May 15 is the day of celebration of the Persian language in Iran. Today, about 150 million people around the world speak Persian. In the past, the number of speakers of this language was even higher, because Persian was the official and administrative language in large areas from Egypt to China and from India to the Balkans in different historical periods and during the reigns of different dynasties.
Persian language and literature, above and beyond the language itself, have always carried rich cultural and intellectual content for other peoples. Due to its melody and wealth of vocabulary, Persian language was very suitable for writing poetry, so many writers used this language to write their significant works in Persian.
From Rumi, Firdous, Khayyam, Saadi and Hafiz, to Nizami and Attar – they all presented the world with a unique set of thoughts and spirituality through Persian poetry.
Hafiz Shirazi says:
“If all the parrots of India heard the melodic Persian language, they would fall into ecstasy.”
The musical Persian language is full of melodies.
Iran’s wide borders throughout history, as well as the prevalence of the Persian language and literature, have enabled cultural exchange with various parts of the world over the centuries. It is interesting that prominent Iranian poets almost a thousand years ago had a deep understanding for the people of other countries, which they expressed in their works.
One of the seven main countries in the thoughts and works of Iranian poets was the Balkan region and its Slavic inhabitants. The Slavs who lived in the Balkans were called ‘Saqaliba’ in Persian and Arabic literature. Saqaliba is the Arabic form of the Greek word ‘Sklaboi’, which was used to denote the Slavic peoples.
The multiple references of Iranian poets to the people of this region and their writing of various stories on the subject point to ancient cultural ties between the people of Iran and the Slavs of the former Yugoslavia.
In Persian literature, the Slavs stand out for two qualities: warrior spirit and beauty. Also, in many works of classical Persian literature, when the poet wants to indicate the borders of the known world at that time, he calls the western borders of the world the land of the Slavs.
Among Iranian poets, one of those who specifically dealt with the people of the Slavs and wrote a love epic on the subject is Hakim Nezami — an Iranian poet who wrote in the Persian language and lived approximately 900 years ago. Many people know him for his work ‘Layla and Majnun’, but his other important work is called ‘Seven Beauties’ (Haft Peykar), in which in the form of a love poem he depicts the relationship of the Iranian king with the princesses of the seven main countries of the world at that time. One of those seven countries is the country of the Slavs, which, as already mentioned, refers specifically to the Slavs settled in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
Perhaps on the occasion of Persian Language Day, it would be nice to present this instructive and beautiful story to readers in simple and concise language.
In the thinking of Hakim Nizami, who was born in 1141 and left this world in 1209, the Fourth Country of the Seven Countries of the World refers to Eastern Europe and its Slavic population. Certainly, this opinion of Nizami differs from the opinion of the astronomers of Byzantium and Greece. But Nizami’s view is an artistic view that attributed the red color of Tuesday, which belongs to the planet Mars, to the people of Eastern Europe. And he put it all in the framework of a beautiful love story.
Hakim Nizami sang all his songs in Persian language.
And he left us this beautiful story. He himself said at the beginning of his work “Seven Bodies”: “In this telling of mine, if you look at the outside, you will see that external beauty. But if you are looking for spiritual knowledge, you will also find a lot in this work.”
Nizami also spoke the Arabic language very well and his works in the field of ethics, wisdom, astronomy, medicine, and biology tell us that he was an excellent connoisseur of both these and all other sciences of that time. In the story “Gombedi Bahram (Bahram’s Dome)” from the work “Seven Bodies” written by him, we find very beautiful moments.
The story begins with Bahram Shah’s entry into a castle called Khur ve Naqh. In the castle there was one room with always closed door. A builder named Senmar built it in such a way that the room would always be guarded and the door locked. Bahram orders the door of this room to be opened and then he sees pictures on the walls. In those pictures, he was surrounded by beautiful girls, princesses of seven countries of the world who were his wives.
