSR!?
 
6¬) MR. Baguirov mentions Fizuli and Nasmi and says Azerbaijanis are not exactly poor in poets.  Mr. Baguirov! I never claimed Azerbaijanis are poor in poetry (although relative to Arabic and Persian poetry,  Turkic does not have the same status in Islamic times).  But in case MR. Baguirov does not know, Fizuli and Nasimi were both from the Turkemens of Baghdad and Iraq!  Also they appeared at a time when western Turkish poetry was getting off the ground whereas no sample of Turkish poetry exists from Nizami's time.  So indeed there is actually none of the stature of Nizami or even Fizuli from the current area of the republic of Azerbaijan that wrote in Turkish!  INDEED MR. BAGUIROV CAN NOT SHOW EVEN ONE MANUSCRIPT OF AZERBIAJNI TURKISH BEFORE THE ILKHANID ERA FROM THE CAUCUS.  He claimed a certain Masud ibn Namdar wrote Turkish and was proven wrong.  He claimed a certain Oghuz nama was Turkish and was proven wrong...
  
7)To claim that the USSR was anti-Turkish is also wrong, since for example they gave major Tajik areas like Samarghand and Bukhara to Uzbekistan.  Or predominatently Armenian KArabagh was given to Azerbaijan although the Armenian inhabitants did not want this.  Indeed the treatment of Talysh and the removal of Red Kurdistan  is also important to mention.    
8)  I Did not understand the point about Tajik and Persian.  Both these words mean the same thing.  So Ferdowsi being a Tajik means Ferdowsi is a Persian.  Indeed a Tajik simply means Persian!  I have already shown Azerbaijani bias by the quotes of Stalin.  When Stalin gets involved on one side, then this is bias.  No other way out.  Also today Tajik means Persian speakers, turks also used these term for any Iranic speaker at ancient times including Kurds, Soghdians and etc.  But todays Tajik are Persians of Central Asia.
9) As per transliterations of a Russian maganize, MR. Baguirov is the last Persian that should talk specially with his horrible transliteration of Persian.    Furthermore unlike Mr. Baguirov my source is a major Iranian journal called Iranshenasi and the quote from Mr. Kapustin is there.  Actually much more damaging information is in that same article.  Indeed an Armenian Iranian studies Professor wrote the article and was familiar with all the scholarship and he is a University Professor unlike our non-specialist friend, Mr. Baguirov.  He quotes Stalin and how even the USSR republic of Azerbaijan tried to introduce Avesta as part of their culture!
9)	Again the point about ethnicity of Nizami will mention both father and mother.  Many Abbassid caliphs had Turkic or Persian mother and these are all mentioned in relavent sources.  Indeed to show the strength of mother in ethnicity, these Abbasids caliphs would choose Turkic/Persian over Arabs in their government.  This shows that the ethnicity of mother was very relavent.    
10)	Mr. Baguirov claims Nizami today would have called himself an Azerbaijani Turk!! But sorry Mr. Baguirov this is not in his poetry and by making such comments, you are indeed showing that you are just here to prove a point that can not be proved.  Unless you had some contacts with Nizami Ganjavis spirit?!
11)	Mr. Baguirov calls me an ethnic Persian whereas I did not say anything about my ethnicity.  I'll let him be confused.  Also I am not Armenian either. 
12)	 As per serious Armenian scholars in Persian poetry there is a good amount of them mentioned in the article below:
Indeed Armenia has much stronger Iranian studies program than the republic of Azerbaijan.  And I can mention many serious Armenian Iranian scholars and some are mentioned in the article above.  For example Dr. Garnik Astarian is a major scholar of Iranian studies whereas I have not seen anyone of his stature from the current republic of Azerbijan.
13)	 As per Nizami being an ethnic Arab, again we do not know exactly what his father was, but large amount of Arabs did settle in the area since the Arabic invasion.  Indeed Mr. Baguirov again shows his ignorance by thinking this theory is ridiculous.  Whereas this theory is totally plausible as well.   Because simply we do not know enough about Nizamis father and there is a lot of proof about Arab settlements in the area as well.  So even the theory of his father being an ethnic Arab can not be rejected! 
14)	 A constant naming of 1955 source of one Armenian scholar who wrote during the USSR era, does not count against the countless Armenian Iranian studies Professors who have mentioned that Nizami Ganjavi was not Turkic. 
We look at the scholars have to say today and indeed what all Western scholars have said.  If Encyclopedia Britannica, Iranica, Talattof, Wilson, Rypka, Kaputsin, Meysami, .. do not mention anything about Nizami being Turkic, and only mention Kurdish mother and sometimes a  Persian father, then we can not get involved in the  arguments of Mr. Baguirov .  Indeed if I  were to pick and choose, then any theory can be made plausible.  Today modern Western scholars, Encyclopedia Britannica, Iranica and etc. have said nothing about Nizami being an Azerbaijani Turk.   Indeed once Stalin made his statement, then going against the current could mean Siberia, even after his death.  Only in 1988 did couragerous Armenian and Russian scholars totally debunk the claims made in the last 50 years by some scholars manipulated by Stalins order about Nizami being Azerbaijani Turkic.  Indeed Nizami Ganjavi had no status in that republic and all these false claims were made to make an identity for that republic.  Indeed the Turkic people there were called tatars by outsiders and not Azerbaijanis. 
 
15)	President Putin is no scholar.  And Nizami indeed was born in what is called the modern republic of Azerbaijan.  He is as much as the son of the land, as the ancient Greek scholars are the son of the land of modern Turkey.  Mr. Kapustin is a scholar of Iranian studies where as Mr. Putin is a president of a country.  The two are incomparable.  As per Mr. Kapustin, it is up to Mr. Baguirov to do the research and see why he is a Professor whereas Mr. Putin is not! LOL!
16)	  Mr. Baguirov should know that my reference to Dehkhoda about the quote Bukhari/Tabari languages/scholars was to show that both interpretations are valid.  Indeed one Iranian Scholar has preferred languages.  Indeed Persian poetry uses a lot of words that are open to great interpretation even during their own time.  Best example is Rumi and Hafez.  I can show two different translations of Rumi with totally different meaning.  Even today, the exact meaning that many  poets are trying to convey is disputed by scholars and only the poet knows best.  Even at their own time!  Simple things like this should be known by Mr. Baguirov. I am sure they are known, then why keep persisting?
17)	  As per Afaq there is no mention of Apaq in any of Nizami’s poetry.  And I have shown how Afaq has been used as horizon throughout Nizami’s poetry and the explanation by Dr. Nafisi is most likely.  Else Persian has “p” and Nizami Ganjavi could have used Apaq which he did not!  Indeed he has used the term Afaq 46 times as meaning horizon.  So we would have to take this into consideration.  Also there no example of a Women being named Afaq in historical times and so to extrapolate Apaq from Afaq is indeed not supported by manuscripts and is based on a Guess that can not be verified in any manner. 
18)	 MR.  Baguirov should know that every Iranian can understand Rudaki and Ferdowsi perfectly.  These were poets before Nizami.  Indeed this is an important quality of the Persian language which scholars have mentioned.  The reason is of course the recycling and rereading of Persian poetry constantly throughout the Persian speaking lands.  Even Sassanid Pahlavi is more than 50% understandable as I can demonstrate if Mr. Baguirov knew Persian.
19)	The term Iraq as I mentioned could mean Iraq-e-Ajam and Iraq-e-Arab.  Either way this point has nothing to do with nizami Ganjavi being a Turk!  We have quotes from the mongol era that the city of Ganja was a mix of Tajiks (Iranians) and Turks.  But we know this was not the case during the time of the Shaddadid where the area was non-Turkic.  The best proof of this, is the harsh words used for Turks by Shaddadid court poets like Qatran.  So the Turkic population was relatively new in the area.
20)	To offer the greatest works on poetry to the local ruler has nothing to do with Nizamis father.  Mr. Baguirov puts words in my mouth and jumps the issue.  Indeed although the Seljuqids were Turkic (although mixed in with other groups), they were patrons of Iranian and Persian culture and many Iranian poets dedicated their work to them.  The reason is simple.  The lands they had conquered were non-Turkic, but the people tried to get on their good-side and also they tried to appease the people.  Indeed culturally Seljuqs were more Persian than Turkic and I can argue this by mentioning how the Seljuqids of Anatolia and the Ottomans were many times more supportive of Arabic and Persian than Turkic.  
21)	Although before the Moscow edition of Shahnameh, there was a French edition.  Mr. Jalal Khaleghi Motlaq considers the methods used by Western scholars in gathering all manuscripts as superior.  This method has been part of Iranian studies now for over at least 30 years.  Indeed the short-comings of the Moscow edition has been demonstrated by Mr. Khaleghi Motlaq.  So the USSR scholars while making some improvements had their own short-comings.  Else we can see good examples of corrections in the USSR manuscript relative to the French edition.  And the Khaleghi Motlaq edition shows many mistakes in the USSR edition.  Again all these points have nothing to do with Nizami Ganjavi.  The current edition of the 5 jewels by Dr. Barrat Zanjani is superior to any older editions since it uses the older editions, more manuscripts and also Dr. Zanjani is a native speaker of the language.  Indeed he has shown many mistakes in the USSR edition which one can look at the Khaleghi Motlaq edition.  The USSR edition was from about 1970 and indeed now it is obsolete thanks to Khaleghi Motlaq edition.  The best and most latest editions of Nizami Ganjavi are also from Dr. Zanjani.
22)	Mr. Baguirov says:  today many Kurds prefer to speak Turkish, Farsi or Arabic which they know better than native Kurdish (of which there are even now three distinct dialects like Kurmanji –which one Mr. Doostzadeh think Raiseh spoke?)’’.  
Nizami Ganjavi’s mother was a Kurd as affirmed by all scholars.  Considering the fact that Shaddadians were also Kurdish speakers and their capital was in Ganja, there is no proof that Kurds spoke Turkic as their mother language.  Indeed the recent condition that some Kurds speak Persian or Turkic or Arabic first unfortunately has to do with modern state nationalism and having an official language.  Just like many people in the former USSR spoke Russian first.  Else at that time of Nizami, there was no official languages and so Kurds spoke their language first.  This shows that Mr. Baguirov does not consider the difference between modern era of nationalism and medieval history.   As per the dialect of Kurdish spoken by Nizamis mother, it would depend on her Kurdish tribe which we can not be sure of.  
23)
Mr. Baguirov continues ''
Yet Nizami is clear that he views himself as an Azerbaijani (Arrani) Turk, or even Ganja Turk, since at the time the fragmentation by cities was prevalent everywhere,''
Whereas Nizami Ganjavi has not and never called himself an Azerbaijani Turk or a Ganja Turk.  Indeed Western scholars would have mentioned this fact, which they did not!  
