He was a Central Asian poet, writer, philologist and painter. He was the most important poet of Chagatai literature. Under the pen name Navoi he wrote 30 works in Chagatai. Most poets writing under the Temurid dynasty of the time rarely used Chagatai. All his contemporaries wrote their works exclusively in Persian. Navoi also composed a few works in Persian, which he published under the pen name Fani. Chagatai, however, was the language in which he preferred to express himself. His works were instrumental in turning Chagatai into a highly prestigious language in Central Asia. A profound knowledge of the Persian language and literature helped him to make the Chagatay language as a language of high poetry. His famous works include the Diwan, Khamsa, Muhakamat al-lughatayn, Majalis al-nafa’is, Lisan al-tayr, Munsha’at, Mizan al-awzan, and others.
Berlin State Library possesses a total of 28 Navoi manuscripts. They came not only from the Diez, Hartmann and Huth Collections, but also from other orientalists and booksellers. This small collection contains six Diwans, two Kulliyats, two or three Khamsas, and individual compositions such as the Majalis al-nafa’is, Lisan al-tayr, Mahbub al-qulub, etc.
In the Diez collection are four manuscripts with works by Navoi: Saddi Iskandari, two copies of Majalis al-nafa’is, Khamsat al-mutahayyirin and the Diwan. All these manuscripts date from the 16th century and are described in the Catalogue of Turkish Manuscripts. From the Hartmann Collection there is Khamsa, Mahbub al-qulub, Lisan al-tayr, selected ghazals by Navoi and selected words by Navoi.
The works of Navoi from the Hartmann Collection are mostly from the 18th to 19th centuries; all of them have been described by the collector briefly and succinctly in a 1904 compendium “Die Osttürkischen Handschriften der Sammlung Hartmann”. The Diwan is the only work by Navoi including five miniatures, making it a rarity and object of special interest.
You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "Collections of the Federal Republic of Germany" (volume XI) in the series "Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections".
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