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SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MAJNUN'S LOVE Turdiyeva Maftuna Abdurahmonovna
Alisher Navo'i Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature. PhD student [email protected] https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14966409
ABSTRACT
Received: 24th February 2025 Accepted: 27th February 2025 Online: 28th February 2025
KEYWORDS Nizomi Ganjavi, Xusrav Dehlavi, Abdurakhmon Jomi, Alisher Navoi, Majnun, Layli, mysticism, Sufi, love, status, fainting, image.
As a representative of the literary environment of the 15th century, Alisher Navoi was a creator who well understood the literary demands and needs of his time and was able to respond to them appropriately, enriching the literary tradition of his time and developing it to a high level. Navoi's experience in the field of epic poetry can be seen in the epic poem "Layli and Majnun". Like his predecessors Nizomi and Dehlaviy, Navoi also presents the image of Majnun, who is obsessed with love. However, this image has a special meaning in Navoi's interpretation. The article also analyses Majnun's love through the motif of fainting.
Introduction. To understand the love of Majnun, the hero of Navoi's epic "Layli and Majnun", it is necessary to pay attention to Sufi interpretations of love. They imagined the interconnectedness of the entire universe in the form of the mutual pursuit of beauty and love. The Alloh of the whole universe has distributed certain beauties of His in His creatures, His beauty is manifested in the beauties of nature, in it - mountains, gardens, seas and rivers, flowers, plants, and finally in the beauty of man. And all existence is the manifestation of that beauty. The more we are amazed when we see a beautiful natural landscape or a beautiful flower, the more we admire the great artistry of the Alloh and involuntarily praise Him. When this manifestation is applied to man, it forms the concept of love. For man is the flower of nature. He is the Alloh's greatest creation. In our view, to love the greatest creation is to come closer to loving the Alloh. For many qualities of truth have been manifested in man. His beauty is one of these qualities. In the Commentary on Sufi Terms, love is defined as follows: Love in Sufism is an intense love for the Absolute Beauty. Just as the Oneness of Existence has no beginning and no end, the manifestation of Truth ("Tasavvuf istilohlari") has no beginning and no end. Its essence (?!) is manifest everywhere. And its manifestations are like its essence. The first manifestation of Truth is called "Haqiqati Muhammadiya". Love is a merciful love given by God. The feeling of love is inherent in every soul. Love is of two kinds: real and figurative. Real love is love for absolute beauty, and figurative love is love for the beauty of the world and man.
Main part. That is why, according to the mystic Najmiddin Kamilov, "beauty and love are inseparable, their striving for each other is an inescapable law". Qays saw the Divine Manifestation - Layli - and was immersed in the merciful love and affection bestowed by Alloh. This love was so strong that Majnun could not withstand its influence. He lost consciousness. "Fainting is more of a spiritual and psychological experience characteristic of Sufis. Especially
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when they are extremely excited by the memory of Allah, when they exert all their spiritual strength, they reach the point of fainting, of forgetting themselves. Navoi embodies this state of Sufism in the image of Majnun. Moreover, in this case, the fainting comes from the astonishment of feeling the beauty of the beloved in the mirror of the heart. This is the mind of the sage who has reached the level of amazement.