Mr. Baguirov wants to claim that Nizami’s Ganjavis father if not an Oghuz Turk might have been related to the Huns or Khazars!  But we all know that Khazars main border was Darband and although the Huns might have made some incursion, they were repelled back!  
Let us recall that Azerbaijanis are not Huns or Khazar Turks, but they are Oghuz Turks.  Else one can claim that the Soghdians or Kurds are the same as the Talysh.  Lets be consistent.  Note the quotes by MR. Baguirov has nothing to do with large Turkish settlements in ancient period in the caucus.  It has to do with the invasion of Turks( Khazars, Huns and etc).  Indeed we know that Russians also invaded and pillaged the Caucus and even northern Iran.  But this does not mean there was large Russian settlements in Ganja or that any famous person from the area can be considered Russian due to the Russian invasion!
23)	The quote from the book of Al-tijan is indeed one of the biggest lies made up by Pan-turkist historians.  Indeed the quote is about an ancient Yemenese mythical warrior named Ra’esh.  In the book Tajarob al-Umam by ibn Maskawayah, Ra’esh helps the legendary king Manuchehr defeat the legendary Turanian king Afrasiyaab.  Indeed the quote has nothing to do with Turkish settlements and the quote refers to the Turanians occupying Azerbaijan and then the mythical Ra’esh the Yemenese king coming to the aid of the Iranian king and repelling Afrasiyab.  Weired stories like these were made up by Shu'abiyyah movements.  Some claimed that Zoroaster was Abraham and claimed Zoroastrianism was practiced from Sudan to China.  Such stories and myths are not taken seriously in light of the fact that all geographers and travellers to Azerbaijan and Arran have mentioned the languages of the area before the Seljuqids.  BTW, today (within the last 20 years) the Turanians are not considered Turkic by the majority of scholars.  Also as you can see the quote is totally mythical a  Indeed this is what happens when people do not read the whole page and just cut out one line out!  In that book al-tijan it says Azerbaijan was in the “hand” of Turks (legendary mythical Afrasiyab) and this shows that they were occupying it(and not aboriginals) until Ra’esh the mythical Yemenese king came and forced them out with the help of Manuchehr!
Here is the Persian translation of the whole story from Tabari.
نخستين نويسنده‌ي پان‌تركيست مي‌نويسد: «يكي ازاسناد مهمي كه ازحضور اقوام ترك زبان درآذربايجان پيش از اسلام حكايت دارد "اخبار عبدين شريه" [در متن چنين است] است. عبيد در دوره جاهليت در يمن به دنيا آمده و يكي ازمعمرين و جهانديدگان دوره خلافت معاويه بوده است. معاويه اورا به دمشق دعوت كرد و از اخبار عرب و ملوك آن قوم جويا شد و وي به پرسش‌هاي معاويه پاسخ داد. به دستور معاويه اخبار او تدوين گرديد […] درجريان گفتگوي عبيد با معاويه دوبار ازآذربايجان سخن به ميان آمده است. 
معاويه گفت: خداوند تو را چيزها دهاد، از حال آذربايجان بگو؟ عبيد گفت: آذربايجان از سرزمين‌هاي ترك است و تركان در آن گرد آمده‌اند. بار دوم عبيد از حمله رائد كه از امراي يمن بوده به آذربايجان سخن گفته است. معاويه گفت يا عبيد سخن‌ات را دنبال كن! گفت : ... جنگ را به تأخير افكند. پس تركان و خزران پيمان شكني كردند .... [در متن چنين است] معاويه گفت: ترك و آذربايجان كدام است؟ عبيد گفت: يا اميرالمومنين اين دو سرزمين آنان است!
اما حقيقت آن است كه چنين كتابي اساساً وجود ندارد و تاكنون هيچ پان‌تركيستي نشانه‌ي نسخه‌ي اصلي كتاب را نداده و از متن اصلي آن چيزي نقل نكرده بل كه از نوشته‌ي پان‌ترك‌هاي ديگر اين مطلب را اقتباس كرده است.
دوم اينکه خزرها در زمان امويان به ايران و قفقاز و آذربايجان حمله کردند و انها هرگز و هرگز از مردم بومي آذربايجان نبودند.  بلکه اگر شماها مي خواهيد آذربايجاني ها را به خزرها ربط بدهيد مسئله خودتان هست ولي  آذربايجاني ها نه نياکنشان يهودي بودند و نه زبانشان ترکي خزري است بلکه زبان انها ترکي اوغوزي است.  (دکتر هئيت)
!
نويسنده‌ي پان‌تركيست مي‌نويسد: «طبري مي گويد: "منوچهر در آذربايجان با تركان جنگيد ... كيخسرو و فرزندان او در آذربايجان با تركان جنگيدند .. و گشتاسب در آذربايجان با تركان جنگيد و عده زيادي از آنها را كشت". وي حدود تركان را از آسيا تا روم مي‌داند. اين نوشته حضور تركان را حداقل همزمان به دوران كيانيان مي رساند!!
جداي از اين كه اشخاص مورد اشاره‌ي اين نقل قول همگي اسطوره‌اي‌اند و در نتيجه اخبار منسوب به آن‌ها نيز از مقوله‌ي اساطير به شمار مي آيند، بايد گفت كه چنين رواياتي در كتاب طبري وجود ندارد و به خوبي آشكار است كه پان‌تركيست‌هاي شرور چون هميشه كوشيده‌اند كه توهمات و تخيلات روان‌پريشانه‌ي خود را به مورخان كهن و معتبر نسبت دهند. 
اما اصل روايت طبري كه اين دو نويسنده‌ي پان‌ترك داستان خود را با نيم‌نگاهي به آن ساخته و پرداخته‌اند، و گويي كه هيچ كس نمي‌تواند پرده از نيرنگ‌شان بردارد، به طبري نسبت داده‌اند، مي‌گويد كه كه رائش بن قيس، شاه اسطوره‌اي يمن، در زمان منوچهر، پادشاه اسطوره‌اي ايران، در آذربايجان به تركاني كه آن را تصرف كرده بودند حمله برد و بسياري از آنان را كشت و اسير گرفت (تاريخ طبري، ترجمه‌ي ابوالقاسم پاينده، بنياد فرهنگ ايران، 1352، ص293). جداي از اين كه همه‌ي شخصيت‌ها و وقايع اين روايت طبري اسطوره‌اي هستند و اين روايت، در اصل، بازگو كننده‌ي يك افسانه‌ي متأخر عربي است، در آن، از تركان نه به عنوان مردمان و اهالي آذربايجان، بل كه به عنوان تصرف كنندگان آذربايجان (كه ممكن است خاطره‌اي به جا مانده از حملات پياپي خزرهاي ترك‌زبان و يهودي مذهب به اران و آذربايجان باشد) سخن رفته است. 
قصه مندرج در تاريخ طبري (جلد اول، ترجمه ابوالقاسم پاينده، انتشارات بنياد فرهنگ ايران، 1352، ص 293، سطر 13-5) چنين است:
«به پندار هشام بن كلبي، رائش بن قيس بن … ، پس از يعرب بن قحطان بن … و برادران اش، پادشاهي يمن داشت و پادشاهي وي به روزگار منوچهر بود و نام اش حارث بود و رائش از آن رو لقب يافت كه با قومي بجنگيد و غنيمت گرفت و به سوي يمن بازگشت و از آن جا به كوهستان طي، سپس انبار و سپس موصل حمله برد و سالار سپاه وي يكي از ياران اش به نام شمر بن عطاف بود، و در آذربايجان به تركان كه آن سرزمين را به دست داشتند حمله برد و بسيار كس را بكشت و اسير گرفت و ماجراهاي خويش را در دو سنگ بنوشت كه در ديار آذربايجان معروف است».
چنان كه مي بينيد، ما در اين جا فقط با يك افسانه سروكار داريم، با شاهي افسانه اي به نام رائش كه در زمان شاه اسطوره اي ايران، «منوچهر» مي زيست،و با لشكركشي افسانه اي اين شاه اسطوره اي يمن به آذربايجان و ايران! يعني، افسانه در افسانه! سواي اين نكات واضح، در همين قصه هم، «تركان» ساكنان و مردمان آذربايجان دانسته نشده اند، بل كه از آنان به منزله اشغالگران آذربايجان سخن رفته است كه اين سرزمين را تصاحب كرده بودند (به دست گرفته بودند) و اين شاه افسانه اي يمني نيز آذربايجان را از سيطره آن ها خارج كرده است. 
بديهي است كه اگر تركان ساكنان بومي آذربايجان از بدو تاريخ بودند، هرگز - حتا در متن اين افسانه نيز - نيازي به بردن نام آن ها به اين شكل متمايز و خاص،و با عبارت «آن سرزمين را به دست داشتند» نمي بود.
Some of the yemenese myths go as far as saying that the yemenese king took over India, Rome, Persia.. All these have to do with the counter Persian nationalism (Sh'uabbiya) and are part of Arab myths some which were mixed with Persian myths (Manuchehr and Afrasiyab mixed in with Ra'esh).  Kitab al-tijan fi muluk Himyar (The Book of Crowns on the Kings of Himyar) is taken as a mythology book and the stories there about Ra'esh and his battles with various people are part of Arab folklore and not history.   What is clear is that are many stories in Ctesias,Herodotus, Tabari and etc. which are not take seriously by all scholars.  For example Tabari attributes Zoroastrianism to the mythical figure of Jamshid.  Another time another Arab author considers Abraham a descendant of Zoroaster. Many stories convluted by the Shu'abbiyah were made up and it is up to modern historians to examine their veracity.  
I have available a more detailed article in Persian on this manner of convulted history.  Sufficient to say that any geographer and historian that has described the language of the area, has never mentioned Turkic until the Seljuqids. (with the exception of Khazaras who were mainly held off at Darband).  Also the Turkic slaves taken from Central Asia and used in the caliphs army does not mean Turkic settlements in Azerbaijan.  Neither does the Turkic commander under Arab Caliphs (Bugha, Ashnaas, ..) who were sent from Iraq to quell the Babak Khorramdin (Iranian) Mazdakite revolt.  And all scholars agree Azarbaijan was part of Iranian Mede, Achaemenid, then Parthian, then Sassanid and Turks never had this area on their hand and the mythical characters of Ra'esh and Afrasiyaab and Manuchehr.. are folklore and myth.  Much like the pre-Sassanid portion of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, where Rustam is a mythical character.  In that time myths and history were convoluted.  Again I remind that there is not even a single manuscript of Turkic from the area at the time of Nizami and furthermore the oldest Turkic document according to Britannica is the Orkhun inscriptions of Mongolia.
