The information provided below from the introduction to English translation of "Haft Paykar: medieval Persian romance":  by Dr. Julie S. Meisami of Oxford University.

Abû Muhammad Ilyas ibn Yusuf ibn Zaki Mu'ayyad, known by his pen-name of Nizami, was born around 1141 in Ganja, the capital of Arran in Transcaucasian Azerbaijan, where he remained until his death in about 1209. His father, who had migrated to Ganja from Qom in north central Iran, may have been a civil servant; his mother was a daughter of a Kurdish chieftain; having lost both parents early in his life, Nizami was brought up by an uncle. He was married three times, and in his poems laments the death of each of his wives, as well as proferring advice to his son Muhammad. He lived in an age of both political instability and intense intellectual activity, which his poems reflect; but little is known about his life, his relations with his patrons, or the precise dates of his works, as the accounts of later biographers are colored by the many legends built up around the poet. Although he left a small corpus of lyric poetry, Nizami is best known for his five long narrative poems of which the Haft Paykar, completed in 1197, is his acknowledged masterpiece.  Often referred to by the honorific Hakim, 'the sage', Nizami is both a learned poet and master of a lyrical and sensuous style, qualities seen to advantage in the Haft Paykar.