So Majnun's love was not figurative, he fainted at the first sight of the Mazhar, and at that moment he was possessed by real love. In the article "The Stages of the Intensity of Love" by Ibrohim Gafurov, he explains Majnun's fainting as follows: "Fainting is an extraordinary state of mind. It can only happen when a person is subjected to very severe experiences, when there is an unquenchable fire of passion in his heart. In Navoi's epic, Qays, if you pay attention, faints five times (some later studies have recognised this number as high). Each of his faintings occurs before Layli". And Navoi's Majnun finally dies next to Layli's body. This is not the case with his predecessors. In particular, Nizomi's Majnun does not faint every time he sees Layli in the Epic. In the Epic, Majnun faints when he learns of his father's death: Qabrigayetibyiqildi behush, Qabri ila bo'ldi hamog'ush. (Nizomiy 230-pages)
Then, after Ibn Salom's death, when Layli goes to Majnun with Zayd's help, Majnun faints at his feet and falls in front of her. Fainting is rare in other parts of the epic. It is true that in the chapter where Majnun cries out in love with Layli, Majnun almost faints, but this cannot be called fainting:
Sut birla kirib tanimga ul roz Jon birla tanimdin ul chiqar boz... Shu so'zni deb o'zniyerga otdi, Ko'rganlar ezildi, g'amga botdi. (120-p)
Consequently, it is observed that the motif of fainting in Nizomi is not connected with the onset of heat(jazba), in other words, it does not have a Sufi basis. Unlike Navoi's Majnun, he does not lose consciousness when he sees the image of Layli, and does not lose consciousness when he visits the Kaaba. These circumstances show that Nizomi Majnuni is not a divine mazhar, but a lover who loves Layli, the creature of the Creator. However, Majnun's love in this epic cannot be equated with the earthly love of a young man for a girl. If one pays attention to the above-mentioned verse that enters my body with milk, it becomes clear how pure this love is, how this purity was embedded in Qays's nature when he was still an infant. So, how can one understand Majnun's love in Nizomi's portrayal? The answer to this should be sought, first of all, in the Arab literary environment to which the story that formed the basis of this dastan belongs. In romantic-romantic works, couples in love inevitably separate due to certain social barriers. And their "post-separation narrative method is the usual apology - love stories; crying, fainting, illness, answering questions through poems - all of this belongs to this genre (apology legends). In all apology stories, the main character experiences the trials of separation". At this point, it is worth mentioning the love of this apology. In this regard, we rely on the data of the orientalist Kudelin.
Medieval Arabic and Persian works are based on a criterion called uzrit, high love, and in Arabic and Persian poetry there is a circle of authors who created within this code. Goethe, who gave information about medieval Arab poets in the "West-Eastern Divan", also included Majnun
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and Jomil among the Uzrit poets, who in the work of the German poet, along with other couples of Eastern lovers, are "examples of boundless love". Apparently, this divan provides information about the love of uzrit and its representatives. It is also said that "Uzrit's lyrics have the following characteristics: the lover must submit to his beloved like a slave, the lover must remain faithful to the love oath even if the beloved has broken his promise, be content with the beloved's insignificant courtesies, keep the secret of love, and ignore slander. And he must strive to endure the calamities that will befall him on this path". We can observe the same situations in the content of Majnun's poems and later in the stories of Layli and Majnun, which were formed on this basis. It can be briefly analyzed that this canonism itself served as a measure for the composition of the dastans about Layli and Majnun:
- Although Layli (though not of her own free will) marries someone else, Majnun - the lover remains faithful to his love vow, refuses when they try to marry him to another girl;
- Majnun tries to keep the secret of love, even if he is unable to do so; (In fact, this love was truly a mystery. After all, the common people don't understand him.)
- If they throw stones of reproach at Qays, calling him "Majnun", he will not pay attention and will not turn back from this path;
- The lover's joy even at a small ceremony can be observed in the chapter of Jomi's epic "Majnun went to Layli's house among the beggars, and Layli recognized him and broke his bowl, and Majnun danced with pleasure".
- He endures the hardships that befall him due to love (such as his loved ones being unable to understand his pain, resulting in loneliness, suffering in the fire of separation, being insulted by matchmakers from the Amir tribe, being chained, the hardships of the Hajj pilgrimage, his parents' death in grief over his child, and suffering from this lying in the cemetery where his parents are buried).
