Fuzuli's Leyli and Majnun

The tragic love of Leyli and Majnun comes from Arab legends and was retold many times in Eastern verse. Fuzuli raised the theme to a new height in the poem he wrote in Azerbaijani in 1536.

His Majnun is a lover who rises to divine love, renouncing the world, wandering the deserts and turning his love into spiritual perfection. The poem's ghazals are still sung in mugham today.

It is a masterpiece of Turkic literature, and Uzeyir Hajibeyli's 1908 opera Leyli and Majnun is based on it.