Shahnameh Explained

Shahnameh
Subtitle:The Book of Kings
Author:Ferdowsi
Original Title Lang:fa
Written:977–1010 CE
Country:Iran
Language:Classical Persian
Subject:Persian mythology, history of Iran
Genre:epic poem
Meter:Lines of 22 syllables with two rhyming couplets in the same metre (bahr-i mutaqarib-i mahzuf)[1]
Publication Date:1010
Publication Date En:1832
Media Type:manuscript
Lines:c. 50,000 depending on manuscript
Wikisource:Shah Nameh

The Shahnameh (Persian: شاهنامه|Šāhnāme|lit=The Book of Kings, pronounced as /fa/), also transliterated Shahnama, is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couplets (two-line verses),[2] the Shahnameh is one of the world's longest epic poems, and the longest epic poem created by a single author.[3] [4] [5] It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic.[6]

The work is of central importance in Persian culture and Persian language. It is regarded as a literary masterpiece, and definitive of the ethno-national cultural identity of Iran.[7]

Composition

Ferdowsi started writing the Shahnameh in 977 and completed it on 8 March 1010.[8] The Shahnameh is a monument of poetry and historiography, being mainly the poetical recast of what Ferdowsi, his contemporaries, and his predecessors regarded as the account of Iran's ancient history. Many such accounts already existed in prose, an example being the Shahnameh of Abu-Mansur. A small portion of Ferdowsi's work, in passages scattered throughout the Shahnameh, is entirely of his own conception.

The Shahnameh is an epic poem of over 50,000 couplets written in Early New Persian. It is based mainly on a prose work of the same name compiled in Ferdowsi's earlier life in his native Tus. This prose Shahnameh was in turn and for the most part the translation of a Pahlavi (Middle Persian) work, known as the Khwadāy-Nāmag "Book of Kings", a late Sasanian compilation of the history of the kings and heroes of Persia from mythical times down to the reign of Khosrow II (590–628). The Khwadāy-Nāmag contained historical information on the later Sasanian period, but it does not appear to have drawn on any historical sources for the earlier Sasanian period (3rd to 4th centuries).[9] Ferdowsi added material continuing the story to the overthrow of the Sasanians by the Muslim armies in the middle of the seventh century.

The first to undertake the versification of the Pahlavi chronicle was Daqiqi, a contemporary of Ferdowsi, poet at the court of the Samanid Empire, who came to a violent end after completing only 1,000 verses. These verses, which deal with the rise of the prophet Zoroaster, were afterward incorporated by Ferdowsi, with acknowledgment, in his own poem. The style of the Shahnameh shows characteristics of both written and oral literature. Some claim that Ferdowsi also used Zoroastrian nasks, such as the now-lost Chihrdad, as sources as well.[10]

Many other Pahlavi sources were used in composing the epic, prominent being the Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, which was originally written during the late Sassanid era and gave accounts of how Ardashir I came to power which, because of its historical proximity, is thought to be highly accurate. The text is written in the late Middle Persian, which was the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian. A great portion of the historical chronicles given in Shahnameh is based on this epic and there are in fact various phrases and words which can be matched between Ferdowsi's poem and this source, according to Zabihollah Safa.[11]

Content

Traditional historiography in Iran holds that Ferdowsi was grieved by the fall of the Sasanian Empire and its subsequent rule by Arabs and Turks. The Shahnameh, the argument goes, is largely his effort to preserve the memory of Persia's golden days and transmit it to a new generation, so that, by learning from it, they could acquire the knowledge needed to build a better world.[12] Although most scholars have contended that Ferdowsi's main concern was the preservation of the pre-Islamic legacy of myth and history, a number of authors have formally challenged this view.[13]

Mythical age

This portion of the Shahnameh is relatively short, amounting to some 2100 verses or four percent of the entire book, and it narrates events with the simplicity, predictability, and swiftness of a historical work.

After an opening in praise of God and Wisdom, the Shahnameh gives an account of the creation of the world and of man as believed by the Sasanians. This introduction is followed by the story of the first man, Keyumars, who also became the first king after a period of mountain-dwelling. His grandson Hushang, son of Siamak, accidentally discovered fire and established the Sadeh Feast in its honor. Stories of Tahmuras, Jamshid, Zahhak, Kawa or Kaveh, Fereydun and his three sons Salm, Tur, and Iraj, and his grandson Manuchehr are related in this section.

Heroic age

Almost two-thirds of the Shahnameh are devoted to the age of heroes, extending from Manuchehr's reign until the conquest of Alexander the Great. This age is also identified as the kingdom of the Kayanians, which established a long history of heroic age in which myth and legend are combined.[14] The main feature of this period is the major role played by the Saka or Sistani heroes who appear as the backbone of the Empire. Garshasp is briefly mentioned with his son Nariman, whose own son Sam acted as the leading paladin of Manuchehr while reigning in Sistan in his own right. His successors were his son Zal and Zal's son Rostam, the bravest of the brave, and then Faramarz.

