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The Hakim Abu al-Qasim Mansur Firdowsi
was born about AD 935 to a prosperous
and educated farming family
near the town of Tus in Khurasan
province of Iran. By age thirty,
he had developed a good understanding
of the past history of Iran.
Familiar with the consequences
of the Arab conquest of his
homeland, he sought to safeguard
Iranian heritage against impending
assaults by the Turks of Central
Asia. Toward this end, he studied
the chronicles of Mazandaran,
Sistan, Balkh, Bukhara, and
Khutan, as well as the oral
traditions that had developed
over centuries around the ancient
culture. These included discussions
of immortality, the divine right
of kings, knowledge, justice,
heroism, vengeance, deceit,
and black magic. By age forty,
Firdowsi was ready to versify
the entire account made available
to him by a friend.
Today, with the exception of a few relics,
the historical chronicles that
Firdowsi had at his disposal
are lost, including most of
the chronicles that he used
as the foundation of his epic.
Only a meager account is left
after the Mongol destruction
of the rich civilization of
the region known today as Central
Asia. While the chronicles and
the documents that Firdowsi
used have all but vanished,
however, his rendition of them
in verse remains. By ascertaining
the structure of the Shahname,
we can identify its focus, search
for the motivation for war couched
among ample battle scenes composed
to amuse the court and gratify
the public, and provide a reasonable
account of Iranian culture before
documented history begins. After
all, Firdowsi verifies what
we already know from other sources.
He gives our scant knowledge
of pre-Zoroastrian Central Asia
and pre-Islamic Iran direction,
perspective, and vitality.
Firdowsi did not invent either his heroes
or the events that form the
frame of his oeuvre. The tradition
he versified harks back, on
the one hand, to the efforts
of pre-Zoroastrian mu'bads who
glorified Mazdian saints and,
on the other, to the efforts
of Parthian and Sassanian monarchs
who, to assure the continuity
of their own rule, safeguarded
Iranian heritage against the
incursions of Hellenism and
rival religions.
The genesis of Firdowsi's Shahname transcends
the tradition whereby Iranian
monarchs amplified their deeds
to legitimize their right to
the kingship of western Iranian
lands. It belongs instead to
a time when recorded history
and genealogies as we know them
did not yet exist; oral tradition
was the job of the bard and
the minstrel. At some point,
before the appearance of the
Zoroaster, a controversy arose
over the position of religion
in relation to the monarchy:
Ahura Mazda would not send two
deputies to organize His affairs
on earth. In response to this
development, the court resorted
to legitimizing its rule by
emphasizing the support its
monarchs receive from Ahura
Mazda, while the mu'bads took
refuge in organizing their own
chronicles.
In the end, two different accounts developed,
each legitimizing a different
segment of society as the true
guardian of Iran. One had begun
as a line of stark genealogies,
describing the succession of
past kings. This, the official
and the historical account,
was soon embellished with the
story of the quick rise of Cyrus
the Great to the rulership of
a considerable part of the ancient
world and with stories told
and retold by veterans of the
campaigns of Darius I the Great
and Xerxes I. The other tradition,
built around the pivotal concepts
of martyrdom and kin (vengeance),
described the genesis of the
sacred land of Iran, its division
by injustice, and the measures
undertaken to restore the loss.
The mu'bads' accounts culminated
in a comprehensive compendium
on the renovation of the world
and the institution of just
rulership by the legendary Kaykhusrau.
Known as the Chihrdad, this
compendium, the most ancient
cultural heritage of Iran, forms
the core of Firdowsi's epic.7
After the invasion of Alexander the Great,
the historical traditions, kept
in official archives and summarized
on friezes and gold plaques,
were used to revive interest
in Iran's past glory. Iranian
nationalism enabled the Parthians
to expel the Greeks and become
the masters of Iran. The Sassanians,
who succeeded the Parthians,
also capitalized on similar
traditions in their ascent of
the Iranian throne.8 Once in
power, they committed those
traditions to writing and widely
publicized them to strengthen
Iranian society against incursions
by Buddhism and Christianity.
Oral tradition regarded the world as
a battleground upon which the
deputies of God waged an unending
war against satanic forces.
As the historical chroniclers
drew on the deeds of past monarchs
as proof of divine support for
their legitimacy, so the mu'bads
drew on the deeds of their saint-figures
(Siyavosh and Garshasp, for
instance) to stir up public
zeal. It was from among this
line of heroes, worshiped by
the multitude, that Zoroaster
emerged, and it was to legitimize
Zoroaster's deeds, words, and
ideas that the mu'bads organized
their chronicles. These chronicles,
therefore, provided the mu'bads
with an alternate version of
the ancient era before the advent
of Zoroaster. An era during
which exemplary kings ruled
who, using their farr (glory),
reorganized the affairs of the
world and instituted the rule
of justice.