Šide, who was an assistant to the builder, was given the task of building seven sub-domed buildings in the colors of these heavenly bodies based on the division of the world into Seven Countries and the specificity of the seven heavenly bodies (haft kovker), of which Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun and Moon. And this is where the story of “The Seven Domes of Bahram” begins. Through seven stories, Bahram marries seven girls who are the daughters of seven kings.
According to the astronomy of Iran, Greece and Byzantium, the day Tuesday refers to the planet Mars. Therefore, the dawn on Tuesday occurs in the first hour of the convergence of the moon and the planet Mars. Tuesday is the day of Bahram. The planet Mars is called Mirrikh in Arabic and Bahram in Persian. Even the names of the days in English and in the Chinese calendar come from ancient Iran. This culture spread from East China to Western Europe. It found its place in Latin and European languages. E.g. in English, the day name “Sunday” and the names of other days have their origin in ancient Iran, when each day referred to a planet.
The red color is attributed to the planet Mars (per. Behram). On Tuesday, which is considered the day of the planet Mars, King Bahram, wearing beautiful red clothes and adorning himself with red jewelry, went to the red palace in order to marry a delicate blonde Slavic girl, with red skin and rosy cheeks. (The soft blue color is a symbol of peace and tranquility in Persian culture).
Whenever Bahram sat down with one of the girls, he asked them to tell him a story. And the Slavic girl told Behram Shah a story about the daughter of the Russian king, who was of unique beauty and undisputed in terms of knowledge. This girl mastered all sciences and magic. When her time for marriage came, she said: “I cannot be chosen by anyone as a wife. She must prove her worth and must fulfill four conditions: 1. To have a beautiful face; 2. To have a beautiful nature, that is, to have a good soul and to have a pure intention; 3. To be able to destroy the spell I made on the mountain and 4. to be able to solve some riddles.”
And so she made a spell, so anyone who approached her with bad intentions would be cut with swords and would perish. Until one day there is one prince with all the qualities. He went to the mountain and found a knower and told his love to this teacher. The teacher taught him how to get such a beautiful girl as his wife.
The prince went and found a spell, unraveled it and threw it into the pit, then entered the cave. When the girl saw that he succeeded, she said to him: “Go to the city and I will come, ask my father for me there and just solve the riddle.”
The young man confidently goes to her father as someone who has fulfilled all the requirements, so now he only needs to answer a few questions. They sat down in one place and a Russian girl with her twins began:
She gave two pearl earrings to a servant for the prince who asked for her hand in marriage. The prince added three more pearls to that and had the servant bring them back. When she saw these five pearls, she laughed and concluded that the prince had given the correct answer. Then she mixed them with powder and sugar and returned them to the prince again.
When the prince saw it, he put it all in a container with milk, mixed it and returned it to the girl. The girl laughed and drank the milk. She separated the pearls that were left in the bowl and put them on the scale and saw that they were of the same value as the ones she had sent. Then she took off her ring and sent it to the prince.
Seeing this, the prince put the ring on his hand and gave the precious stone to the girl. And so the girl put that precious stone on her jewelry and accepted the prince as her husband.
What did all this mean?
This girl revealed secrets to Bahram Shah. Two pearls are a sign that life does not last more than two days, coming into this world and leaving. When the prince added three more jewels, it means that if there is more, it is transient again. She sprinkled the pearls with sugar and powder to know if this prince could separate the precious stones from the sugar AND satisfy the answer to this question. And sugar is a sign of the sweetness of this life, while the jewel symbolizes human life. Mixing all that with milk means that it cannot be separated and that a person is constantly learning for the rest of his life. Accepting the prince as her husband and receiving his unique gift with the meaning: “There is no one like me”, the girl blushed like pomegranate juice and said to her father: “I accept this prince.”
So this story has a happy ending.
Hakim Nizami’s poetry is full of wisdom, symbols in astronomy, it has a valuable meaning, and this story was also a short review of his poetry.
The Persian language is the language of wisdom, advice, music and love poetry. It is a language that was also present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, until the not-so-distant past, thanks to prominent works of Persian literature. Even today, it is kept alive through Mesnevija reading gatherings and the dedicated work of prominent Bosnian professors of Persian language and literature.
