Nesimi

also Nasimi (pen name of Sayyid ’Imad al-Din). Born circa 1369; died 1417 in Aleppo. Azerbaijani poet; wrote also in Persian and Arabic.

Nesimi grew up among artisans. He studied theology, logic, mathematics, and astronomy. He traveled throughout the Near East, disseminating the concept of pantheism; he called on people to seek beauty in the phenomena of the world and in mankind as an ideal of the beautiful. By order of the orthodox clergy, Nesimi was subjected to a terrible punishment for heresy—he was skinned alive.

Nesimi’s works were widely known throughout the Near East and Middle Asia. He decried social oppression, condemned fanaticism and superstition, and advocated truth and reason. While his poetry is imbued with Sufi motifs about the transitory nature of the world, it is also filled with a striving for oneness with god. These motifs are often combined with the humanistic tradition of Nizami Ganjevi. Nesimi was a master of such lyric genres as the ghazal, ruba’i, and tujug.