This design pays tribute to an 18th-century binding that housed the Khamsa, a seminal work by Persian Sunni Muslim poet Nizami Ganjavi (c. 1141–1209).

This design pays tribute to an 18th-century binding that housed the Khamsa, a seminal work by Persian Sunni Muslim poet Nizami Ganjavi (c. 1141–1209).

Featuring intricate floral detail, our Layla cover design beautifully mirrors the contents of the original volume. Considered the greatest romantic poet in Persian literature and described as a “creator of poetic scenes,” Nizami brought a colloquial and otherworldly quality to the Persian epic. His best-known work, the Khamsa (also known in English as the Five Treasures), is a series of five long narrative poems. The first of these, Makhzan-ol-Asrâr, was influenced by Sanai Ghaznavi’s The Walled Garden of Truth, an early Sufi book of mystical poetry.

The four other poems are medieval romances. His tragic story of star-crossed lovers Layla and Majnun has famously inspired many contemporary artists with its theme of unrequited love. The delicately adorned cover of this Layla journal, the second title in our Persian Poetry series, reflects the beauty of the words held within the original 18th-century book.