Also let me just quote Baladhuri (original Arabic) about the conquest of Azarbaijan in its original Arabic:
اصل روايت بلاذري:
فتح أذربيجان
حدثنا الحسين بن عمرو الأرديلي عن واقد الأرديلي عن مشايخ أدركهم أن المغيرة بن شعبة قدم الكوفة والياً من قبل عمر بن الخطاب، ومعه كتاب إلى حذيفة بن اليمان بولاية أذربيجان. فأنقذه إليه وهو بنهاوند أو بقربها. فسار حتى أتى أردبيل، وهي مدينة أذربيجان وبها مرزبانها، وإليه جباية خراجها. وكان المرزبان قد جمع إليه المقاتلة من أهل باجرون وميمذ والنرير وسراة والشيز والميانج وغيرهم. فقاتلوا المسلمين قتالاً شديداً أياماً، ثم أن المرزبان صالح حذيفة عن جميع أهل أذربيجان على ثمان مئة ألف درهم وزن ثمانية، على أن لايقتل منهم أحداً ولا يسبيه ولا يهدم بيت نار، ولا يعرض لأكراد البلاسجان وسبلان وساتر ودان، ولا يمنع أهل الشيز خاصةً من الزفن في أعيادهم وإظهار ما كانوا يظهرونه. ثم أنه غزا موقان وجيلان فأوقع بهم وصالحهم على إتاوة.
Note Baladhuri mentions Kurds of Balasagaan, Sabalaan, Saataroodaan.  He also mentions Marzaban (Sassanid Gaurds). In another quote he mentions how Arabs  bought land from Persians of the area.  In another part he mentions the Persian word Khaaneh (house) as meaning dwelling place in the language of Azerbaijan.  All these facts are very important.  Also Baladhuri considers both Aran and Armenia as part of Armenia (has a separate chapter on the conquest of Armenia) and it is not the same geographical entity as Azerbaijan.
Also let me note that the Ummayads and Khazar empires had some fights over a period, but the relative border of Darband was held up by the Arabs and any Khazar incursions below Darband although occured during the Ummayad time, was eventually pushed backed.  Indeed the incursions of Khazars and the eariler huns did not change the native population of the area and let us remember that the Khazars were at least a very multi-ethnic empire and the Huns although not related to Oghuz Turlk.  As per Hunnish incursion into Persia proper, the Cambridge History of Iran says at most the huns devasted the area and then later on the Sassanids were able to fend them off.  
24)	 As per name Kazvin, Kasghari’s dictionary calls it the place of amusement for Afasiyab’s daughter Gaz!! But modern scholarship has shown that this is just another mythical absurd theory and the name Ghazvin has to do with the Caspians and the Caspians are today known as either Iranian speakers or perhaps Hurrian speakers.  Indeed the older name for the city was Kazhvin and zh is not in the Turkic language.  (Dehkhoda)  Kashvin is also mentioned.  So the myth pertepurated by Kashgari has no historical basis just like the take over Afrasiyaab and calling him Alp Tongra is not taken seriously by scholars, because Afrasiyaab is a dragon fiend in Avesta and is a mythical creature. (See comments 46).
25)	When speaking about ethnicity, Kurds are Iranic people and Azerbaijanis according to Mr. Baguirov are a Turkic people.  We are not talking about citizenship as the republic of Azerbaijan did not exist back then. And indeed Iranian Azarbaijan has always been part of Iran historically and the caucasian Albania was part of the same land as Iran for a long portion of its history(Qajar,Safavids,Sassanid(good portion), Parthian(good portion),Achaemenid).  The name Azarbaijan is not mentioned even in one ancient Turkic source and is clearly Iranian.  Azarbad, Azarbad-gaan, Azargoshnasp, Azar-barzin, Azar-mehr, Azar-farr.. all names related to Zoroastrians and Iranians.  
26)  The term “azerbaijani” school of poetry is simply meant to differentiate between Indian, Iraqi and Khorasani styles of poetry.  It has no ethnic value.  Indeed other poets from different areas would write in different styles of poetry.   As per Jan Rypka and Julia Meisami, as Mr. Baguirov knows, these scholars did not accept the pan-turkist claim of Nizami Ganjavi being Turkic in any way.  Indeed Khaghani Shirvani which Mr. Baguirov agrees was not a Turk was part of the same Azerbaijani school.  As was Qatran Tabrizi who had a lot of  anti-Turkish polemics.  And Jan Rypka has mentioned that Qatran Tabrizi was the founder of what scholars call Azerbaijani style and he definitely was not a Turk.
26)	Tons of other Persian poets lived under Arab, Turkic, and various other empires.  This does not change their ethnicity.  Nizami’s work is dedicated to the greatness of Persia because it has to do with ancient Persia.  That is the theme of the work.  BTW both Barda, Darband and etc. are mentioned in the Shahnameh as part of Iran.   His wife was given to him as a slave by a ruler of Darband.  Shirin was Armenian. Nushaba(Persian name) was Arranian  not Turkish. (Although a mythical character).  Turktaaz (plunderer) does not mean  a  Turk and indeed she was not a Turk!  Fitnah was a girl from Chinese Turkistan just like Nizami mentions 6 other girls in the story of Bahram Gur from the 7 regions of the world.  By the way the concept of the world being 7 regions is directly from the Avesta and the concept of Iran being the center of the world is directly from Zoroastrian manuscripts.    Now lets mention some major Iranians: Bahram, Khosrow, Dara, Alexanders wife, Barbad, Nakisa, Shapur, Bahram Chubin,.. Indeed two of the main figures Bahram and Khosrow were Persian.  Alexander was a Roman.  Lili o Majnoon was Arabs.   So Nizami talks most more about Persians, then Romans, then Arabs, then the rest is about Indians, Chinese, Blacks, Turks.   Also just to show the absurdity of Mr. Baguirovs argument, Ferdowi mentions Turks much more than Nizami!  Also he mentions Mahmud of Ghazna!  So by Mr. Baguirov’s absurd arguments, he must have been a Turk! 
27)	Again in the main article I have clearly mentioned that his first wife was the Turkish slave given to him by the ruler of Darband.  Some edits have not been made by me and I do not need to respond to them.  Also typos and small mistakes relative to the major errors of Mr. Baguirov is insignificant.
28)	  Mr. Baguirov claims he is not ideologically motivated but the falsifications I brought in the beginning speaks otherwise.  Indeed his hatred of Armenians is apparent.  As per chauvinism, lets say that Persians never committed ethnic genocides like Turks/Mongols/Oghuz tribes.  So lets keep issues not related to Nizamis father out of the equation.  The Western scholars are not Persian chavaunists! what ever that means.   
29)	Again Mr.  Baguirov needs to show one manuscript that names Afaq as Appaq.  And indeed Mr. Baguirov falsifies another quote from the panj-Ganj and claims: ‘’ Look at this verse from Khosrov and Shirin: “My Kipchak idol! My sensual fragile crop (herb, plant)! Died, like Shirin, you too, my Afak (Appaq).’’
The fact is such a verse does not exist!  Else Mr. Baguirov show us the original verse in Persian.    FROM now on we should demand MR. Baguirov to use the original Persian verse as Nizami Ganjavi did not speak Turkic!   As per the absolute majority of sources, again on this matter of interpretation of this verse, if such a false translation of the Persian was made by the USSR scholar, then their opinion has no value.  Indeed Nizami Ganjavi does not use the word Apaq even once whereas Persian has p.  Indeed Nizami Ganjavi uses the word Afaq as 46 times in his poetry to mean horizon!  Indeed no ancient source has mentioned that Nizami Ganjavi had a wife named Afaq.  So in this matter Mr. Baguirov needs to prove his point by the original Persian of the mentioned verse and not just quote some scholar.  Indeed Said Nafisi who is a native speaker of the language is more authotarative than the translator who madeup such a false verse.   
Mr.. Baguirov by using verses that does not exist(I will show a good example of this sort of forgery in the last part of this response) has shown that he completely lacks any credibility to discuss issues about Nizami’s wife.  Indeed the whole verse can be taken as metaphor and there is no reason for me to take side on this issue, since we will never know for 100%.  All we know is that even if she was a Turkic slave given by the ruler of Darband, this does not make Nizami’s father a Turk!  And furthermore we know that there is no manuscript with Apaq and Nizami uses the term  Afaq about 46 as meaning horizon and it would be rare for a poet to suddenly mean a different thing rather than horizon!  And also call other rulers, the ruler of Afaq, which would be lewd.  So about Nizami’s first wife which was given to him as a servant/slave by the ruler of darband as a gift, we simply do not have much information to make anything clear about her name despite what some scholars have conjectured.
30)
Hafez uses the term Turk the most for beautiful person.  Indeed Nizami also calls Turks bi-vafa(unfaithful, deli por kin (a heart full of hate, doer of taaraaj(plunderer), doer of Kooch(migration which is a nomadic lifestyle).. and other titles.  Whereas Hafez always mention them positively much more than Nizami.  Can we claim Hafez to be an Azerbaijani Turk!  Indeed Mr. Baguirov makes many illogical claims that are very sad!  Even Ferdowsi mentions the beauty of Turks.  And btw all these Turks according to all these sources were Cheshm-Tang as mentioned by Nizami, Hafez, Sanaii.. Cheshm-tang means narrow-eyes (mongloid eyes) like the Turks of Central Asia..
31)  The Qom issue can never be closed when at least 400 year old manuscripts and some old biographries mention it.  Specially when other old biographies also mention it.  It can be said to be unlikely, but nothing is absolute here when talking about the biography of ancient poets.  Also different theories put him or his father as from Qom.  Indeed Nizami could have been born in Ganja but his father could have easily been from another city.  All we know is his father was named  Yusuf the son of Zaki the son of  Mo’ayyad.  If we consider this lineage, then most likely his lineage is a native of Ganja, while Ganja was a home of the  Shaddadid Kurds during the time of his Grandfather and so this again adds more credibility to his other half being Kurdish.  Indeed most Turks at that time had their tribal names: Seljuq, Alp-tegin (relation to Mahmud of Ghazna) , QaraKhataiis.. Nizami did not have any names related to Turks.  And the Qom mentioned by Nizami is near Tafresh/Taa which would make it the main Qom of Iran right.  Indeed the people of Ganja before the last century always thought Nizami was a Qomian and at one point Said Nafisi mentions a major disrespect to Nizami's grave which I will go into detail if necessary!
32)  As per the historical quotes Mr. Baguirov gave about Turks, they either had to do with Huns, Khazars or some Turks being used as soldiers in Baghdad.  Also we know that Turks were not settled at the time, but were nomadic people.  Also Mr. Baguirov makes a valid point, that even if Nizami’s father was from Qom, how do we know he was Persian?  Well there existed only two ethnicities at Qom at that time, either Persian or Arab.  Either choice could have been plausible, but Persian is most likely given Nizamis familiarity with Persian as a native.  Also the village mentioned in those manuscripts “taa” and “Tafresh” are both part of the Qom of Central Iran and not any other Qom.  Either way, now Mr. Baguirov can lnow why the claims about an Arab father is not ridiculous and why without doing further research, he can not just blast this or that scholar of his choosing!  Manuscripts have various sources.  Indeed Mr. Khaleghi Motlaq does not just rely on older manuscripts, but some of the manuscripts he uses are more recent then some of the oldest manuscripts and he has shown various reasons why some of them are more correct.  
