New NaqqaliThe Poem at a Glance
The Shahnameh, or Iranian Book of Kings, is Ferdowsi’s poem of the history of Iran, from the mythical creation of the world to the fall of the Sasanian Empire. Completed around 1010 CE after more than three decades of labor, it took stories of myth, legends, and actual dynastic history and combined them into an epic of more than 50,000 Farsi rhyming couplets. It is believed to be the longest poem written by one person.
Its importance to the people of Iran and Central Asia can hardly be overstated. It is central to their literary and cultural identity, is still quoted widely today, and its characters are instantly recognizable to people of Iranian descent.
Ferdowsi
Iran in Ferdowsi’s Time
Ferdowsi was born in the middle of the tenth century in Tus, in the province of Khorasan in northeastern Iran. In this period Khorasan stood among the most vibrant intellectual centers of the Persianate world. Cities such as Nishapur, Balkh, and Tus formed a network of scholarship, trade, and cultural exchange linking Iran with Central Asia and the broader Islamic world.
Iran had fallen to the Arab conquests of the 7th century CE, and those conquests had upended Iran politically, linguistically and religiously. By the tenth century a growing movement sought to remember this inherited past.
Ferdowsi grew up in a world in which the materials of Iranian historical ideals still circulated but lacked unified expression.
His own social milieu likely reinforced this orientation toward preservation. Ferdowsi is associated with the dehqan class, a landed gentry responsible for the maintenance of genealogy and local historical tradition. This sounds more romantic than necessary. Dehqans, in an era of widespread illiteracy, kept track of who was related to whom as well as which hill belonged to which clan.
The Life of Ferdowsi
Long before Ferdowsi, the stories of ancient Iranian kings and heroes circulated in oral performance, regional legend, and written chronicle. Among the most important written sources was the Middle Persian royal history, the Khwaday-namag (“Book of Lords”), which included the succession of pre-Islamic rulers and the major events associated with their reigns.
Ferdowsi drew on many sources (scholars continue to debate them), and one he explicitly and lengthily quotes is the 10th-century poet Daqiqi, who had begun gathering and versifying the material that would become the Shahnameh. Ferdowsi later incorporated his verses directly into his own work, preserving them within the epic and acknowledging Daqiqi as an important source.
Ferdowsi selected, arranged, condensed, expanded, and refined inherited stories to produce a consistent tone. The resulting work presents the appearance of inevitability, as though the story could unfold in no other way, yet this effect is the result of deliberate artistic design. In other words, he rewrote history if he thought it worked better.
The language of the poem is one of the best and most impactful things about it. It was written in Farsi, which was under heavy pressure from Arabic in his time; it minimized the use of Arabic vocabulary and is widely credited as having “saved” Farsi from being overrun by the Arabic language.
Unlike the narrators of other epics, Ferdowsi frequently enters the poem in his own voice. He reflects on the passing of years, the hardships of his labor, the uncertainties of fortune, and the sad inevitability of mortality. These moments create a beautiful, evocative setting: a story of kings and heroes, framed by the presence of a perpetually disappointed aging poet.
Ultimately, Ferdowsi’s final word is endurance. Kings die, heroes die, he’ll die; but he is confident his poem, and by extension, Iran, will remain.
Patronage and Politics
During the early phases of composition, Ferdowsi benefited from the support of local elites. For such patrons, the remembrance of ancient kingship was cultural affirmation, an assertion of historical continuity after their civilization had been all but wiped out.
As the poem approached completion, Ferdowsi turned toward the most powerful sovereign of his era: Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. Presentation of the Shahnameh to Mahmud promised material reward and imperial visibility.
Since first the Maker brought the world to birth,No king like him has risen on the earth.When on the sphere the sun displayed its crown,An ivory radiance clothed the world around.You say, “the sun!” but can the sun compare?His light exceeds all radiance anywhere.A0.12, Praise for Sultan Mahmud
Unfortunately, later tradition portrayed the relationship as disappointing in terms of reward. The payment he received, according to longstanding tradition, was in silver instead of gold.