Do you know any East poet but Omar Khayyam?

Actually I meant Middle East poetry. yeah, Rumi is as famous as Khayyam in west. I'm really surprized that Nizami Ganjavi who lived in 12 century(1141-1209) and wrote 5 long narrative poems ("The Treasure house of Mysteries"(1773), "Khosrow and Shirin" (1181) "Leili and Majnun (1188), Seven Beauties (1197) isn't so well-known in west. His works are so great that it's said Shakespeare is the Nizami of the West. He's the author of best love poem "Leyli and Majnun". "The virtue of Nizami's poetry lies in his ability of expressing people's desires and yearnings, in humanism common to all mankind, in highest artistic skill, in delicacy of progressive ideas, in their fluency and simplicity, perceptibility, actuality and profoundness." He's the only poet that reached his goal expressing all his ideas and thoughts by his works. At his last poem "Iskandar-Nama" (about (Alexander the Great)) "He created a social Utopia -- an ideal society, many centuries before the Western Utopists Charle Fourier, Robert Owen and Saint-Simon advanced this idea. In the society he depicted, people used to live happily without the state administration and its implements of the compulsion: the army, jails, etc. The people never fought each other, no blood was ever shed, all were willing to observe the rules of collective life. Nizami noted the possibility of establishing a similar society only through the moral and spiritual perfection of the Man."

Firdovsy, Nasimi, Fuzuli, Saadi and etch are also very great poets and I’m really sorry that they are not so well-known.

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Originally Posted by rocksea

Rabindranath Tagore is a great bengali poet [India]. His Gitanjali won the Nobel Prize,,
many of his lines are mesmerizing. He wrote in English too and most of his famous writings are available in english..

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Honestly I like his short stories very much ... more than his novels and poems. Especially I was impressed too much by one where he talked about two poor brother, actually about their wives that didn't live in peace.

I saw "The Bhagavad Gita" on my sister's book-shelf, but never get idea to read it. By your talks it sounds quite interesting.

Sub, I read about Indonesia very interesting two books with pics. About your traditions, culture, customs, history, life. It seemed so exotic and quite pretty. I found interesting that muslim women had never worn hijab and muslim holidays were celebrated mostly by national way, with national music. But the books were of 80's years and poor economy also reflected there.

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Originally Posted by caspian

I saw "The Bhagavad Gita" on my sister's book-shelf, but never get idea to read it. By your talks it sounds quite interesting.

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True...it contains words of wisdom..great book for spritual needs:)

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Sub, I read about Indonesia very interesting two books with pics. About your traditions, culture, customs, history, life. It seemed so exotic and quite pretty. I found interesting that muslim women had never worn hijab and muslim holidays were celebrated mostly by national way, with national music. But the books were of 80's years and poor economy also reflected there.

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Yes, Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world (in term of numbers of believers), but it's not a Muslim country, like Iraq and Iran. Means that it doesn't apply Islamic laws. That's why wearing hijab is not an obligation to Muslim women. But, there's an area here which does apply Islamic laws, where hijab is a must and Friday is public holiday. But in other areas hijab is a choice and Sunday is still the public holiday.
Well I dont know, in the 80's, Indonesia actually is one of the most advanced developing countries. The capital income was increasing, as well as the country's revenue. Indonesia even got an award from FAO for rice productions. There were of course poverty and unemployments. But if you compare it with today's condition, the 80's was a little better. Today, the gap between the rich and poor today is so wide, and unemployment rate is so high, that some social experts afraid that there's going to be social unrest sometime in the near future if the goverment doesn't take an action asap.