Nizomi, the author of the first dastan on this topic, strived to create both the composition of his work and the concept of love within the framework of the concept of uzrit in medieval Arabic literature. To what extent can this statement be substantiated? It is clear that the concept of love in Nizomi is not secular. In the dastan, the level of love grows. However, we cannot say that this first acquired secularity and then moved from metaphor to divinity. This can also be seen in one episode of the epic: Zayd, a character close to Majnun's spirit, who understands him and has many conversations with him, grieves for the loss of his beloved Zaynab. His family decides to help him and arrange a secret meeting for the lovers. Lovers only pray together, they remain pure... By the end of the epic, the love of Layli and Majnun reaches its perfection, that is, it begins to acquire mysticism. When Layli met Majnun after Ibn Salom's death, Majnun stopped reciting poems. When asked the reason for this, Majnun cries and says, "There is no more "I" and "you". So, although Nizomi, who was well versed in the science of Sufism, did not write his epic with a purely mystical content in mind, he did recognize the perfection of pure love.
Before commenting on the image of Majnun in the epic poem of Abdurakhman Jomi, it is necessary to dwell, albeit partially, on the world of literary and philosophical thought of this poet. In his work "Mahbub ul-qulub", Alisher Navoi, who divides poets into "true" and "imaginary" manifestations from the point of view of literary direction, speaks of Jomi and describes him as "a fool and a fool" in both directions. Therefore, it can be said that Jomi's fool and jester are also visible in the epic poem "Layli and Majnun". In other words, the poet took
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the theme of love, which appeared in the epic in a metaphorical form, and then became real. Finally, Abdurakhman Jomi was Navoi's mentor and teacher on the path of Sufism.
It is known that Alisher Navoi wrote about three categories of love in the tenth chapter of the second part of the work "Mahbub ul-qulub" entitled "In the Remembrance of Love". The first category is called the love of common people (ordinary people), the second category is the love of aspirations (great personalities), and the third category is the love of the truthful (those who are truthful in Islam, a doctrine about the spiritual world of man, guiding him to spiritual and moral perfection, in Sufism - people whose words and deeds, morals are correct). We know that common love is marriage based on religious marriage, love based on mutual respect, subordinate to the mutual human moral rules of ordinary people. The second category included people with pure words and pure eyes. Navoi considered Sheikh Iroqi, Hofiz Sherozi, and Abdurahmon Jomi worthy of this pure love. "With each poem, they ignited the fire of love, and with each verse, they burned the world of the heart of the suffering. Naturally, here the poet speaks about love, that is, about love for Allah. But to achieve the status of such love, a person must give their love to a person - to close ones: relatives, parents, teacher, friend, beloved, and those around them. Until a person loves and respects another person, they cannot be a beloved friend to the Creator. And love for Allah is the highest virtue of a person who has reached the status of Human".
According to the concept of love in Abdurahman Jomi's poem "Layli and Majnun", Majnun was initially a representative of common love. As proof of this, the poet included the image of Karima in his dastan. However, such an image is not found in the stories of Layli and Majnun, nor is it mentioned in the sources. It is not found in epics of the same name. Karima can be called a special fictional image of Jomi in the work. Initially, Majnun's fascination with her, sensing her inclination towards another, easily losing heart with Karima, inquiring about beauties, finding Layli and falling in love with her - these are (secular) situations observed in ordinary people, and this does not correspond to the concept of apologetic love. From this it follows that Jomi widely used sources about Layli and Majnun for the composition of his work, but it would not be a mistake to say that he formed the idea of his epic on a purely Sufi basis. Because the love in this epic is graded in such a way that it rises from the love of the common people to a special love, and from there, finally, to the divine level.
Although the motif of fainting is a traditional motif in literature, according to the sources of the genesis of this epic, when Majnun's father took him to the Kaaba, he heard Layli's voice in the valley of Mina and fainted, which is first mentioned in Ibn Qutayba's work "Kitob ash-she'r va shuaro". So, this episode existed in the plot of the stories of Layli and Majnun. Qutayba's work served as a source for Jomi and Navoi. In Jomi's poem "Layli and Majnun", Majnun loses consciousness a total of 12 times, but unlike in Navoi's poem, these losses do not occur in front of Layli, but when he remembers her and experiences separation. Only on the last occasion, when Layli sees Majnun among the shepherd's sheep, do they both lose consciousness. By this time, Jomi's love for Majnun has almost reached perfection.