Among the stories described in this section are the romance of Zal and Rudaba, the Seven Stages (or Labors) of Rostam, Rostam and Sohrab, Siyavash and Sudaba, Rostam and Akvan Div, the romance of Bijan and Manijeh, the wars with Afrasiab, Daqiqi's account of the story of Goshtasp and Arjasp, and Rostam and Esfandyar.

Historical age

A brief mention of the Arsacid dynasty follows the history of Alexander and precedes that of Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanian Empire. After this, Sasanian history is related with a good deal of accuracy. The fall of the Sassanids and the Arab conquest of Persia are narrated romantically.

Message

According to Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq, the Shahnameh teaches a wide variety of moral virtues, like worship of one God; religious uprightness; patriotism; love of wife, family and children; and helping the poor.[15]

There are themes in the Shahnameh that were viewed with suspicion by the succession of Iranian regimes. During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, the epic was largely ignored in favor of the more abstruse, esoteric and dryly intellectual Persian literature.[16] Historians note that the theme of regicide and the incompetence of kings embedded in the epic did not sit well with the Iranian monarchy. Later, there were Muslim figures such as Ali Shariati, the hero of Islamic reformist youth of the 1970s, who were also antagonistic towards the contents of the Shahnameh since it included verses critical of Islam.[17] These include the line: tofu bar to, ey charkh-i gardun, tofu! (spit on your face, oh heavens spit!), which Ferdowsi used as a reference to the Muslim invaders who despoiled Zoroastrianism.

Influence on Persian language

After the Shahnameh, a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on the Shahnameh, but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity.

Some experts believe the main reason the Modern Persian language today is more or less the same language as that of Ferdowsi's time over 1000 years ago is due to the very existence of works like the Shahnameh, which have had lasting and profound cultural and linguistic influence. In other words, the Shahnameh itself has become one of the main pillars of the modern Persian language. Studying Ferdowsi's masterpiece also became a requirement for achieving mastery of the Persian language by subsequent Persian poets, as evidenced by numerous references to the Shahnameh in their works.

Although 19th-century British Iranologist E. G. Browne has claimed that Ferdowsi purposefully avoided Arabic vocabulary, this claim has been challenged by modern scholarship, specifically Mohammed Moinfar, who has noted that there are numerous examples of Arabic words in the Shahnameh which are effectively synonyms for Persian words previously used in the text. This calls into question the idea of Ferdowsi's deliberate eschewing of Arabic words.[18]

The Shahnameh has 62 stories, 990 chapters, and some 50,000 rhyming couplets, making it more than three times the length of Homer's Iliad and more than twelve times the length of the German Nibelungenlied. According to Ferdowsi himself, the final edition of the Shahnameh contained some sixty thousand distichs. But this is a round figure; most of the relatively reliable manuscripts have preserved a little over fifty thousand distichs. Nizami Aruzi reports that the final edition of the Shahnameh sent to the court of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni was prepared in seven volumes.

Cultural influence

The Shirvanshah dynasty adopted many of their names from the Shahnameh. The relationship between Shirvanshah and his son, Manuchihr, is mentioned in chapter eight of Nizami's Layla and Majnun. Nizami advises the king's son to read the Shahnameh and to remember the meaningful sayings of the wise.[19]

According to the Turkish historian Mehmet Fuat Köprülü:

Shah Ismail I (d.1524), the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, was also deeply influenced by the Persian literary tradition, particularly by the Shahnameh, which probably explains the fact that he named all of his sons after Shahnameh characters. Dickson and Welch suggest that Ismail's Shāhnāma-i Shāhī was intended as a present to the young Tahmasp.[20] After defeating Muhammad Shaybani's Uzbeks, Ismail asked Hatefi, a famous poet from Jam (Khorasan), to write a Shahnameh-like epic about his victories and his newly established dynasty. Although the epic was left unfinished, it was an example of mathnawis in the heroic style of the Shahnameh written later on for the Safavid kings.[21]

The Shahnameh's influence has extended beyond the Persian sphere. Professor Victoria Arakelova of Yerevan University states:

On Georgian identity

Jamshid Giunashvili remarks on the connection of Georgian culture with that of Shahnameh:

Farmanfarmaian in the Journal of Persianate Studies:

On Turkic identity

Despite a belief held by some, the Turanian of Shahnameh (whose sources are based on Avesta and Pahlavi texts) have no relationship with Turks. The Turanians of the Shahnameh are an Iranian people representing Iranian nomads of the Eurasian Steppes and have no relationship to the culture of the Turks.[22] Turan, which is the Persian name for the areas of Central Asia beyond the Oxus up to the 7th century (where the story of the Shahnameh ends), was generally an Iranian-speaking land.[23]

According to Richard Frye, "The extent of influence of the Iranian epic is shown by the Turks who accepted it as their own ancient history as well as that of Iran... The Turks were so much influenced by this cycle of stories that in the eleventh century AD we find the Qarakhanid dynasty in Central Asia calling itself the 'family of Afrasiyab' and so it is known in the Islamic history."[24]

Turks, as an ethno-linguistic group, have been influenced by the Shahnameh since advent of Seljuks.[25] The Seljuk sultan Toghrul III is said to have recited the Shahnameh while swinging his mace in battle. According to Ibn Bibi, 1221 the Seljuk sultan of Rum Ala' al-Din Kay-kubad decorated the walls of Konya and Sivas with verses from the Shahnameh.[26] The Turks themselves connected their origin not with Turkish tribal history but with the Turanians of Shahnameh.[27] Specifically in India, through the Shahnameh, they felt themselves to be the last outpost tied to the civilized world by the thread of Iranianism.

