Khamseh of Nizami

Composed between 1166 and 1197, the Khamseh (“Quintet”) of Ilyas ibn Yusuf Nizami (d. 1209) is among the most treasured texts of Persian literary heritage. It includes the treatise Makhzan al-Asrar (“The Treasury of Secrets”) and the epic Iskandarnameh (“The Book of Alexander”). It also includes three famous Persian love stories — Khusraw and Shirin, Layli and Majnun, and Haft Paykar (“The Seven Beauties”). Although Nizami originally composed these poetic tales to illustrate the ethics of courtly behaviour, many later readers came to understand them as allegories of mystical union with the Divine or simply as expressions of earthly romance. Some of the most iconic compositions in Persian painting, repeated by artists across the centuries, refer to these stories. Dated 1527, the manuscript on display includes twenty-seven illustrations and is one of five complete illustrated copies of the Khamseh in the Aga Khan Museum Collection.



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