'Ali-Shir Nava'i (9 February 1441 – 3 January 1501), also known as Nizām-al-Din ʿAli-Shir Herawī[n 1] (Chagatai: نظام الدین علی شیر نوایی, Persian: نظام‌الدین علی‌شیر نوایی) was a Timurid poet,[1] writer, statesman, linguist, Hanafi Maturidi[2] mystic and painter[3] who was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature.

Due to his distinguished Chagatai language poetry, Nava'i is considered by many throughout the Turkic-speaking world to be the founder of early Turkic literature.

Many monuments and busts in honour of Alisher Navoi's memory have been erected in different countries and cities such as Tashkent, Samarkand, Navoiy of Uzbekistan, Ashgabat of Turkmenistan,[7] Ankara of Turkey, Seoul of South Korea, Tokyo of Japan, Shanghai of China, Osh of Kyrgyzstan, Astana of Kazakhstan, Dushanbe of Tajikistan, Herat of Afghanistan, Baku of Azerbaijan, Moscow of Russia, Minsk of Belarus, Lakitelek of Hungary[8] and Washington, D.C. of the United States.

[3] During Alisher's lifetime, Herat was ruled by the Timurid Empire and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual centres in the Muslim world.

Alisher's father, Ghiyāth al-Din Kichkina ("The Little"), served as a high-ranking officer in Khorasan in the palace of the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh.

Alisher's family was forced to flee Herat in 1447 after the death of Shah Rukh created an unstable political situation.

In 1472, Alisher was appointed emir of the dīvān-i aʿlā (supreme council), which eventually led him into a conflict with the powerful Persian bureaucrat Majd al-Din Muhammad Khvafi, due to the latter's centralising reforms, which posed a danger to the traditional privileges that the Turkic military elite (such as Alisher) enjoyed.

He was also a builder who is reported to have founded, restored, or endowed some 370 mosques, madrasas, libraries, hospitals, caravanserais, and other educational, pious, and charitable institutions in Khorasan.

[11] Among Alisher's constructions were the mausoleum of the 13th-century mystical poet, Farid al-Din Attar, in Nishapur (north-eastern Iran) and the Khalasiya madrasa in Herat.

He was one of the instrumental contributors to the architecture of Herat, which became, in René Grousset's words, "the Florence of what has justly been called the Timurid Renaissance".

[12] Moreover, he was a promoter and patron of scholarship and arts and letters, a musician, a composer, a calligrapher, a painter and sculptor, and such a celebrated writer that Bernard Lewis, a renowned historian of the Islamic world, called him "the Chaucer of the Turks".

He also crafted the monumental Majalis al-Nafais "Assemblies of Distinguished Men", a collection of over 450 biographical sketches of mostly contemporary poets.

Alisher's other important works include the Khamsa (Quintuple), which is composed of five epic poems and is a response of Nizami Ganjavi's Khamsa: Alisher also wrote Lisan al-Tayr after Attar of Nishapur's Mantiq al-Tayr or "The Conference of the Birds", in which he expressed his philosophical views and ideas about Sufism.

He translated Jami's Nafahat al-uns (نفحات الانس) to Chagatai and called it Nasayim al-muhabbat (نسایم المحبت).

Nava'i's last work, Muhakamat al-Lughatayn "The Trial of the Two Languages" is a comparison of Turkic and Persian and was completed in December 1499.

[14] Nava'i repeatedly emphasized his belief in the richness, precision and malleability of Turkic vocabulary as opposed to Persian.

[16] Below is a list of Alisher Nava'i's works compiled by Suyima Gʻaniyeva,[17] a senior professor at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies.

They begin the long and hard journey with many complaints, but a wise bird encourages them through admonishment and exemplary stories.

Muhakamat al-Lughatayn – Nava'i's work about his belief in the richness, precision and malleability of Turkic as opposed to Persian.

Navodir ush-Shabob contains 650 ghazals, one mustazod, three muhammases, one musaddas, one tarjeband, one tarkibband, 50 qit'as, and 52 problems.

The Russian historian Yevgeniy Bertels believed that Nasim ul-Huld was written in response to Jami's Jilo ur-ruh.

Siroj ul-Muslimin was written in 1499 and discusses the five pillars of Islam, sharia, namaz, fasting, the Hajj pilgrimage, signs of God, religious purity, and zakat.

Tuhfat ul-Afkor – Nava'i's qasida in Persian written as a response to Khusrow Dehlawī's Daryoi abror.

The work consists of 650 ghazals, one mustazod, two muhammases, one musaddas, one musamman, one tarjeband, one sokiynoma, 50 qit'as, 80 fards, and 793 poems.

Farhod wa Shirin, which was written in 1484, is often described as a classic Romeo and Juliet story for Central Asians.

Hazoin ul-maoniy consists of 2,600 ghazals, four mustazods, ten muhammases, four tarjebands, one tarkibband, one masnaviy (a poetic letter to Sayyid Khsan), one qasida, one sokiynoma, 210 qit'as, 133 ruba'is, 52 problems, 10 chistons, 12 tuyuks, 26 fards, and 3,132 poems.

In his poem, Nava'i wrote that his poems were popular amongst the Turkic peoples not only in Khorasan, but also amongst the enthusiasts of the poetry of Shiraz and Tabriz:[20] Moreover, Nava'i stresses that his poems received recognition not only amongst the Turkic peoples, but also amongst the Oghuz Turks:[20] These words prove the bayt below of the poet Nematullah Kishvari, who lived and worked in the Aq Qoyunlu during the rule of Sulatn Yaqub, and who was envious of the Timurid court:[20] This means that the Aq Qoyunlu saw the environment of the Ḥusayn Bāyqarā court as a model environment.

His influence can be found in Central Asia, modern day Turkey, Kazan of Russia, and all other areas where Turkic speakers inhabit.

Nikolai Lebedev, a young specialist in Eastern literature who suffered from acute dystrophy and could no longer walk, devoted his life's last moments to reading Nava'i's poem Seven Travelers.

[10] In 2021, an international spiritual event dedicated to the 580th anniversary of Ali-Shir Nava'i was held at the House of Friendship in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.