In these epics, Qays-Majnun did not fit in his tribe and faced desolation in the desert. Avoiding ordinary people because they don't understand his mental state is, of course, a manifestation of human psychology. In Sufism, a seeker is honored with a passion in the khanqah, while Qays became a majzub seeker from the moment he first saw the mazhar.
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Another difference is that Majnun absorbed the state of passion, which is why he falls into the state of madness. He himself cannot explain this circumstance. In the epic, Navoi, through the image of Majnun, represents a majzub seeker who has passed through the stages of Sufism and achieved true love. We know that in Sufism, maqams are classified differently by different Sufis. Through the mystical analysis of Majnun, we can say that Navoi used the following levels of status, which are the most common in the epic. The poet skillfully and reasonably subordinated the composition of the dastan to the sequence of these maqams. By the time Qays saw Layli, he was in demand. Until he first fainted and regained consciousness, he experienced the state and moved to the second state - love. It is known that the state is a product, a result of the status. After this result, a higher status is achieved. Majnun rose to the stage of enlightenment through the love of Layli - mazhar (love) and became an orif, loving mazhar as God. It can be said that the state of Majnun in the state of istighna, his need for Navfal's daughter when he married her, is in Majnun's state of rich. The state of Layli and Majnun meeting on their wedding night is Majnun's love's transition from xavos (characteristic) to the status of tawhid: Vasl ayladi ikkilikni boqiy, Vahdat qadahini tutdi soqiy. (Navoiy, 192-p)
It should be noted that in the dastans of Nizomi and Jomi "Layli and Majnun", there is no episode of the same situation - Majnun's marriage to another and the lonely meeting of the two lovers on a wedding night; such a meeting is different in Nizomi, that is, after the death of Ibn Salam, the two lovers meet. Dehlavi included the story of Majnun's marriage to Navfal's daughter in his dastan. Majnun runs away on the wedding night, abandoning the bride, but he does not meet Layli. Thus, Navoi creatively revised this scene from his two predecessors -Nizomi and Dehlavi. The purpose of this episode of the meeting of both artists was a hymn of divine love. In Jomi's epic, the rise of Majnun's love is expressed through another event. That is, in the chapter of this epic, "Majnun met Layli on one of the roads and, in astonishment, waited for her return there for a long time and, thinking that she was a tree, built a bird's nest on her head", when Layli returned, Majnun did not recognize her. Now in his nature, the duality of Layli and Majnun disappeared, turning into unity.
In Navoi's epic, after the status of monotheism, both Layli and Majnun were amazed by their love in the state of wonder: Yo'q,yo'qki ikisi mast bo'ldi, Ham ikkisi mayparast bo'ldi. (192-p)
The fact that these lovers are placed in a coffin after their death can be considered as reaching the status offaqr-u fano. From this it follows that this poem by Navoi was created on the basis of the theory of vahdat ul-vujud.
True, even in the status of Talab that we wrote above, Majnun was sad and painful even before seeing Layli, as if his "backgroaund" was mixed with love: O't ko'rsaki mayl etib nihoniy, Ishq o'ti tasavvur aylab oni.(26-p)
Thus, although Majnun's love is analyzed based on status and circumstances, this love was born with him and faced eternity. Indeed, "Agar muhabbat g'alton (shar) shakliga ega bo'lsa, barcha manzil, maqom, hollar uning ichida mavjuddir va undan tashqarida bo'la olmaydi".
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In conclusion, it should be noted that Nizomi was the composer of the Xamsa, who created the first epic "Layli and Majnun" on the basis of accepting the love of apology, embedded in the essence of the story of Layli and Majnun in Arabic literature, together with the plot of this story, and Alisher Navoi was the composer of the xamsa, who combined this love with mystical interpretation.
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