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Jami

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Youth seeking his father's advice on choosing a male lover
From the Haft Awrang of Jami, in the story "A Father Advises his Son About Love." See Nazar ill'al-murd Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami (August 18, 1414November 19, 1492) was arguably the greatest Persian poet in the 15th century and the last great Sufi poet of Persia. His fame rests even more on his mystical authority than on his talents as a poet and writer.

Biography

He was born in a village near Jam, but a few years after his birth, his family migrated to the cultural city of Herat in present-day Afghanistan where he was able to study Peripateticism, mathematics, Arabic literature, natural sciences, and Islamic thought at the Nizamiyyah University of Herat.

Afterwards he went to Samarqand, the most important centre of scientific studies in the Islamic World and completed his studies there. He was a famous Sufi, and a follower of the Naqshbandiyyah sufi Order. At the end of his life he was living in Herat.

His works

Same youth conversing with suitors
Another illustration from the Haft Awrang

Jami wrote approximately eighty-seven books and letters, some of which have been translated into English. His works range from prose to poetry, and from the mundane to the religious. He has also written works of history. His poetry has been inspired by the ghazals of Hafez, and his Haft Awrang is, by his own admission, influenced by the works of Nizami.

The theme of nazar

In keeping with certain streams of Sufi thought, his poetry also deals with the esoteric topic of pederasty and with the Sufi practice of contemplating the beauty of God in the beauty of an adolescent boy, known as Nazar ill'al-murd. In his Nafahat al-Uns (Breaths of Fellowship), a biography of Sufi saints, he defends some of the greatest Persian mystics against accusations that their practice of shahid-bazi (the "witness-game", the contemplation of beautiful boys) is heretical. Among these are Al-Ghazali, Awhad al-Din Kirmani, and Farhruddin Iraqi. His argument was that the masters were absorbed in absolute beauty, and not trapped by the base form. In the cosmogony evolved by Jami, God himself is but a beautiful youth absorbed in the contemplation of his many qualities.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

This aspect of his life and practice is reflected in many of his works. In his Baharistan (Spring Garden), Jami recounts the events in a Sufi monastery where all the dervishes are smitten with love for a beautiful boy. The khaneghah, the abbott, advises the boy not to be free with his favors:

"Do not yield up the bridle you wear in the hands of the unworthy,
"Do not admit the vulgar throng into your private dwelling,
"Your face is a mirror most carefully polished,
"Take care you do not rust this limpid mirror."

Finally, the abbott relents, admiting that "no one can lay down the law" to the youth and that he can freely associate – or not – with whomever he chooses. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).