APersonIndependent states
Alisher Navoi
Great poet and statesman (1441–1501), the summit of Chagatai Turkic literature, who argued that Turkic was no less than Persian.
Nizam al-Din Alisher Navoi was born in Herat and was the childhood friend and vizier of the Timurid ruler Husayn Bayqara; as a philanthropist he built madrasas, hospitals and caravanserais.
His Khamsa (five narrative poems) — Hayrat ul-Abrar, Farhad and Shirin, Layli and Majnun, Sab'ai Sayyar and Saddi Iskandari — is the first complete Khamsa in Turkic, and his divans contain thousands of ghazals.
In Muhakamat al-Lughatayn (The Comparison of the Two Languages) he defended the richness and precision of Turkic against Persian. A region, a city, the opera theatre and the national library of Uzbekistan bear his name, and Fuzuli and Azerbaijani poets were influenced by him.
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Updated: October 3, 2026