“Layli and Majnun at School”
Fol. 135v from a manuscript of the Khamseh of Nizami

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A hidden message in this illustration emphasizes the lessons of love that Layli and Majnun learn as schoolchildren. A couplet by the poet ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami (d. 1492), inscribed above the school’s doorway, reads: “Tell the teacher: don’t teach the fairy-faced one any unfair lessons / A fair face deserves nothing but a fair temper.”