Legacy

Ferdowsi concludes the Shahnameh by writing:

Another translation of by Reza Jamshidi Safa:

Many Persian literary figures, historians and biographers have praised Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh. The Shahnameh is considered by many to be the most important piece of work in Persian literature.

Western writers have also praised the Shahnameh and Persian literature in general. Persian literature has been considered by such thinkers as Goethe as one of the four main bodies of world literature.[28] Goethe was inspired by Persian literature, which moved him to write his West-Eastern Divan. Goethe wrote:

Biographies

Sargozasht-Nameh or biography of important poets and writers has long been a Persian tradition. Some of the biographies of Ferdowsi are now considered apocryphal, nevertheless this shows the important impact he had in the Persian world. Among the famous biographies are:[29]

  1. Chahar Maqaleh ("Four Articles") by Nezami 'Arudi-i Samarqandi
  2. Tazkeret Al-Shu'ara ("The Biography of poets") by Dowlat Shah-i Samarqandi
  3. Baharestan ("Abode of Spring") by Jami
  4. Lubab ul-Albab by Mohammad 'Awfi
  5. Natayej al-Afkar by Mowlana Muhammad Qudrat Allah
  6. Arafat Al-'Ashighin by Taqqi Al-Din 'Awhadi Balyani

Poets

Famous poets of Persia and the Persian tradition have praised and eulogized Ferdowsi. Many of them were heavily influenced by his writing and used his genre and stories to develop their own Persian epics, stories and poems:

Many other poets, e.g., Hafez, Rumi and other mystical poets, have used imagery of Shahnameh heroes in their poetry.

Persian historiography

The Shahnameh's impact on Persian historiography was immediate, and some historians decorated their books with the verses of Shahnameh. Below is sample of ten important historians who have praised the Shahnameh and Ferdowsi:

  1. The unknown writer of the Tarikh Sistan ("History of Sistan") written around 1053
  2. The unknown writer of Majmal al-Tawarikh wa Al-Qasas
  3. Mohammad Ali Ravandi, the writer of the Rahat al-Sodur wa Ayat al-Sorur
  4. Ibn Bibi, the writer of the history book, Al-Awamir al-'Alaiyah, written during the era of 'Ala ad-din KayGhobad
  5. Ibn Esfandyar, the writer of the Tarikh-e Tabarestan
  6. Muhammad Juwayni, the early historian of the Mongol era in the Tarikh-e Jahan Gushay (Ilkhanid era)
  7. Hamdollah Mostowfi Qazwini also paid much attention to the Shahnameh and wrote the Zafarnamah based on the same style in the Ilkhanid era
  8. Hafez-e Abru (1430) in the Majma' al-Tawarikh
  9. Khwand Mir in the Habab al-Siyar praised Ferdowsi and gave an extensive biography on Ferdowsi
  10. The Arab historian Ibn Athir remarks in his book, Al-Kamil, that, "If we name it the Quran of 'Ajam [i.e., Persians], we have not said something in vain. If a poet writes poetry and the poems have many verses, or if someone writes many compositions, it will always be the case that some of their writings might not be excellent. But in the case of the Shahnameh, despite having more than 40 thousand couplets, all its verses are excellent."[37]

Alexander legends

The Shahnameh contains the first Persian legend of Alexander the Great in the tradition of the Alexander Romance. Three sections of the Shahnameh are dedicated to Alexander, running over 2,500 verses in total, and Alexander's life is the work's turning point between mythic and historical rulers of Persia. It also represents a turning point of Persian-language representations of Alexander, from negative in pre-Islamic Zoroastrian writings to positive.[38] After the Shahnameh introduced the Alexander Romance tradition into Persian, the genre would become popular and numerous Alexander legends would be composed in the language, with the most significant works owing much to the Shahnameh. These include the anonymous Iskandarnameh, the Iskandarnameh of Nizami, the Ayina-i Iskandari of Amir Khusrau, and others.[39]

Illustrated copies

Illustrated copies of the work are among the most sumptuous examples of Persian miniature painting. Several copies remain intact, although two of the most famous, the Houghton Shahnameh and the Great Mongol Shahnameh, were broken up for sheets to be sold separately in the 20th century. A single sheet from the former was sold for £904,000 in 2006.[40] The Baysonghori Shahnameh, an illuminated manuscript copy of the work (Golestan Palace, Iran), is included in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register of cultural heritage items.[41]