33)	Mr. Baguirov claims:  Also, once more, Firdowsi and Nizami were different in many ways .  Indeed I never claimed they were not different.  Firdowsi was different from Attar and Nizami from Khaghani...But what I did clearly mention is that Three of Nizamis  story are based on Shahnameh.  Haft Paykar, Eskandar Nama and Khosrow o Shirin.  Indeed there is alittle differences in some places, but the main theme is the same.  Nizami praises Ferdowsi heavily.  Nizami does not use any Turkic folklore like Dede Qorqod or KurOghlu.   He uses Iranian folklore and so his poetry is indeed in the line of Iranian heritage!  An important detail Mr. Baguirov wants to forget.  Indeed Nizami is culturally from the same culture as Ferdowsi and does not have any relationship with Turkic Oghuz cultures.  He urgest the son of Shirvanshah to read Shahnameh!  
34)	I have used the terms Persian and Iranian interchangeably as cultural terms.  Nizami Ganjavi is a Persian poet because he wrote in the language, lives through the language, contributed to the heritage of the language and is alive through the language and culturally contributed to the development of Persian and Persian culture through the language.  He didn't do anything for Turkic and Turkic languages and even though he influenced Indian, Georgian, Turkish, Armenian.. and other people, he did everything for the Persian language .  So this is the term Persian poet.  I did not make any claims on Nizami’s father, but I said most likely he was of Iranian stock and Kurdish.  So lets not confuse the issue here.  As per the Medians, they spoke an Iranian language as Old Persians, Avesta and they are Iranians.  So they are not related to Oghuz Turks whom Azerbaijanis of today consider themselves descendant of.  Indeed the Medes heritage is shared by Kurds and Talysh people.  
And the Medes were Iranian speakers and thus to claim Azerbaijanis as direct descendant of medes, would make Azerbaijanis as Iranians instead of Turks.  Something which is not the policy of the republic of Azerbaijan and something which the pan-turkist views of Mr. Baguirov does not agree with.  Indeed as another user said, language is the foremost marker of identity for Azerbaijanis and thus they are Oghuz turks.  And yes the term Persian, Azerbaijani, Russian, German are fluid.  I have given the definitions within their context here.  But when discussing the issue of Nizami's father, we are being clearly ethnic.  
35)	Mr. Baguirov makes another claim full of errors:As of the fake stories about purely “nomadic” and otherwise “tribal” Turkic people, that is not entirely correct, since first we need to establish which region we talk about and at what time. Secondly, how could, for example, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznevi be of “tribal background” – or many other Turkic rulers – who were patrons of the arts and in case of the same Sultan Mahmud spoke fluently Turki, Arabic and Persian? How could “nomadic” people have so many scientists, geographers, doctors, philosophers, poets, writers such as “second Aristotle” al-Farabi (d. 950), Ulugbek, descendant of Timurleng (from Samarkand), al-Biruni (d. about 1050), Jalaledin Rumi, Mahmoud Kashgari (Dictionary of Turkic languages, 1072-1074), etc? How could there have been not only Dede Korqut put in writing in the 11th century displaying a rich language from centuries before, but such eposes as Manas and Kutadgy Bilik by the Kirghiz?
I am not sure where to start.  How about Al-Farabi?  Al-Fabaris ethnic background is in dispute and indeed he uses Soghdian but not Turkic in some of his references.  One ancient author has called him Iranian and another Turkic.  .   More importantly Al-Farabi was from Kazakhistan and was not an Oghuz Azerbaijani Turk.  Indeed Eastern Turks through their contacts with Soghdians picked up civilization.    In the Cambridge history of Iran we read:
 There are many borrowings from Middle Iranian in Turkish culture to be mentioned.  Although the Turks learned writing soon after the foundation of their empire, their oldest inscription, as we have seen, was in Sogdian, the lingua franca of the time and in the Sogdian script, as is shown in the inscription near Bugut.  Only with the beginning of the nationalism at the start of the 8th century did the Kok-Turks, and later the Uigur Qaghans in the 9th century, write their inscription in their own language alongside a version in Chinese or Chinese and Sogdian.  The script used for these inscriptions, the so-called Kok-Turks “Runic” writing, was a lively adaptation, perhaps by a Sogdian, of cursive Aramaic, and indeed the Sogdian, “Uigur” and Manichaen scripts can all be attributed to the ephigraphical inventiveness of Sogdians.
So this has nothing to do with Western Turks and Seljuq nomads who by even pan-turkist sources lacked a large amount of ethnic cultural self identity..  Indeed it is almost like saying since the ancient Indians and Iranians are indo-European speakers, then the ancient Russians and Germans had a long civilization.  The next one is Ulugbeck who was a descendant of Timur lang and again an Uzbek.  He lived between (1394-1449) and many Iranian scholars were present in Samarqand and he learned from them and they learned from him.  Again he was not a Western Oghuz speaking turk but is an Uzbek.   The next big lie is Al-Biruni by Mr. Baguirov.  Indeed Biruni was a (iranian) Khawrezmian and spoke no turkic. in his list of turkic month names (which are merely ordinals), he adds I don't know 
what they mean and I don't knwo the (exact) order His ordering in  fact has errors.  Again in his Athar al-baqiya he says the people of Chorasmia are a branch of Persians(Iranians).
و أما أهل خوارزم، و إن کانوا غصنا ً من دوحة الفُرس
The quote is taken from Birunis monumental work Al-Athar al-Baqia fi Al-Qurun Al-Khalia.   The quote translates to: "And the people of Khawarazm are a branch of the Persians".  
Indeed Biruni gives us valuable work on Chorasmian/Soghdian (two eastern Iranian languages) and correctly mentions their months and customs.
The next one Jalal-ad-dIn Rumi was born from Balkh.  Indeed even his son mentions three times in his poetry that he doesn’t know Greek/Turkish well, although he lived in Anatolia.  Also Franklin Lewis has given the most complete biography on Rumi and he was a Persian from Balkh (Again nothing to do with Azerbaijani and Oghuz speakers of that area).
Mahmud Kashgari was an Uighyur or an Eastern Turk not an Azerbaijani Turkic.  And as his name indicates he was from China (Kashgar).  The Kutadgy Bilik again is after Shahnameh and is by Eastern Turks.  The Manas does not have anything to do with Oghuz Turks.  As per Dede-Qorqod I have shown that the work uses Istanbul.  And indeed Dede-Qorqod which has been written way after Nizami Ganjavi, shows a primitive and nomadic culture unlike any of Nizamis’ Panj Ganj.
All these facts show that Turkic people of Seljuqs and Nomadic Oghuz tribes which the modern Azerbaijani, Anatolian and Turkmen languages are descendant of, did not produce any significant culture at that time. (note I am not putting anyone down and every civilization without doubt at one time or another started from nomadism.)
36)	Mr. Baguirov repeats the nonsense that Nizami’s father was a Turk but indeed if that was the case, then all modern Western scholars would have mentioned it and they didn’t it.  So indeed trying to repeat something 1000 times does not make it true. 
37)	On the issue of Bukhari and Tabari languages, again the verse of Nizami can be interpreted either way and has been by some Iranian scholars.  Indeed Mr. Baguirov who does not know Persian and had mistakes Jamshid for Keykhusraw is in no position to judge!  There is no such thing here as “professional” translators.  Scholars can vary on the meaning of a verse and this is the case in this manner.  Indeed different English translation of Rumi show very different divergences in some aspects.  As per the languages of ancient Tabari and Bukhari (Soghdian), they are very different than Persian although Iranian.  Indeed Kurdish is much closer to Persian than these two languages.  The problem with Mr. Baguirov is that he makes one false statement after another.  As per Imam Tabari and Imam Bukhari.  These are indeed Arabic writers of Persian/Iranian origin.  Just like Nizami is a Persian poet with at least half Kurdish origin and the other half never being known.  This issue needs to be clarified.  Tabari’s nationality is very clear and well known throughout the Islamic world.  So is Imam Bukhari’s.  But Nizami’s father is not well known and although most likely Iranian, we will never known.  Also as I said I considered both viewpoints, but after looking at the verse closely, I agreed with some Iranian scholars like the writer and research Kazem Azari. 
38)	As in his usual routine, Mr. Baguirov claims: There is absolutely no proof that Zoroaster was ethnic Persian, and it is not fully clear he could have been Iranian – in fact, we don’t know for sure when he lived, which century, and little remains of his preaching. 
Again I never said Zoroaster was from the Persian group of Iranian if we are talking about modern Persian ethnicity (although Persian and Iranian are equivalent by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Armenians..).  But he was Iranian as not only his name is etymologically Iranian, but the only surviving work we have from his is the Gathas which is Iranian language and has nothing to do with Turkish.  All the names of the Gathas are Iranian.  Indeed the first mentioning of any inscription related to Zoroastrianism is the Old Persian inscription.  His location of birth is also today consider Central Asia and Balkh and Chorasmia. This is due to the fact that the archaic language of the Gathas is eastern Iranian.   Indeed his language , that is the language of Gathas, is put around 1000 B.C. by most scholars.   The major scholars on Zoroaster like Humbach, Hoffman, Boyce, Frye, Zaehner,  Skjaervo, .. have never had any doubt about his Iranianness.  Indeed Mr. Baguirov who is not up to date with  modern scholars and quotes scholars from 100 years ago, mentions something correct from a scholar from 100 years ago:’’Not a single text, with the exception of Gata/Gita, can be considered as a memorial of any definitive language’’.  Also not to bounce around the transliteration argument again, but the book is called Gatha and the Gita (Bhagavad Gita ) is a book in Sanskrit not related to Zoroastrianism.  Indeed the Gathas is the only manuscript we have of Zoroaster and his heritage and this is in pure Iranian language.  It was the key in deciphering Old Persian and has nothing to do with Turkish!  As per the Medes being an Iranian people, the Encyclopedia Britannica is sufficient.  Mr. Baguirov makes the absurd claim: It should be noted, that in the text of the Assyrian king Sargon II, the “mighty Midians (Medes)” are mentioned not as Aryan people and thus are separated from Iranians.  Again this shows he is cut & pasting some material without thinking and proper reading.  Neither are the Persians called Aryans by Assyrian king Sargon II!  Indeed the Persians are called Aryans only in their own inscription during the Achaemenid era.  But here is a well known quote or two from Greek historians.  Strabo, in his "Geography", mentions the affinity of Mede with other Iranian languages:
"The name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations." (Geography, 15.8) 
Mede words in Old Persian or Aryan are common, as these two languages were from a common origin. For example, Herodotus mentions the word Spaka (dog), still found in Iranic languages such as Talyshi(spi) and also related to Persian Sag. Note the closeness to old Slavic.  Indeed Old Persian/Avesta/Sanskrit are all very close to old Slavic.  The following Iranian words are similarly thought to be of Median  origin (Diakonoff, history of the medes):
Farnah: Divine glory; (also appears in Avestan), 
Paradayda: Paradise, (as in Pardis پردیس) 
Vazraka: Great, (as modern Persian Bozorg بزرگ), 
Vispa: All, (as in Avestan and Old Persian and Pahlavi), 
Mitra: The Indo-Iranian deity, 
Xshayathia (King). 
