BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 8
Trend:
Nizami Ganjavi International Center is a source of pride for the people of Azerbaijan and for its Members, Djoomart Otorbayev, former Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan, Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center said, Trend reports.
“I wanted to reflect on two things: about Nizami Ganjavi timing as well as about his experience, a look back to the history on a historical point of view when Nizami Ganjavi was born,” he said.
“Century had passed since the invasion of Iran and Transcaucasia by Turkic Seljuks. Seljuk sultans being Turcoman themselves having become sultans of Persia did not subject Persia to Turkification but on the contrary, Seljuks protected the Iranian population from the raids of nomads and saved great Iranian culture from different tribes which threatened it,” Otorbayev noted.
“What it showed us? That in the middle ages we had rulers who were so wise trying to protect unique cultures of other languages, other cultures just to demonstrate that civilization is moving ahead. So Nizami Ganjavi was writing in Persian like it was the language of culture, wisdom, science, and poetry. But he was living in a territory which was ruled by Seljuks,” he stressed.
“We have to learn how our ancestors were dealing with different cultures like protecting them through political and military power. The second remark which I wanted to say is that actually Nizami Ganjavi – his main inspiration, his main teacher was great Ferdowsi and Nizami many times cited the great "Shahnameh" poem of Ferdowsi. Furthermore, he even created his most visible epics based on Ferdowsi's book name, even to his son he said that you must read and remember by heart "Shahnameh" because these are the greatest poems ever written by a human. I would like to add that Ferdowsi lived in two places during his life. First, he was living in Bukhara, the territory of current Uzbekistan, historical city and later he lived in Ghazni on a territory of modern Afghanistan,” he added.
Former PM went on to say that what it's all demonstrated to us that at that time in the middle ages people in the greater Central Asia were so wise is so moving around without any borders enhancing culture with each other. Even though they spoke in different languages. They appreciated culture, science, education, and this was not an accident during these years. When Nizami Ganjavi was living and working his place was in the middle of the Great Silk Road. That is was the time when Central Asia was the richest and most prosperous part of the world. Because of the trade and business, Central Asia experienced nobody divided Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, or Turkey. This was a unified region that was very prosperous and very modern. So, there are two conclusions which I wanted to make, two examples that we must learn from the middle ages when rulers, politicians, thinkers, scientists made excellent decisions.
“Actually, within last 20 centuries where historians have relatively good knowledge of what happened in our world, 18 centuries out of 20 Asia was dominating,” he added.