The Mongol rulers in Iran revived and spurred the patronage of the Shahnameh in its manuscript form.[42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] The "Great Mongol" or Demotte Shahnameh, produced during the reign of the Ilkhanid sultan Abu Sa'id, is one of the most illustrative and important copies of the Shahnameh.[50]

The Timurids continued the tradition of manuscript production. For them, it was considered proper for the members of the family to have personal copies of the epic poem.[51] Consequently, three of Timur's grandsons—Baysunghur, Ibrahim Sultan, and Moḥammad Juki—each commissioned such a volume. Among these, the Baysunghur Shahnameh is one of the most voluminous and artistic Shahnameh manuscripts.[52]

The production of illustrated Shahnameh manuscripts in the 15th century remained vigorous under the Qara Qoyunlu (1380–1468) and Aq Qoyunlu (1378–1508) Turkman dynasties. Many of the extant illustrated copies, with more than seventy or more paintings, are attributable to Tabriz, Shiraz, and Baghdad beginning in about the 1450s–60s and continuing to the end of the century.

A resurgence of Shahnameh manuscript production occurred in the Safavid era. Shah Ismail I used the epic for propaganda purposes: as a gesture of Persian patriotism, as a celebration of renewed Persian rule, and as a reassertion of Persian royal authority. The Safavids commissioned elaborate copies of the Shahnameh to support their legitimacy.[53] [54] Among the high points of Shahnameh illustrations was the series of 250 miniatures commissioned by Shah Ismail for his son's Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp.[55] Two similar cycles of illustration of the mid-17th century, the Shahnameh of Rashida and the Windsor Shahnameh, come from the last great period of the Persian miniature.

In honour of the Shahnameh's millennial anniversary, in 2010 the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge hosted a major exhibition, called "Epic of the Persian Kings: The Art of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh", which ran from September 2010 to January 2011.[56] The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC also hosted an exhibition of folios from the 14th through the 16th centuries, called "Shahnama: 1000 Years of the Persian Book of Kings", from October 2010 to April 2011.[57]

In 2013 Hamid Rahmanian illustrated a new English translation of the Shahnameh (translated by Ahmad Sadri) creating new imagery from old manuscripts.[58] [59]

Modern editions

Scholarly editions

Scholarly editions have been prepared of the Shahnameh.In 1808 Mathew Lumsden (1777–1835) undertook the work of an edition of the poem. The first of eight planned volumes was published in Kolkata in 1811. But Lumsden didn't finish any further volumes.In 1829 Turner Macan published the first complete edition of the poem. It was based on a comparison of 17 manuscript copies.

Between 1838 and 1878, an edition appeared by French scholar Julius von Mohl, which was based on a comparison of 30 manuscripts. After Mohl's death in 1876, the last of its seven volumes was completed by Charles Barbier de Meynard, Mohl's successor to the chair of Persian of the College de France.[60]

Both editions lacked critical apparatuses and were based on secondary manuscripts dated after the 15th century, much later than the original work. Between 1877 and 1884, the German scholar Johann August Vullers prepared a synthesized text of the Macan and Mohl editions under the title Firdusii liber regum, but only three of its expected nine volumes were published. The Vullers edition was later completed in Tehran by the Iranian scholars S. Nafisi, Iqbal, and M. Minowi for the millennial jubilee of Ferdowsi, held between 1934 and 1936.

The first modern critical edition of the Shahnameh was prepared by a Russian team led by E. E. Bertels, using the oldest known manuscripts at the time, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, with heavy reliance on the 1276 manuscript from the British Museum and the 1333 Leningrad manuscript, the latter of which has now been considered a secondary manuscript. In addition, two other manuscripts used in this edition have been so demoted. It was published in Moscow by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in nine volumes between 1960 and 1971.[61]

For many years, the Moscow edition was the standard text. In 1977, an early 1217 manuscript was rediscovered in Florence. The 1217 Florence manuscript is one of the earliest known copies of the Shahnameh, predating the Mongol invasion and the following destruction of important libraries and manuscript collections. Using it as the chief text, Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh began the preparation of a new critical edition in 1990. The number of manuscripts that were consulted during the preparation of Khaleghi-Motlagh edition goes beyond anything attempted by the Moscow team. The critical apparatus is extensive and a large number of variants for many parts of the poem were recorded. The last volume was published in 2008, bringing the eight-volume enterprise to a completion. According to Dick Davis, professor of Persian at Ohio State University, it is "by far the best edition of the Shahnameh available, and it is surely likely to remain such for a very long time".[62]

Arabic translation

The only known Arabic translation of the Shahnameh was done in by al-Fath bin Ali al-Bundari, a Persian scholar from Isfahan and at the request of the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus Al-Mu'azzam Isa. The translation is unrhyming (nathr) and was largely forgotten until it was republished in full in 1932 in Egypt, by historian Abdelwahhab Azzam. This modern edition was based on incomplete and largely imprecise fragmented copies found in Cambridge, Paris, Astana, Cairo and Berlin. The latter had the most complete, least inaccurate and well-preserved Arabic version of the original translation by al-Bondari.