Herodotus mentions:
7.62) "These Medes were called anciently by all people Arians;
Also all the Avesta names have etymologically Iranian roots and Prof. Mayrhofer has painstakingly shown the etymology of all the 400 or so names.  Also Moses of Choren calls the Medes, Persians and Parthians as Aryans.  See History of Armenians, Translated by Thompson, pages: 117-119, and pages 164-168.  Also I should mention that in the Avesta, Zoroaster is called Aryan many times.  
39)	Mr. Baguirov mentions:  Turkic people were in majority by the time of Nizami in Ganja, Beyleqan, Barda – and I’ve included enough independent quotes in that respect.  This is an emotional statement.  Has he taken any census and where is the reliable quotes in their exact language!?  Indeed how can one discount Arabic sources which claim that the language of the area was Persian, Arabic, Armenian and Albanian?  For example Naser Khosrow said nothing about Turkish in this region.  He lived pretty much during the time of the great grandfather of Nizami.  Neither did Ibn Hawqal.  Neither did Al-Masoudi.  Neither did Ibn al-Nadeem.  Abu Abdollah Bashari Moqaddasi in his book divides Iran into eight climatic regions noting, The language of these regions is Persian; however, some of them speak Dari and some complicated; and all those dialects are called Persian. 
Masoudi believed that Pahlavi, Dari and Azeri were of the same origin and combination of their works was the same and all of them were considered among Farsi dialects. 
Abu Abdollah Mohammad ibn Ahmad Kharazmi, who lived in the fourth century A.H., attributes Persian language to people of Fars and the language of priests and believes that Dari was the language of courtiers. With regard to Pahlavi language, he writes: 
Pahlavi is one of the Iranian languages used by kings. The work has been attributed to Pahleh, which encompasses five lands: Isfahan, Rey, Hamedan, Nahavand and Azerbaijan.
Estakhri says in his book, al-Masalek and al-Mamalek that the language of people of Azerbaijan is Arabic and Persian.
Such illogical statements by Mr. Baguirov is indeed unfortunate.  Is there indeed any census from the time to claim that the majority of this city was this and that during Nizami's time!?
  
40) Scythians and Parthians [www.parthica.com] are considered Iranian by Encyclopedia Britannica.  Parthians are very clear because of the linguistic evidence they have left behind.  Also according to some sources they were a branch of the Parni(Persian Farnah) tribe of Scythians.  Scythian is also pretty much agreed upon by all modern scholars.  Only pan-turkist chavaunist who claim Caucasian Albanians, Sumerians, Elamites, Urartians, and tons of other people in order to make themselves a history, have problems with history.  Indeed the falsification of history by the two countries of Turkey and republic of Azerbaijan is well known.  Ataturk even claimed ancient Sumerians and Hittites were Turks!  Our friend Mr. Baguirov claimed Caucasian Albanians as Turks!  Some of the scholars from these two countries  have no shame when it comes to plundering the ancient heritage of people that did not have anything to do with Turks!  Indeed for Parthians we have about 300 pure Iranian names(from Nisa beside their kings names) and I would look under Arsacid in Encyclopedia Iranica for tons of references.  It is a well known fact that Parthians were overlords in Armenia and about 15% of Armenian is of Iranian origin.  Encyclopedia Iranica and Britannica have both considered Scythians and Parthians as Iranians.  Whatever the Soviet Encyclopedia said, it is outdated relative to these sources.  Plus the encyclopedia Iranica is authored by many western scholars and is in parterneship with Columbia University.  Also let me add again that Encyclopedia Britannica also mentions the Scythians, Medes, Parthians as all Iranians.  Here are some portions of Britannica.
On Medes
the mid-9th century BC, two major groups of Iranians appear in cuneiform sources: the Medes and the Persians. Of the two, the Medes were the more widespread and, from an Assyrian point of view, the more important group.
On Scythians:
member of a nomadic people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to southern Russia in the 8th and 7th centuries Bc .
On Parthians:
who was chief of the Parni, a member tribe of the Dahae confederation, must have begun his struggle against the Seleucids from 247 BC, the year from which the Parthians dated their history. This does not necessarily mean that Arsaces was crowned king in 247. Other Iranian dynasties (e.g., the Sasanids; see below The Sasanian period) dated the beginning of their eras from the time when they began to establish their power rather than from the time of coronation of the first monarch of their line. 
...
Their language was closely related to Scythian and Median. ''
Also the Manichean Parthian texts are widely available in major libaries.  
Indeed I know Azerbaijani scholars have made very false claims on claiming these groups as Turks and refer to some sources 80 years old like the Japhetic theory of Marr (who also considered Kurdish as Japhetic too).  But recent discoveries are fairly clear.    
41)	Shahryar was an Iranian national and an ethnic Turkic poet.  I have no problem with that.  Lets get back to the issue.  
42)	Mr. Baguirov said: The yet anther unfounded attack is when Mr. Doostzadeh talks about Khorasan, Nizak-tarhan and which he again misinterprets and misunderstands. I am tired of commenting again and again over the same things, so just will re-quote my previous message: “For example, Arabic historian at-Tabari (d. 923 A.D.) wrote than already in 671 A.D., when Arabs conquered Kukhistan in Khorasan (Iran), it was ruled by Turks, and specifically mentions Nizak-tarhan, who concluded a peace deal with Arabs (this and much more other interesting info is from the #1 authority on Turkic history in Russia, prof. L.N.Gumilev, as well as Uzbek prof. Sh.Kamaliddinov and others).’’
This again shows the lack of resources of Mr. Baguirov who uses a translation without checking the Arabic or doing proper research ont he source  Indeed the Nezak Tarkhans did not control part of Iran.  Khorasan was a large area that referred to part of Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan but Mr. Baguirov mentions Iran.  But as per the Nezak Tarkhan and their area of control, I refer folks to this article Bactrian Documents from Ancient Afghanistan and .  Indeed in these two articles we do not see anything about Khorasan of Iran!    Indeed the Nezak Tarkhans today are known as Hephtalites by scholars and the origin of Hephtalites is not clear.  For example the following recent article claims them to be related to Pashtuns:
X. Tremblay, Pour une hstore de la Sérinde. Le manichéisme parmi les peoples et religions d’Asie Centrale d’apré les sources primare, Vienna, 2001, pp. 183-88
And an older source considers them Iranian:
K. Enoki, ‘On the nationality of the Hepthalites’, Memoirs of the Research Department of Tokyo Bunko, 18, 1959, pp. 1-58.
And Al-Masudi considers them related to Soghdian. 
So right now even the ethnic background of this group is not clear (Tibetian, Iranian, Mongol, Turk,  Tocharian... have all been suggested), but what is clear is that Khorasan of Iran was not under their domain and indeed it was part of the domain of the Sassanids when the Arabs attacked.  Just like the Azarbaijan of Iran and parts of the caucus up to Darband which was under Sassanids and then it became part of Ummayyads. 
Some sources also considered Nezak Tarkhans Hephtalites as Turks.  But we must remember that Islamic/Arabic/Persian geographers many times called any nomadic people from Central Asia as Turks.  So we will leave the origin of Hephtalites for scholars, but indeed they were not Oghuz Turks and some say they were mixture of mainly Iranians, with some Hunn/Turkic elements. 
43)	 Mr. Baguirov also quotes something very useful although the quote has been disfigured somewhat.  He mentions this quote: None other than a Persian historian Rawandi wrote in his treatise dedicated to sultan of Rum Giyas ed-Din Keykhusrev (1192-1196, i.e., a contemporary of Nizami): “Thanks to almighty Allah … in the lands of Arabs, Persians, Byzanthians and Rus, the [decisive] word belongs to Turks….  The actual quote can be found in the Cambridge History of Iran, in the article "The Iranian World", by CE. Boseworth.  Prof. Boseworth writes(pg 15): (When the saljuqs first appeared in Transoxiana and Khurasan in the 5th/11th century, they came as marauders and plunderers.  It has been suggested that the Turkish peoples' conversion to Islam and their consequent zeal for Jihad (holy war) helped them to overrun so much of the Middle East.  It is true that in the course of the 5th/11th century the Turkmen carried on warfare against the Byzantines and Christon kingdoms of Armenia and the Caucus, and that the Saljuqs achieved some prestige in theyes of the orthodox by overthrowing Shi'i Buyid rule in western Iran.  Sunni writers even came to give an ideological justification for the Turks' political and military domination of the Middle East.  The Iranian history Ravandi dedicated his history of the Saljuqs, the rahat al-sudur wa ayat al-suru(solace of hearts and signal for gladness, beguin in 599/1202), to one of the Saljuq sultans of Rum or Asia Minor, Ghiyath al-Din Kai-Khusrau b. Qilij-Arsalan.  Ravandi tells of a hidden, supernatural voice from the Ka'ba at Mecca, whih spoke to the Imam Abu Hanifa(major muslim figure of Iranian origin) and promised him that as long as the sword remained in the hands of the Turks, his faith(that of the Hanafi law school, which was followed par excellence by the Turks) would not perish.  Ravandi himself adds a pious doxology: Praise be to God, He is exalted, that the defenders of Islam are mighty and the followers of the Hafani rite are happy and joyfull!  In the lands of the Arabs, persians, Byzantines, and Russians, the sword is in the hands of the Turks, and fear of their sword is firmly implanted in all hearts!.  Also typos do occur (no big deal if the logic is sound), but in this quote here it makes a significant difference. Because sword and word are two different concepts and bring out two different meanings.  
Indeed this quote shows that Nomadic Seljuq Turks just conquered the area and were not natives.  They conquered lands of Persians, Arabs, Byzantiums and Russians.. So you can not claim scholars from these ethnic groups to be Turks, just because they were under the Seljuq empire.  Also I might add that Iranian Sunnis were very happy that the Seljuqs took away the influence of the Shi'ite Buwayids and many Iranian Sunnis praised the Seljuqs and became their ministers and even intermarried with the Seljuqid household.  Indeed what mattered foremost was Sunnism and Shi'ism.
