Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Кампания по приданию Низами статуса национального азербайджанского поэта" in Russian language version.
«The partisans of classical oriental studies were also made to take refuge in the hoary past.»
The fact that numerous quatrains of some poets (e.g. Amir Šams-al-Din Asʿad of Ganja, ʿAziz Šarvāni, Šams Sojāsi, Amir Najib-al-Din ʿOmar of Ganja, Badr Teflisi, Kamāl Marāḡi, Šaraf Ṣāleḥ Baylaqāni, Borhān Ganjaʾi, Elyās Ganjaʾi, Baḵtiār Šarvāni) are mentioned together like a series tends to suggest the author was in possession of their collected works. Nozhat al-mājales is thus a mirror of the social conditions at the time, reflecting the full spread of Persian language and the culture of Iran throughout that region, clearly evidenced by the common use of spoken idioms in poems as well as the professions of the some of the poets.
This was done to distance the Turkic groups from Islam, as well as to instill in them the pride in a glorious, albeit fictional, national identity by claiming the Persian or Byzantine heritage as their own. Hence, the great Persian poet Nezami became the national poet of Azerbaijan; the medieval Persian poets and thinkers of Central Asia, such as Rudaki, became the national poets and philosophers of Uzbekistan, while Rumi was transformed into a great Turkish mystic poet.
«The partisans of classical oriental studies were also made to take refuge in the hoary past.»
