Izzeddin Hasanoglu

Izzeddin Hasanoğlu (Azerbaijani: İzzəddin Həsənoğlu) (13th-14th centuries) was the founder of literature in Azerbaijani language.

Hasanoglu hailed from Khorasan. He was Sufi sheikh Jamaladdin Ahmad Zakir's student. He wrote in Azerbaijani Turkish, and Persian under the Azeri pseudonym "Izzeddin Hasanoglu" and Persian pseudonym "Pur-Hasan" (Hasan's son). The main theme of Hasanoglu's poetry was love. The tazkirist of the 15th century Dovletshah Samargandi noticed that Hasanoghlu had written his poems in Azerbaijani and Persian and they were well known in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Hassanoghlu’s famous gazelle in Azerbaijani language has reached to our time. This gazelle was included to the final part of Saadi’s “Gulistan”, which was translated into Turkish language by Seyfi Sarayi in the 16th century in Egypt, and this fact saved ghazal from oblivion.German orientalist Barbara Flemming discovered one more ghazal of Hassanoghlu in Egypt. Evidently “Divan” by Hasanoghlu existed in the 16th century in Egypt. The works, created by the author in two languages, witness the high mastery of the poet. According to poems it can be known that the poet was Sufi (scientific philosophical trend). It is impossible to differ poet's pantheistic love philosophy from love to concrete real person and a human being commonly. As lots of other pantheists, Hasanoghlu also welcomed earthly love, deified it, and exalted him to the Creator. It was a revolutionary approach to feudal ideology, the idea “analhag” – “God is incide me”- brave defiance. Hasanoghlu lived in the first half of the 13th century and the main feature of his creation was that he created it in his native language. Many generations of poets, who wrote in Turkic languages followed his lyric poetry. His followers are Ahmed Burhaneddin and Imadaddin Nasimi.