44)	The quote of Nizami from the mouth of Shirvanshah are couplets that were written and composed by Nizami.  Indeed Nizami was the was that wrote and composed those couplets from the mouth of Shirvanshah.  Shirvanshah’s were not poets!  Let us analyze it and firstly remember that the Persianized Arab descendants (indeed they made a geneology tracing their background to the Sassanid general Bahram Chubin) were not Turks and if Nizami wanted to compose Turkish, he would do it for the Seljuqids and not Arab/Persianized kings!  This should be enough to reject the claims of Mr. Baguirov but we will analyze his false claim in more detail.  The beginning of that section is as follows (all quotes checked from Barrat Zanjani edition as well checked with Vahid Dastgerdi edition and an internet edition): 
45)	1) Nizami Ganjavi receives a letter from the king  as he said:
در حال رسید قاصد از راه
آورد مثال حضرت شاه
بنوشته به خط خوب خویشم
ده پانزده سطر نغز پیش 
After reading the letter(not poetry), Nizamis first word is:
هر حرفی او او شکفته بافی
افروخته تر ز شب چراغی
Translation:  Every word of that letter is like a blossomed garden, all of it is more bright than the lights that are lit at night.
So this shows that Nizami was totally pleased with the letter unlike what Mr. Baguirov claims.
The claims of Mr. Baguirov is nonsense and there nothing about force on this mannter.  
خواهم که بیاد عشق مجنون
رانی سخنی چو در مکنون
For the sake of love of Majnoon, I want you to compose like the pearls in shells
در زیور پارسی و تازی
این تازه عروس را طرازی
Mr. Baguirov who does not know a word of Persian further claims:  (The 3rd line can also be translated as: “From Persians and Arabs you can take….”)
It actually translates to: the ornament of Persian and Arabic, make this new bride take shape.
Lets continue.  Indeed here is one of the most ridiculous mistakes of Mr. Baguirov coming up.  Mr. Baguirov claims: Nizami continues the verse, after the words Mr. Doostzadeh quoted, now speaking for himself: “I read this… My face became blood-red, - So, it means I have a slave’s ring in my ear! I don’t have the courage, to write a denial/refusal/rejection, My eyes have become dull, words (reserve/vocabulary) have run dry.’’
  
The actual lines are these:
چون حلقه ی شاه یافت گوشم
از دل به دماغ رفت هوشم
نه زهره که سر ز خط بتابم
نه دیده که ره به گنج یابم
سر گشته شدم در آن خجالت
از سستی عمر و ضعف حالت
کس محرم نه که راز گویم
وین قصه بشرج باز گویم
فرزند محمد نظامی
آن بردل من چون جان گرامی
این نسخه چو دل نهاد بردست
در پهلوی من چو سایه بنشست
داد از سر مهر پای من بوس
کای آنکه بر آسمان زدی کوس
خسرو و شیرین چون یاد کردی
چندیدن دل خلق شاد کردی
لیلی مجنون ببایدت گفت
 تا گوهر قیمتی شود جفت
این نامه ی نغز گفته بهتر
طاوس جوانه جفته بهتر
خاصه ملکی چو شاه شروان
شروان چه که شهریار ایران...
Indeed as he continues, Nizami says that since the story of Lili o Majnoon takes place in a desert and since it does not have much beauty and romance compared to Khosrow o Shirin and since he is old, he was a little not sure if he can accomplish this task.  But then his son urged him on and Nizami happily continues!  So the story has nothing to do with being forced to compose a masterpiece in one language or another!.   Indeed the poets complaint is about the bareness of the story and nothing to do with being forced!  Anyone with first grade knowledge of Persian can see this, but unfortunately the absurd claims of the scholars of the republic of Azerbaijan knows no bound.  As you can see, Mr. Baguirovs statement has absolutely nothing to do with Nizami getting mad!  Indeed Nizami writes 90 lines in praise of the Shirvan Shah!  90 lines and yet Mr. Baguirov claims Nizami was mad at Shirvanshah !  As if Nizami who according to the false claims of Mr. Baguirov was a Turk! Would be scared to take his case to the Seljuqs! And as if a poet can be forced to write Persian for an Arabo-Persian King like Shirvanshah who did not know Turkish!! 
Finally the words of Shirvanshah were composed into poetry by Nizami and their total degradation of Turks ,and indeed some say it refers to Mahmuds treatment of Ferdowsi (which sounds much more reasonable), shows that Nizami did write negative stuff about Turks.  
Nizami chose to compose these verses and I have already brought similar verses by other Persian poets and I will do so again
He quotes the Shirvan Shah in beutifull poetry:
تُرکی صِفَت وَفای ما نيست
تُرکانِه سُخن سِزای ما نيست
آن کز نَسَبِ بُلَند زايد
او را سُخن بُلند بايد
Torki-sefat VAFAAYEH (emphasized for explanaion) maa nist
Turkish manners are not part of our faithfullness
Turkish tongue is not befitting for us
The person who is born of great lineage (he is belittling turks)
The words of his  must be of great ascent (belittling turkish language)
Now what Mr. Baguirov does not know that the term Turk (with many shades of meaning) had also came to mean wrong-doer, plundered.  For example Sanai says: To Torki o Hargez Nabood Tork VAFADAAR (You are a turk and a Turk never had any faithfullness).   Another poet Asadi Toosi says: VAFAA na-ayad az torkaan hargez padid- vaz Iranian joz vafaa kas nadid
Faithfullness has never came from Turks, but from Iranians everyone sees faithfullness
Asadi Toosi by the way wrote the Loghotnaameh-Parsi Asadi in Azarbaijan and some of the Azari-Pahlavi terms can be found in that book.  
Ferdowsi says about Turks:
Keh torkaan raa baa kherad nist joft (That turks do not possess with logic and wisdom).
Of course a character is saying it, but this is still rough.  Also the major dispute between Mahmud and Ferdowsi is rumored to be because of ethnic(Iranic vs Turkic) and religious conflict (Shi'i vs Sunni).  Nizami despite being a Sunni, praises Ferdowsi and has shown which side he takes in that dispute and so does the Shirvanshah.  
The term bi-VAFAA (faithlessness and honorlessness) about Turks has a long history in Persian poetry and I just mentioned Sanai and Asadi Tusi, two Persian poets, living prior to Nizami. Indeed Asadi Tusi although originally from Tus (Khorasan and also the hometown of Ferdowsi and Nasir ad-Din Tusi and Al-Ghazzali..), moved to Azarbaijan during the Shaddadid era.   Nizami who was another poet of the area uses the same language.  
Here is another one about the Khaghan of Turks in the Eskandar Nama:
when Alexander (who is praised highly by many Muslims because he was believed to be the Dhul-Qarnain of the Qur'an) addresses the Turkish Khaghan on his way to conquer parts of Central Asia and Western China (Chinese Turkistan) :
به نِفرين تُرکان زَبان بَرگُشاد 
که بی فِتنِه تُرکی زِ مادَر نَزاد
زِ چينی بِجُز چينِ اَبروُ مَخواه
 ندارند پِيمان مردم نِگاه
سُخن راست گُفتند پيشينيان 
که عَهد و وَفا نيست در چينيان 
همه تَنگ چِشمی پَسنديده اند
فَراخی به چَشمِ کَسان ديده اند
خبر نی که مهر شما کين بُوَد
دل تُرکِ چين پُر خَمُ و چين بُوَد 
اگر تُرکِ چينی وَفا داشتی
جهان زيرِ چين قَبا داشتی
'''
1) He opened his mouth and cursed at Turks 2) and said: "Without discord/disbelief(fitnah) No Turk is born from a mother
3) do not expect anything from chinni except a movement of an eyebrow (In Persian poetry Chin refers to Uighyur western China and parts of Central Asia while Machin refers to mainland China. For example Ferdowsi calls the ruler of the Turks as Khaghan Chin) 4) because they are covenant-breakers and can not be trusted
5) The wise people of the past said it in truth 6) that there is no honor and faithfullness in chinni
7) They all have accepted Tang-Chesmi (meaning narrow eyes) (like in the mongolian race) (meaning also they can't see well..) 8) they have only seen greatness and wideness in the eyes of others
9) Have you not heared that their love is equal to hate 10) the heart of Turk-e-chinni is full of crookedness
11) If the Turk-chinni had any honor 12) then the earth would be clothed under chinn
(Part of Eskandar Nama)'''
Also I remind Mr. Baguirov has now Nizami has called Persians: “Daanaa” (wise).  Praises Ferdowsi.  Also the play of the word Hindu and Turk symbolically has no ethnic connotation and the praise of the Sultan Sanjar is indeed common for other Persian poets even up to modern times.  Indeed Nizami praises Arabs a lot and this does not make an Arab does it?   A story of Nizami from point of view of an old lady praising Sanjar after her complaints does not make Nizami’s father a Turk.  Just like Nizamis praise of Bahram Gur or Alexandar or whatever does not make him into a certain ethnicity.  
As per the claim of Mr. Baguirov:“You, vigilant shah, who knows his business, Then become (now), if you can, a vigilant Turk.
Error not found in either Vahid Dastgerdi or Barrat Zanjani.  Where is the original Persian?!  Bring three lines before and after it as well.  Again how many times Mr. Baguirov do we have to put up with the fact that Nizami did not write in Russian and his ethnicity was manipulated.  (I have analyzed Mr. Baguirovs claim in my newer message).
Indeed the 90 lines of praise for the Shirvanshah is sufficient to show that Nizami praises his greatly.  For example: “daanayeh romooze Asemaani” (The knowner of the celestial secrets”).  “Shah-e Sakhi Akhestan keh naamash, mehri ast keh mehr shod gholaamas) (The generous king AKhistan whose name, is as benovelent so much that the sun became his slave).
Indeed Azerbaijani and USSR scholars made many false verses and attributed to Nizami with false meanings.  If Nizami was mad at the Shirvanshah, he would at least say one line of negativity (bring the original Persian) about him, whereas he has 90 lines praising him!  Indeed it is sad when someone like Mr. Baguirov can not read Persian or else I am not sure after reading the 90 lines of praises, he would believe such false stories.  Indeed there is no history of Turkish literature at the time of Nizami from the area for Nizami to compose in Turkish and follow a tradition!  Also Nizami does not mention anything about needing money and indeed he was well taken care of.  Furthermore for all his poems, he got rewards and this was nothing new for poets of that time.
46) Another mistake of Mr. Baguirov:Afrasiyab was the spelling in Ferdowsi. In Avesta (e.g., XII chapter of Bundahishn) it was Frasiyag or in Videvdat as Frankhrasian. . 
 
Actually in the Avesta it is Frangrasyan.  (Yasht 5).  And the Bundahish is a Pahlavi book and not part of Avesta.  In the Bundahish it is Frasiyav  and finally modern Persian which is a continuation of Pahlavi it is Afrasiyab.  I have a fair knowledge of the heritage of ancient Persia and indeed Nizami's work reflect the culture of ancient Persia and is invaluable tool for scholars studying the Sassanid culture of Iran.  Also Again I remind that Azarbaijan in the Eskandar Nameh is a place of Zoroastrians, with zend, Avesta, firetemples, Hirbod (fire priest), Mobed( Magian).. and etc.  No signs of Turkic Shamanism and Nomadism.  Also it is not bad to point out that there are Iranic nomadic people as well, like the Pashtuns, Baluchs, Alans..  So nomadic culture is not necessarily Turkic culture. 
