Why did Eric Clapton write Leila?

Do you remember the song “Leila” of Eric Clapton? Or I’m too old?
If you’re Persian you may remember it even if you’ve listened to it once. It was ten years ago when I first heard it. The Unplugged version of MTV. It’s a very nice song and no Iranian can ignore the word Leila in it. Leila is a girl’s name in Farsi and is famous for a very old Persian love story where the beloved’s name was Leili or Leila. Again, like most Iranian I was wondering how Eric Clapton found this name. So, after ten years, I made a small Google search.
Apparently, Eric was in love with Pattie Boyd who was married to his friend George Harrison , drummer of The Beatles. While Eric was in love, like many other desperate lovers he turned to love story when he found the story of "Leili and Majnoun" by "Nezami" . He found himself in the same situation as “Majnoun”( Leili’s lover) who was in love with Leili , a beautiful unavailable woman to him. So he decided to picture his feelings in this song and named it Leila. When the album released, he played the song to Pattie and expressed his love. They had a brief affair but Pattie broke it off and refused to leave her husband.
Eric was not very passionate about that love like Majnoun. Although he married her several years later they divorced unhappily.
This post doesn’t have strong references but if you want, you can find more information about the song yourself. I swear I didn’t make up the story!
P.S. The story is written in the form of verse (poem) by the famous Iranian poet "Nezami". Some people say, Nezami was from Azerbaijan to give the credit to them. It's like saying Rumi was from Turkey or Afghanistan despite the fact that his entire books are in Farsi and he was born in Persia- which included both of these countries back then and its remains is known as Iran- and descendants of Shams, his mentor, were from Tabriz (a city in the north west of Iran).

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