English translations

There have been a number of English translations, almost all abridged. James Atkinson of the East India Company's medical service undertook a translation into English in his 1832 publication for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, now part of the Royal Asiatic Society. Between 1905 and 1925, the brothers Arthur and Edmond Warner published a translation of the complete work in nine volumes, now out of print. There are also modern abridged translations of the Shahnameh: Reuben Levy's 1967 prose version (later revised by Amin Banani), and another by Dick Davis in a mixture of poetry and prose which appeared in 2006.[63] Also, a new English translation of the book in prose by Ahmad Sadri was published in 2013.[64]

Other languages

There are various translations of the Shahnameh into French and German. An Italian translation was published in eight volumes by Italo Pizzi with the title Il libro dei re in 1886–1888 (later reissued in two volumes with a compendium in 1915).

Dastur Faramroz Kutar and his brother Ervad Mahiyar Kutar translated the Shahnameh into Gujarati verse and prose and published 10 volumes between 1914 and 1918.

A Spanish translation was published in two volumes by the Islamic Research Institute of the Tehran Branch of McGill University.

In popular culture

The Soviet Armenian composer Sergey Balasanian and Tajik composer Sharif Bobokalonov wrote the opera Kova the Blacksmith based on the story of Zahhak and Kaveh from the Shahnameh. It premiered in 1940 in concert with a Russian libretto, and in 1941 on stage with a Tajik-language libretto by Abulkasim Lahuti.[65] [66]

The Shahnameh has also been adapted to many films and animations:

Sources

Further reading

Persian text

Adaptations

Modern English graphic novels:

External links

English translations by:

Notes and References

  1. Web site: History . eprints.soas.ac.uk . 2020-01-25 . 2021-02-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210225204318/https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/23024/1/An%20Annotated%20Micro-history%20and%20Bibliography%20of%20the%20Houghton%20Shahnama.pdf . live .
  2. Web site: Lalani . Farah . A thousand years of Firdawsi's Shahnama is celebrated . The Ismaili . 24 May 2010 . 13 May 2010 . 5 August 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130805175227/http://www.theismaili.org/cms/998/A-thousand-years-of-Firdawsis-Shahnama-is-celebrated . live .
  3. Web site: The Shahnameh: a Literary Masterpiece . 2023-12-25 . The Shahnameh: a Persian Cultural Emblem and a Timeless Masterpiece . en . 2023-12-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20231225125311/https://shahnameh.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/literary . live .
  4. Web site: Shahnameh Ferdowsi . 2023-12-25 . shahnameh.eu . 2022-12-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221207040531/http://shahnameh.eu/ferdowsi.html . live .
  5. Web site: 2023-05-15 . Iran marks National Day of Ferdowsi . 2023-12-25 . Mehr News Agency . en . 2023-12-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20231225125307/https://en.mehrnews.com/news/200711/Iran-marks-National-Day-of-Ferdowsi . live .
  6. Web site: The Book of Kings: The book that defines Iranians . BBC Culture . 2021-06-09 . 2021-03-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210314130926/https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180810-the-book-of-kings-the-book-that-defines-iranians . live .
  7. Encyclopedia: Ashraf . Ahmad . Iranian Identity iii. Medieval Islamic Period . . 11 December 2018 . 30 March 2012 . 25 October 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191025192310/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iranian-identity-iii-medieval-islamic-period . live .
  8. Encyclopedia: Khaleghi-Motlagh . Djalal . Ferdowsi, Abu'l Qāsem i. Life . . 27 May 2012 . 26 January 2012 . the poet refers [...] to the date of the Šāh-nāma's completion as the day of Ard (i.e., 25th) of Esfand in the year 378 Š. (400 Lunar)/8 March 1010 . 31 October 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191031194813/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ferdowsi-i . live .
  9. Book: Zaehner, Robert Charles. Zurvan: a Zoroastrian Dilemma. 1955. Biblo and Tannen. 0-8196-0280-9. Robert Charles Zaehner. 10.
  10. Web site: Ferdowsi Shahnameh Introduction. Ed. Eduljee. www.heritageinstitute.com. Oct 24, 2022. January 28, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230128130710/https://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/shahnameh/. live.
  11. Book: Safa, Zabihollah. Hamase-sarâ'i dar Iran, Tehran 1945. 2000.
  12. Book: Shahbazi, A. Shapur. Ferdowsī: A Critical Biography. 1991. Mazda Publishers. Costa Mesa, Calif.. 0-939214-83-0. 49.
  13. Book: Khatibi, Abolfazl. Anti-Arab verses in the Shahnameh . 2005 . Nashr Danesh. 21, 3, Autumn 1384/2005.
  14. Book: Katouzian, Homa. Iran: Politics, History and Literature. Routledge. 2013. 978-0-415-63689-6. Oxon. 138.
  15. Mutlaq. Jalal Khaleqi. Iran Garai dar Shahnameh. Hasti Magazine. 1993. 4. Iran-centrism in the Shahnameh. Bahman Publishers. Tehran.
  16. Book: Ansari, Ali. The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran. Cambridge University Press. 2012. 978-0-521-86762-7. Cambridge. 193.
  17. Book: Fischer, Michael. Mute Dreams, Blind Owls, and Dispersed Knowledges: Persian Poesis in the Transnational Circuitry. Duke University Press. 2004. 978-0-8223-8551-6. Durham. 21.
  18. Encyclopedia: Perry. John. Šāh-nāma v. Arabic Words. Encyclopædia Iranica. 28 May 2012. 23 June 2010. 17 May 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230517162636/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sah-nama-v-arabic-words. live.
  19. Book: Seyed-Gohrab, Ali Ashgar. Laylī and Majnūn: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niẓāmī's Epic Romance. 2003. Brill. Leiden. 9004129421. 276.
  20. Dickson, M.B.; and Welch, S.C. (1981). The Houghton Shahnameh. Volume I. Cambridge, MA and London. p. 34.
  21. Encyclopedia: Savory. R. M. Safavids. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd .
  22. Bosworth, C.E. "Barbarian Incursions: The Coming of the Turks into the Islamic World ". In Islamic Civilization, ed. D.S. Richards. Oxford, 1973. p. 2. "Firdawsi's Turan are, of course, really Indo-European nomads of Eurasian Steppes... Hence as Kowalski has pointed out, a Turkologist seeking for information in the Shahnama on the primitive culture of the Turks would definitely be disappointed. "
  23. Bosworth, C.E. "The Appearance of the Arabs in Central Asia under the Umayyads and the Establishment of Islam". In History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. IV: The Age of Achievement: AD 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, Part One: The Historical, Social and Economic Setting, ed. M.S. Asimov and C.E. Bosworth. Multiple History Series. Paris: Motilal Banarsidass Publ./UNESCO Publishing, 1999. p. 23. "Central Asia in the early seventh century, was ethnically, still largely an Iranian land whose people used various Middle Iranian languages."
  24. Book: Frye, Richard N.. The Heritage of Persia: The Pre-Islamic History of One of the World's Great Civilizations. 1963. World Publishing Company. New York. 40–41.
  25. Encyclopedia: Özgüdenli. Osman G.. Šāh-nāma Translations i. Into Turkish. Encyclopædia Iranica. 15 November 2006. 14 October 2011. 5 October 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20231005153245/https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sah-nama-translations-i-into-turkish. live.
  26. Book: Blair, Sheila S.. The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana. 1992. E. J. Brill. Leiden. 9004093672. 11. According to Ibn Bibi, in 618/1221 the Saljuq of Rum Ala' al-Din Kay-kubad decorated the walls of Konya and Sivas with verses from the Shah-nama.