47)	Back to the issue of Shirin, I already brought two other poets Baqfi and Dehlavi who called her Arman.  Furthermore, the Encyclopedia Iranica calls her Armenian.  So all the extrapolations of Mr. Baguirov is really useless since he does not have the credibility of the Encyclopedia Iranica.  Also let me quote the book mentioned by Mr. Baguirov: The poetry of Nizami Ganjavi, Knowledge, love, and rhetoric by Kamran Talattof and Jerome W. Clinton (One of the greatest Western Scholars of Iranian studies of all times and a Professor of Princeton university before retirement).  On pg 4 first line: .. Armenian princess Shirin.  
Also per the information of Mr. Baquirov, Caucasian Albanians were not Turks and he has to first decide wether he wants to make Shirin a Turk or a Caucasian Albanian, then discuss the issue of Shirin.  BTW it is correct that Mahin Banu is the aunt of Shirin, but Mr. Baquirov is incorrect about the word Turan and Jamshid/Afrasiyaab (in the same couplet) in Haft Paykar and he fails to bring the original Persian.  T
I looked at different editions.  Of course Turan and Afrasiyab themselves are not Turks either in the Avesta.  As per the queen Nush-aba, again her name is Persian, like Mahin Banu like Shirin.  None of these characters had Turkish names!   The quotes by Academic Marr are valueless and madeup.  Much like weird theories about linguistics and Japhetic languages and how Kurdish is even a Japhetic language.  Indeed he does not having any articles that are scholarly about Persian poetry.  Nizami Ganjavi and Khaghani were very well known and respected in the Persian speaking lands of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.  The best proof of this is to look at biographies of Persian poets by Jami and also the Majma’ Al-Fudhala by Mohammad ‘Aref Laghaii and Habib al-Sayr, and Khulasato’ Al-Ash’aar by Kashani, and Salm-Al-samawaat by Kazerooni, Mir Hossein Doost Sanahbali in tazakoreyeh Hossein, the book Atashkadeh and many many other books written at least from Jami all the way to today!  Indeed this again shows that Mr. Baguirovs faulty materials can not be trusted!  Of course we do not see even one translation of Azerbaijani Turkish prior to the USSR of any of Nizamis 5 works!  And how many biographies of Nizami do we see in Turkish (prior to USSR) compared to dozens of Persian sources all over from Iran and some even from India.  None of what Mr. Baguirov said about Shirin had even one Persian quote.  
Indeed he is just regurgitating polemics of the people of the republic of Azerbaijan.  Nizami’s chapter about finding shirin is that Khosrow sents Shapur to Armenia.  Not to Turkistan!  Nizami never mentions Tang-e-Cheshm for shirin.   Indeed all the names of the story are Persian and none of them are Turkish.  Shirin, Mahin Banu, Shapur, Nushaba, Baharzan.. Where is the Oghuz Turkic?  There is not even one verse in Persian poetry that claims Shirin was a Turk and the unclear polemic of Mr. Baguirov has not changed the opinions of any serious scholar.  Why should Persian be so dominant culturally that all these people do not have a Turkic name assuming the 0% chance they were Turks!
I ask Mr. Baguirov again to bring the verses about Turan and Afrasiyab/Jamshid about Shirin that he mentioned in the original Persian.  Lets see it.   Also Mr. Baguirov ignores the fact that Shirin not only to Nizami, but to many other poets is known as Armenian.  I already name two Baqfi and Dehlavi.  And I brought the relevant verses from these poets.  As per poorly versed in Nizami’s poetry,  I doubt Mr. Baguirov with many of his mistakes knows more than the scholarly articles of Iranica written by French scholars!  
Mr. Baguirov claimed that I opposed the fact that Turks were fair people.  Indeed many mongloid people are fairer than Caucasoid people like many Chinese who are brighter than your Italian, Greeks, Iranians and Turks.  What Nizami mentions about Turks is “cheshm-tang” (narrow-eyed).  This is mentioned by many poets and historians.  Skin tone has nothing to do with race generally!  Indeed there is Alpinos with white skin but with African features.  Let me just quote some major Persian works about Turks being mongloid people.  The last one is about Oghuz Turks.  But before that we will look at two depictions of two ancient king.  A statue of Kul-tigin, one of the rulers of Gork-Turks.A figure of Darius the Great, the Achaemenid Persian emperor:
  
Nizami:
نظامي:
سرآينده ترك با چشم تنگ
فروهشته گيسو به گيسوي چنگ
Nizami again:
ز بس کاورده‌ام در چشم هانور
ز ترکان تنگ چشمی کرده‌ام دور 
Translation: 
I have brought so much light in the eyes
that I have driven the narrow-eyes of Turks far away!
Hafez:
حافظ:
به تنگ چشمي ان ترك لشكري نازم
كه حمله بر من درويش يك قبا آورد
Sanai:
سنايي غزنوي:
مي نبيند آن سفيهاني كه تركي كرده اند
مچو چشم تنگ تركان گور ايشان تنگ و تار
Rumi:
دو چشم ترك خطا را چه ننگ از تنگي
چه عار دارد سياح جهان از اين عوري
 
A poet by the name of Madih who gives a physical description of Oghuz Turks:
«همه پهن رويان كوتاه قد
همه رويشان بود بي خط و خد
همه تنگ چشمان بيني دراز
همه بد دهانان و دندان گراز
همه تندخويان و با كين و خشم
به مال يتيمان سيه كرده چشم
همه تيره راي و همه بدگمان
كمر بسته در غارت مردمان
And much much more..
Let us not review some of the of the verses Mr. Baguirov brings without any actual quotation of the actual Persian. 
But to show the absurdity of Mr. Baguirovs false verse(where is the Persian) is priceless.
Here is the quote from Mr. Baguirov:
He [Khosrov] – is the month, you – are the moon, and our heritage/roots are just as famous/celebrated. Yes, we – are [from] Afrasiyab, if he is equal to Jamshid
(I have bolded Jamshid on purpose)
If one knew the least about history of the region and mythical history, they would know that Afrasiyab is actually also a descendant of Jamshid.  Because Fereydoon marries Jamshids two daughters.  Fereydoon has three sons, Iraj, Turaj and Salm.  And Afrasiyab is a descendant of Turaj.  Indeed the above shows that Mr. Baguirov lacks the historical understanding of Shahnameh and Iranian mythology (which is used heavily by Nizami) in order to understand the above verse does not make any sense!  Since Afrasiyab is not from a different root than Jamshid!   
In case anyone is interested here are all the occurrences of the word Jamshid in the Panj Ganj:
It occurs 17 times.  As you can see the verse of Mr. Baguirov is not found.    
Also Mr. Baguirov might not know, but the Caucus was always called Armenia/Arran and Turan is exclusively Central Asia and Western China!   Also again one of the characters of Khosrow o Shirin have Turkish names!  None of them!  Indeed if all these characters that Mr. Baguirov falsely claims to be be turks were so much without identity that they didn’t have Turkish names, it is indeed a sad reflection of their culture.   Also let me add the amount of times Nizami Ganjavi uses the names of Persian mythical heroes of the Shahnameh is tremendous and probably at least 200 times+.  Why doens't he mention characters from Manas, Kur-Oghlu, Dede-Qorqod..?(of course everyone knows these stories were composed after).  But why not write about mythical Turkish characters?    
Now as per the issue of Turan Dr. Richard Frye in his book the Heritage of Persia says:The Tur people may have been a group or tribe of Iranian nomads in Central Asia whose name came to be applied to all nomads in that region.(Heritage of Persia, pg 41)
Even going further about Iranian epics: The extent of influence of the Iranian epic is shown by the Turks who accepted it as their own ancient history as well as that of Iran..Afrasyab appears several places in the Avesta with the form of the name Frangrasyans.  There he is a semi-mythical figure , a kind of historicized evil spirit or dragon, one who holds back water (from Iran)...
Now let me further say that Ferdowsi sometimes praises Afrasiyaab as well and indeed in the Cambrdige History of Iran, Volume 3 part II, Professor A. Von Gabain in his article "Irano-Turkish relations in the late Saanian Period" clearly mentions that the ancient Turanians were not Turks.  Indeed I have already mentioned that etymologically, all Turanians in the Avesta have clear Iranian and non-Altaic name.
Now the verse in question that Mr. Baguirov falsified has an easy and straight forward translation:
If he (Khusrau) is the moon, we are then the sun;
If he is Kay Khusrau, we are Afrasiyaab.
(pg 257, Layli and Majnun, Love, Madness and Mystic Long In Nizami's Epic Romance, by Ali Asghar Seyyed Gohrab, Leiden, 2003)
Here is the actual Persian:
گر او ماهست ما نیز آفتابیم 
و گر کیخسرو است افراسیابیم  
Gar oo maahast maa niz aaftaabim
wa gar KayKhusrawst afraasiyaabim
AS you see there is no Jamshid!  The difference between Jamshid and Kaykhusraw in Persian mythology is like the difference say between Zues and Apollo. (two totally different characters).  And furthermore there is nothing about the descendant of Afrasiyab.  In the Shahnameh, Keykhusraw (the grandson Of Kavus from the father's side and grandson of Afrasiyab from the mother's side) fights Afrasiyaab and finally Vanquishes him after many many hardship and battles.  Now the symbolism here and there is nothing about being a Turanian and then jumping from a Turanian to a Turk.  
Also let me add that I have some very new references about Shirin being Chrisian and a historical figure, and I will share it once Mr. Baguirov writes his next response..
Mr. Baguirov should know that almond (baadaam) and tang-e-cheshm (narrow-e-eyed) are two different types of eyes.  Although again one has to ask for the original persian.  It is important that Mr. Baguirov brings the original Persian.  Also Almond eyes were symbolic for beutiful eyes and it could just mean "eyes" in general, since more eyes are in general almond and in Persian poetry eyes and almond can be used interchangeably. Almond is a nut btw and not a fruit.
Here is an example of almond eyes with clearly a non-mongloid feature and the person is not a Turk: 
Here is more details on different types of eyes:
And here is an example of what I believe is tang-e-cheshm(narrow –eyes/closed-eyes) (from Yaquts who are the purest Turks):
In this page they are referred to as oriental eyes.  Any event Nizami Ganjavi like other Persian poets used the word almond (which could also come in different shapes and sizes depending on regional variations) to eyes 
.
  So saying tears from Baadaam just means tears from eyes.
