Alisher Navoiy’s ruba‘is

The ruba‘i is a four-line poem; Navoiy used 16 kinds of poetic genres in “Xazoyin ul-ma’oniy”, and specialists say the ruba‘i is one of the most fruitful. Because “Xazoyin ul-ma’oniy” is made of four independent divans it is also called “Chor devon”. His lyrical heritage includes genres such as ghazal, qasida, ruba‘i, tuyuq, qit‘a, muxammas, tarji‘band, masnavi, soqiynoma and muammo (riddle-poem). In “Nazm ul-javohir” the meaning of one hadith is retold in a ruba‘i: respect shown to a father is certainly returned, but it is the next generation – your own children – who return it. In another ruba‘i, a person shunned by the many is counted as the worst of the people, because his conduct harms everyone. A further ruba‘i says that a stranger in a foreign land cannot be happy and that a rose in a golden cage can never be a home for a nightingale – the theme of longing for the homeland. A ruba‘i that paints the beloved’s portrait through the repetition of the word “good” shows the descriptive power of the mother tongue.