Famous people A

Private life
Alisher Navoi belonged to the Sufi order of Naqshbandiya, was a pious man and voluntarily took asceticism upon himself – he was not married, knew no pleasure in having children. As the Temurid poet and ruler Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur said of him in his epic poem “Baburname”:
“Without a son, without a daughter, without a wife, he went his way in the world, beautiful, lonely and easy”.
However, there is a legend about the poet’s private life which says that Alisher Navoi and Husayn Boyqaro fell in love with the same girl – Guli – when he was young. The noble Navoi could not hurt his friend and persuaded the beauty to become Husayn’s wife. It is said that the poet carried his love for Guli throughout his life.
In his own poems, the poet condemns loneliness and even wrote wonderful lines:
“He who has chosen loneliness as his fate.
No man: he has stolen his fate.
He is alone with men, his days are bitter:
Has anyone heard the clap of a single hand?”
Alisher Navoi was described by his contemporaries as a man of troubled character, short tempered and even arrogant.
“He was a man of high, fine intelligence and excellent education,” Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur characterises Alisher Navoi, “and demanded that all people behave alike and therefore he found it difficult to get along with them.