As per Dooghbaa and Doogh, all Iranians drink Doogh  (Ayran in Turkic) and it is one of their favorite drinks.  It is an Avesta word meaning white.  Indeed before Nizami, other poets use this word many times.  Naser Khosrow has mentione it at least 3 times.  Dooghbaa is also mentioned by Sa’adi.  Indeed the word Dooghbaa is Persian and not Turkic.  So the word baa which means Khoresht.  Indeed the drink is common in any farming culture of the area and it is ultimately derived from the cow or sheep!  As per Kumis, Mr. Baguirov failed to provide the relevant Persian verses and even transliterate this word correctly in Persian.  Also the argument is extremly weak from another aspect. Since when was the bad habit of drinking Vodka amongst the different people of the USSR made all of them Russian!  Indeed unfortunately Muslims drink it too.  Also this again does not stand a chance against all the authors and poets who have considered Shirin as an Armenian.  Also so has Dekhoda.   The cow is heavily praised in Indo-Iranian culture and it is the most sacred creature of Ahuramazda in Zoroastrian.  Not only its milk, but even its urine was known to have beneficial effects.  Indeed there is no religion that places as highest regard for the cow as Zoroastrianism and the creature is mentioned repeatedly in the Gathas. Indeed just to demonstrate:
  
Also there is a lot of Iranian nomads too who use a lot of dairy products.  And also borrowing food from different cultures has long been tradition although again Zoroastrianism praises milk highly as probably do other religions.  Indeed Nizami Ganjavi was derided by orthodox Muslims for praising Zoroastrian stories!  This indeed shows his strong admiration for the ancient Sassanid empire.    
All the verses of Mr. Baguirov are indeed useless when he can not bring the original Persian.  Since many of them do not exist and are made up by the psuedo-scholarship of the republic of Azerbaijan. (see my comment on one of these notorious false verses in end made up in that republic.) 
I commend him at least that originally he brought some Persian (even with the wrong transliteration and pronunciation and that is better than being empty handed).    Indeed by using materials from various Persian poets, the Armenianness of Shirin is well known.  The Christian Shirin is a well known charcter.  Indeed Shirin and Farhad and Khosrow are part of the common folklore of Persian/Kurds/Iranic people just like KurOghlu is for Turks.
Summary of the debate with Mr. Baguirov
1)	Mr. Baguirov does not know Persian.  Does not bring verses in original Persian.  He does knot sufficient Persian or else he would not make such a big deal about Bukhari and Tabari languages/peoples.  I have also done an altavista translation of the Russian text of Mr. Baguirov and thankfuly all of it has been rejected by the arguments I have given.  
2)	USSR scholars are well known to be ideologically motivated.  Whereas some Iranian scholars only might be ideologically motivated with regards to Nizamis Islamicness.  But Western Scholars have never mentioned Nizami Ganjavi having any relationship with Turks.  Indeed Mr. Baguirov fails to mention the whole quote of Prof. Talattof: A number of ideologically motivated interpreters such as Muhammad Taqi J'afari, Ab al-Husayn Muvahhhid...have focused primarily on Islamic and Sufi elements in Nizami's stoies(pg 190).  Why did Mr. Baguirov not mention the whole quote while had the book readily available?  In the above line ideologically motivated does not give any feeling of unscholarly since Nizami was indeed a Muslim and Sufi.  Ideology here means religious ideas and these works had to do with the religious aspect (ideology) of Nizami's work.  That simple!  It does not mean the ethno-religious falsification of the USSR that claimed Nizami was a bad Muslim or he was something he was not.  What is ideologically motivated politicaly is when Stalin claims Nizami wrote part of his work in Turkish! Or that Nizami was anti-Islam!  Writing about the ideaological aspects of Nizamis religion is not distortion! I should also mention that in the USSR, the Iranian and Turkic connections of Azerbaijanis many times were belied and indeed a clear definition did not exist for scholars at that time to claim Nizami.  Today the definition which is linguistic is Oghuz speaking Turkic people.  Also the Prof. Talattof that Mr. Baguirov quotes has clearly written: seems that many of these former soviet republics have been trying to make history and construct cultural background in the process of their attempt for nation building..  Indeed I have already shown much bias from the USSR scholarshipStalin and indeed have shown false verses madeup by such scholars .  You know something is unhealthy when Stalin is invovled and claims Nizami had Turkish verses!  You know something is unhealthy when some psuedo-scholars makes up verses about Nizami but the verses do not rhyme!  If this was the leader(stalin) then what were the followers?  Indeed some of them tried to show that Nizami had Turkish works! and Indeed some of these scholars still persist and find a random turkish poem and attribute it to him!  Although Western Turkic poetry was not available during the time of Nizami.
3)Mr. Baguirov could not prove that Nizamis father was  an Oghuz Turk, speaking the Oghuz Turkic of modern Azerbaijan or a similar Turkic language.  Indeed that is why all scholars are only unanimous about Nizami’s Kurdish (Iranic) mother.  That is it.  No matter how many thousands of pages of polemics Mr. Baguirov writes with wrong verses, translations, verses that do not exist and etc.,extrapolations, ignoring various sources,  this fact will not change.  
4)Nizami Ganjavi was not translated to Turkish until during the time of Stalin!  Indeed Russian, French, English translations existed way before Azerbaijani Turkish.  
5) Mr. Baguirov makes claims that I denied Nizamis Diwan.  What I denied was that many of poems are not authentic according to different scholars.  This again has nothing to do with Nizami Ganjavi's father.  I have the whole diwan published by Vahid Dastgerdi and also the book of Sai'd Nafisi which contains the Diwan, available.  
6)	All the dozen  Turkish words used by Nizami are used by other Persian poets.  Indeed Mr. Baguirov is really ignorant not to know that the word Munjug is used by Asadi Tusi prior to Nizami.  The word Ushaq is used by Sa'adi and Khaghani.  The word Doogh means white in Avesta and has nothing to do with Turkish.  
Indeed Mr. Baguirovs claims is a false as if we say since Fizuli uses at least 20% Persian words, then he is a Persian.  Indeed lets just sit back and look at the absurdity of Mr. Baguirovs argment: “Since Nizami mentions a yogurt based drink, then he is a Turk”!  So we must say Sa’adi and Naser Khosrow are Turks!  And all the Pahlavi manuscripts were the cow and all of its fluids are praised heavily are Turks!  Indeed one wonders what will the pseudo-scholars of the republic of Azerbaijan will weave next in order to claim the unprovable.   (although sometimes they are indeed creative).  
7) Finally the main issue is about Nizami Ganjavi’s father.  If there was any proof that he was Turkic, then indeed major western scholars like Wilson, Rypka, and etc. would have accepted it.  Also the name Iran as geographical entity is mentioned many times by Nizami: “Hameh Alam tan ast o Iran del – Nist gooyandeh Zin Ghiyaas Khejel – Chonkeh Iran del-e Zamin baashad – Del ze tan bah bood, Yaqin baashad” (The whole world is a body and Iran is its heart, None can have any wrong-feelings about this comparison,  Since Iran is the heart of the earth, know well that the heart is the best, with certaintity).  So where is the praise of Turkistan?  Also let me remind Mr. Baguirov that the Azerbaijan is Nizamis poetry is strictly below the Aras river!  It is Zoroastrian, not Nomadic Shamanic Oghuz culture.  Also the Medes and Atropat are Iranian and Iranic!  Britannica clearly mentions Medes as Iranian.    
8) As per the other user, neither Khaghani and Bahmanyar were Turkic.  Indeed Mr. Baquirov clearly says Khaghani was not Turkic.  So the 12 century cultural life of the republic of Azerbaijan was not related to Oghuz Turkic and Kur-Oghlu and Dede-Qorqod.  The Seljuqs promoted Iranian culture and that is why there is not even a manuscript of Turkic (although Mr. Baguirov made a false calim) from the area at that time of Nizami!
Mr. Baguirov who does not know Persian and so he can not read Nizami.  For example he didn't know the word Doogh has a clear Iranic root.  He is in no position to discuss Nizami Ganjavi's ethnicity and the uses of verses that are madeup by the republic of Azerbaijan  is indeed a proof of the fact that many of the materials from that republic is extremly ethno-centeric.  Indeed a scholar from the republic of Azerbainan of 1980 forged the following verse: Pedar bar pedar mar-maraa tork bood - beh farzaanegi har yeki gorg bood!! The problem with this scholar is that the word Tork and Gorg are never rhymed in any Persian poetry and indeed violate the rules of Persian poetry.  Furthermore Gorg(Wolf) is belittled in Nizami Ganjavi's poetry and although Turks had much respect for the wolf, the wolf is seen as heineous creature in the poetry of Nizami Ganjavi!  (One can use all sorts of arguments like these!).  Here is the translation of the madeup verse by the scholar of the republic of Azerbaijan: My father from generation to generation was a Tork - IN wisdom each one was like a gorg(wolf).  Indeed this is the sort of polemical manuals Mr. Baguirov quotes from.  This is the ideologically motivated scholarship of the repbulic of Azerbaijan, some of the scholars of the republic of Azerbaijani who delete quotes about Armenians and makeup quotes that do not even rhyme!     
9) As per treatment of minorities the USSR republics are all very much well known for ethnic cleansing and assimilation policies.  The majority of Azarbaijanis of Iran (many of whom consider themselves Iranic and not Turkic) are patriotic and indeed the leader of the country is Azerbaijani and wide amount of interrmarriage and participation in the government and economy has made them Iranian first.  But at the time of Nizami Ginjavi, there was not concept of the Azerbaijani statehood and we can not claim Nizami to be an Azerbaijani Oghuz Turk ethnically just because the majority of people in Azerbaijan speak this language today.  Also we can not claim Homer and many ancient Armenian/Greek scientists and scholars of Turkey to be Turkish!  Indeed the name Turkey is fairly recent for an ancient area.  Also one can make a point of various Talysh, Lezgin, Armenian separatist movements.  Lets discuss Nizami's  and not write three-five pages about Mr. Aliyev or Mr. Khamenei.
10) My information is mentioned by all Western scholars.  Kurdish mother.  Father unknown.  There is absolutely nothing to suggest that his father was Turkish and I can make many arguments much stronger than Mr. Baguirovs (all of whose arguments were rejected), that his father was Iranian and some were already made. Indeed the the times he belittles Turks are very harsh and no Turkic poet would compose such verses (He did compose them) about their own race.  I would mention that he is culturally connected to both Azarbaijan and Iran and also Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kurds.  But when no major western scholar has mentioned absolutely a Turkic father  and many former USSR scholars oppose it today (all Tajik, Armenian and many Russians..), when there is no verse about it, then we can not just because of ultranationalistic reasons, mislead readers!. And the fact of the matter is that Persian-Speakers of Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan today are the ones that can read Nizami and his culture continues through the Persian language.  
  
--Ali doostzadeh 07:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Again nothing about Nizami Ganjavi's father from Mr. Baguirov