  27. Schimmel, Annemarie. "Turk and Hindu: A Poetical Image and Its Application to Historical Fact". In Islam and Cultural Change in the Middle Ages, ed. Speros Vryonis, Jr. Undena Publications, 1975. pp. 107–26. "In fact as much as early rulers felt themselves to be Turks, they connected their Turkish origin not with Turkish tribal history but rather with the Turan of Shahnameh: in the second generation their children bear the name of Firdosi’s heroes, and their Turkish lineage is invariably traced back to Afrasiyab—whether we read Barani in the fourteenth century or the Urdu master poet Ghalib in the nineteenth century. The poets, and through them probably most of the educated class, felt themselves to be the last outpost tied to the civilized world by the thread of Iranianism. The imagery of poetry remained exclusively Persian. "
  28. Book: Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. registration. 2002. Karen. Christensen. David. Levinson. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. 0-684-80617-7. 48.
  29. Nurian. Mahdi. Afarin Ferdowsi az Zaban Pishinian. Hasti Magazine. 1993. 4. Praises of Ferdowsi from the Tongue of the Ancients. Bahman Publishers. Tehran.
  30. Persian: "آفرين بر روان فردوسی / آن همايون نهاد و فرخنده / او نه استاد بود و ما شاگرد / او خداوند بود و ما بنده"
  31. Persian: "که فردوسی طوسی پاک مغز / بدادست داد سخنهای نغز / به شهنامه گیتی بیاراستست / بدان نامه نام نکو خواستست"
  32. Persian: "که از پیش گویندگان برد گوی"
  33. Persian: "زنده رستم به شعر فردوسی است / ور نه زو در جهان نشانه کجاست؟"
  34. Persian: "چه نکو گفت آن بزرگ استاد / که وی افکند نظم را بنیاد"
  35. Persian: "سخن گوی دانای پیشین طوسکه آراست روی سخن چون عروس"
  36. Persian: "باز کن چشم و ز شعر چون شکر / در بهشت عدن فردوسی نگر"
  37. Web site: QudsDaily . 2007-08-25 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070928025851/http://www.qudsdaily.com/archive/1384/html/2/1384-02-25/page2.html . 2007-09-28 .
  38. Book: Casari, Mario . Persian narrative poetry in the classical era, 800-1500: romantic and didactic genres . 2023 . I.B. Tauris . 978-1-78673-664-2 . Ashtiany . Mohsen . A history of Persian literature / founding editor - Ehsan Yarshater . London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney . 443–461 . The Alexander Legend in Persian Literature.
  39. Book: Casari, Mario . Persian narrative poetry in the classical era, 800-1500: romantic and didactic genres . 2023 . I.B. Tauris . 978-1-78673-664-2 . Ashtiany . Mohsen . A history of Persian literature / founding editor - Ehsan Yarshater . London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney . 491–504 . The Alexander Legend in Persian Literature.
  40. Web site: Ten Most Expensive Books of 2006. Fine Books & Collections. 2007-08-31. 2020-08-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20200803125544/https://www2.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/0502/expensive-1.phtml. dead.
  41. Web site: "Bayasanghori Shâhnâmeh" (Prince Bayasanghor's Book of the Kings). UNESCO. 28 May 2012. 12 August 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130812133948/http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flagship-project-activities/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-1/bayasanghori-shahnameh-prince-bayasanghors-book-of-the-kings/. live.
  42. News: Lawrence . Lee . December 6, 2013 . Politics and the Persian Language . https://web.archive.org/web/20151117032005/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303670804579236074032552930 . November 17, 2015 . The Wall Street Journal . Alt URL
  43. Web site: ŠĀH-NĀMA iv. Illustrations . Simpson . Marianna Shreve . April 21, 2009 . iranicaonline.org . Encyclopædia Iranica . October 14, 2011 . May 17, 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230517162629/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sah-nama-iv-illustrations . live .
  44. Web site: Eduljee. K. E.. Ferdowsi Shahnameh Manuscripts. www.heritageinstitute.com. 22 August 2016. 3 June 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230603054956/http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/shahnameh/manuscripts.htm. live.
  45. Book: Michael Burgan. Empire of the Mongols. 2009. Infobase Publishing. 978-1-60413-163-5. 129–. 2020-10-10. 2022-09-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20220909184325/https://books.google.com/books?id=du9IBqrbMcYC&q=ilkhanate+shahnama&pg=PA129. live.
  46. Book: Sarah Foot. Chase F. Robinson. The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 2: 400-1400. 25 October 2012. OUP Oxford. 978-0-19-163693-6. 271–. 10 October 2020. 26 April 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220426022800/https://books.google.com/books?id=8kJoAgAAQBAJ&q=ilkhanate+shahnama&pg=PA271. live.
  47. Web site: The Art of the Book in the Ilkhanid Period – Essay – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History – The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Authors: Stefano Carboni, Qamar. Adamjee. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. 2015-11-11. 2021-05-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20210512053506/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/khan2/hd_khan2.htm. live.
  48. Web site: The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353) – Essay – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History – The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Authors: Suzan Yalman, Linda. Komaroff. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. 2015-11-11. 2023-06-11. https://web.archive.org/web/20230611201324/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ilkh/hd_ilkh.htm. live.
  49. Book: Vladimir Lukonin. Anatoly Ivanov. Persian Art. 30 June 2012. Parkstone International. 978-1-78042-893-2. 65–. 10 October 2020. 21 April 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220421154500/https://books.google.com/books?id=HTXxYNvCqfcC&q=ilkhanate+shahnama&pg=PA65. live.
  50. Blair, Sheila S. "Rewriting the History of the Great Mongol Shahnama". In Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings, ed. Robert Hillenbrand. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004. p. 35. .
  51. Encyclopedia: Simpson. Marianna Shreve Simpson. Šāh-nāma iv. Illustrations. Encyclopædia Iranica. 7 May 2012. 14 October 2011. 17 May 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230517162629/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sah-nama-iv-illustrations. live.
