Khosrow and Shirin is the title of a famous tragic romance by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), who also wrote Layla and Majnun. It tells a highly elaborated fictional version of the story of the love of the Sasanian king Khosrow II for the Christian Shirin, who becomes queen of Persia. The essential narrative is a love story of Persian origin which was already well known from the great epico-historical poem the Shahnameh and other Persian writers and popular tales, and other works have the same title.
Khosrow Parviz's first sight of Shirin, bathing in a pool, in a manuscript of Nezami's poem. This is a famous moment in Persian literature.
The Sasanian King Khusraw and Courtiers in a Garden, Page from a manuscript of the Shahnama of Ferdowsi, late 15th-early 16th century. Brooklyn Museum.
Khusraw Discovers Shirin Bathing, From Pictorial Cycle of Eight Poetic Subjects, mid 18th century. Brooklyn Museum
Khosrow Parviz and Shirin in a miniature
Nizami Ganjavi, Nizami Ganje'i, Nizami, or Nezāmi, whose formal name was Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī, was a 12th-century Muslim poet. Nizami is considered the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature, who brought a colloquial and realistic style to the Persian epic. His heritage is widely appreciated in Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, Iran, the Kurdistan region and Tajikistan.
Rug depiction of Nizami Ganjavi (1939). Ganja Museum, Republic of Azerbaijan.
Nizami Ganjavi at shah's reception. Miniature. 1570. Museum of History of Azerbaijan
Khosrow Parviz discovers Shirin bathing in a pool. Nezami's poems in a Persian miniature, created in ca. 1550 in Shiraz, Persia. Collection of Freer Gallery of Art
Atabeg of Azerbaijan Qizil Arslan welcomes Nizami