Explaining the Sociology of Suicide of Farhad and Shirin in the Lyric Poem "Khosrow and Shirin" by Nizami Ganjavi Based on the Theories of Emile Durkheim and the School of Romanticism

Suicide is one of the social harms that is instigated by the impact of mental and psychological backgrounds, social situations and conditions. Emile Durkheim posits that according to the relationship between suicide statistics and the prevailing social conditions, societies are divided into coherent and incoherent groups based on which different types of suicide are committed. In this descriptive and analytical article, the suicides of the two characters Farhad and Shirin in Nizami’s Khosrow and Shirin are explained and analyzed through Emile Durkheim's theory of suicide and by relying on the foundations of the school of Romanticism. To this purpose, an attempt is made to explain the anomic and cytomic conditions of Sasanian period, and to investigate the effect of social anomic conditions on the choice and type of suicide of Farhad and Shirin. According to the results obtained, Farhad and Shirin's self-destruction is of an individualistic type, which follows social discontinuities, including insecurity, social isolation, deprivation, betrayal, family system breakdown, mistrust of the government system, lack of a sense of belonging to the society and family, aimlessness, discrimination, depression and non-acceptance of the prevailing conditions.