  52. Encyclopedia: Motlagh. Khaleghi. Bāysonḡorī Šāh-nāma. Encyclopædia Iranica. T. Lentz. 15 December 1989. 18 May 2012. 23 November 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201123042253/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/baysongori-sah-nama. live.
  53. Book: The Oxford History of Islam. 1999. Oxford University Press. New York. 0-19-510799-3. John L. Esposito. 364. To support their legitimacy, the Safavid dynasty of Iran (1501–1732) devoted a cultural policy to establish their regime as the reconstruction of the historic Iranian monarchy. To the end, they commissioned elaborate copies of the Shahnameh, the Iranian national epic, such as this one made for Tahmasp in the 1520s.. registration.
  54. Book: Lapidus, Ira Marvin. A History of Islamic Societies. 2002. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 0-521-77933-2. 2nd. 445. To bolster the prestige of the state, the Safavid dynasty sponsored an Iran-Islamic style of culture concentrating on court poetry, painting, and monumental architecture that symbolized not only the Islamic credentials of the state but also the glory of the ancient Persian traditions..
  55. Book: Ahmed, Akbar S.. Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society. 2002. Psychology Press. London. 0-415-28525-9. 2nd. 70. Perhaps the high point was the series of 250 miniatures which illustrated the Shah Nama commissioned by Shah Ismail for his son Tahmasp..
  56. Web site: Exhibition: Epic of the Persian Kings: The Art of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. The Fitzwilliam Museum. 29 May 2012. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120411014418/http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/whatson/exhibitions/shahnameh/. 11 April 2012.
  57. Web site: Shahnama: 1000 Years of the Persian Book of Kings. Freer and Sackler Galleries. 29 May 2012. 25 June 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120625112453/http://www.asia.si.edu/explore/shahnama/. dead.
  58. News: Fassihi . Farnaz . May 23, 2013 . Shahnameh, a Persian Masterpiece, Still Relevant Today . The Wall Street Journal . IRAN . August 4, 2017 . March 25, 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180325050258/https://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/2013/05/23/shahnameh-a-persian-masterpiece-still-relevant-today/ . dead .
  59. Web site: Shahnameh : The Epic of the Persian Kings by Sheila Canby, Ahmad Sadri and Abolqasem Ferdowsi (2013, Hardcover) – eBay. www.ebay.com.
  60. Djalali . Kambiz . Le Livre des Rois de Ferdowsi et ses traductions dans la philologie et la littérature françaises et allemandes . Revue germanique internationale . 15 May 2008 . 7 . 125–137 . 10.4000/rgi.403 .
  61. Web site: Osmanov. M. N. O.. Ferdowsi, Abul Qasim. TheFreeDictionary.com. 11 September 2010. 30 May 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230530114436/https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Abul+Qasim+Ferdowsi. live.
  62. Davis. Dick. International Journal of Middle East Studies. Review: The Shahnameh by Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi, Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh. Aug 1995. 27. 3. 393–395. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/S0020743800062413. 176284. 162740442 .
  63. Web site: Šāh-Nāma Translations iii. Into English . Loloi . Parvin . 2014 . Encyclopedia Iranica . 8 October 2015 . 30 May 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230530000144/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sah-nama-translations-iii-English . live .
  64. Web site: Lyden. Jacki. 'Heart' Of Iranian Identity Reimagined For A New Generation. NPR. 27 March 2017. 26 March 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170326132703/http://www.npr.org/2013/08/25/214831942/heart-of-iranian-identity-reimagined-for-a-new-generation. live.
  65. https://www.classic-music.ru/opera_kova.html Опера Баласаняна «Кузнец Кова»
  66. https://www.belcanto.ru/opera_kova.html Опера Баласаняна «Кузнец Кова»
  67. Book: Ashish Rajadhyaksha. Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. Paul Willemen. Taylor & Francis. 2014. 978-1-135-94325-7.
  68. Web site: Shirin Farhad (1956). Indiancine.ma. 2020-11-03. 2021-01-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20210121211109/https://indiancine.ma/IDO. live.
  69. Book: Filippo Carlà-Uhink. Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women from the Ancient World. Anja Wieber. Bloomsbury Publishing. 2020. 978-1-350-05011-2. 265. 2020-11-03. 2023-08-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20230804014307/https://books.google.com/books?id=2wvBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA265. live.
  70. Web site: Zal & Simorgh. aliakbarsadeghi.com. en-GB. 2017-06-26. 2016-11-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20161109233124/http://www.aliakbarsadeghi.com/zal---simorgh.html. dead.
  71. https://ru.kinorium.com/8659964/ Кузнец Кова (1987)
  72. Web site: Producer's web site (Persian) . 2017-06-26 . 2017-06-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170623105243/http://old.aviny.com/institute/ChehelSarbaz.aspx . live .
  73. News: 1 September 2012. India's vanishing Parsis – Not fade away. The Economist. 7 November 2020. 25 September 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200925180246/https://www.economist.com/asia/2012/09/01/not-fade-away. live.
  74. Web site: 2016-05-01 . Iran animation invited to Cannes Film Festival – ISNA . 2016-10-29 . En.isna.ir . 2016-10-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161030000428/http://en.isna.ir/news/95021206941/Iran-animation-invited-to-Cannes-Film-Festival . live .
  75. Web site: شاهنامه / ابو القاسم فردوسي ؛ بكوشش جلال خالقي مطلق ؛ با مقدمۀ احسان يار شاطر.; Shāhnāmah / Abū al-Qāsim Firdawsī ; bi-kūshish-i Jalāl Khāliqī Muṭlaq ; bā muqaddimah-ʼi Iḥsān Yār Shāṭir. . 15 April 2024 . UCLA Library.
  76. Web site: The Shahnameh [The Book of Kings]

    Critical edition ]

    . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230921164828/http://www.mazdapublishers.com/book/the-shahnameh . 21 September 2023 . 15 April 2024 . Mazda Publishers.

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