The Sassanians held a unique place among
Iranian rulers. Since they were
a priestly family catapulted
into the rulership of western
Iran, they were both the makers
of recorded history and the
custodians of ancient Iranian
religious traditions. Under
the Sassanians, therefore, the
church chronicles gained state
sanction and became a part of
recorded history. To commemorate
the union of church and state,
the mu'bads and the court officials
cooperated in compiling a single
compendium of Iranian history,
including the contents of the
court archives and the church
chronicles. The result was the
Khudayname, a compendium that
encompassed Iranian lore spanning
the formation of Iranian lands,
the breaking away of Turan,
the emergence of Zoroaster,
to the rule of the contemporary
Sassanian dynasty.
After the fall of Iran to the armies
of Islam in the seventh century,
the Khudayname was translated
from Pahlavi into Arabic. Based
on such translations, in the
early years of the tenth century,
Abu al-Mu'ayyid Balkhi authored
a most voluminous and authoritative
prose Shahname. This and another
similar compilation by Abu 'Ali
Muhammad Ibn-i Ahmad Balkhi
were accessible to Firdowsi.
Also available to him was a
Shahname commissioned by the
Samanid ruler Abu Mansur al-Mu'amari.
This compilation, completed
in AD 957-58 and known as the
Shahname-i Abu Mansuri, served
both as the symbol of the legitimacy
of the Samanids of Bukhara and
as Firdowsi's major source.
That the compilation had been
undertaken by four Zoroastrian
priests is important because
it indicates a more accurate
transmission of materials at
a time when Zoroastrianism was
no longer the official religion
of Iran. Regarding the composition
of the book, Firdowsi admits:
All have gone sweeping in the garth of
lore
And what I tell hath all been
told before
Why then, one wonders, should Firdowsi
repeat what has already been
said? To find a niche in the
annals of time with the kings
he immortalizes. Regarding the
veracity of his stories, he
cautions the reader not to relegate
them to the realm of "lies
and myths." Rather, he
insists, his stories must be
understood to contain both knowledge
and mysteries:
Deem not these legends lying fantasy,
As if the world were always
in one stay,
For most accord with sense,
[others convey
Thoughts and mystery].
The epic is based, Firdowsi states, on
ancient accounts scattered in
the hands of mu'bads in different
regions of Iran. A champion
dihqan, he continues, collected
these stories by consulting
aged mu'bads of various climes
and compiled this book:
In the days gone by
There was an Epic Cycle spread
broadcast
Among the learned archmages,
and at last
A certain paladin, of rustic
birth,
A man of courage, wisdom, rank,
and worth,
An antiquary, one who ransacked
earth
For any legends of the ages
past,
Intent on learning what might
yet be known,
Called hoar archmages out of
every clime,
To ask about the annals of the
throne,
The famed successful heroes
of old time
When this book became available, it enchanted
the savants of the time. The
poet Daqiqi (Abu Mansur Muhammad
Ibn-i Ahmad)12 of Tus, a youth
of great eloquence and talent
but of vicious habits, declared
that he would versify it. This
first substantial attempt at
versifying the deeds of Iran's
saint-heroes and historical
personages, however, did not
come to fruition. Daqiqi had
hardly begun the saga-he had
composed only 1008 distiches-when
he was murdered by his own Turkish
slave, about AD 976-981.
Upon Daqiqi's death, Firdowsi says in
his introductory remarks, he
decided to try to complete the
saga. Fearing his own nearing
demise at age forty-five, he
was not sure whether others
might not have to complete his
projected work, especially since
the sovereigns were at war and
the future was uncertain. He
consulted a friend for advice,
and the friend encouraged him.
"This task," the friend
said to Firdowsi, "requires
eloquence and youth. Since you
are blessed with both, why not
undertake and complete the task?"
He then gave Firdowsi a book
containing the saga in Pahlavi
to versify in the new tongue:
He brought the volume to me and anon
The darkness of my gloomy soul
was gone
The Shahname was composed in three stages.
The first stage included the
collection of heroic tales and
the writing of romantic stories
like "Bizhan and Manizheh,"
"Rustam and Suhrab,"
and "Rustam and Akvan the
Demon." These stories are
based on a book given to Firdowsi
by a person called "Sarv
Naz." They do not conform
to the full text of extant and
established chronicles.
The second phase begins after Daqiqi's
death, when Firdowsi gained
access to the church and state
chronicles, especially those
of Central Asia. He versified
these chronicles and crowned
them with Daqiqi's "Garshaspname."
Daqiqi's distiches deal with
the reign of Gushtasp, the rise
of Zoroaster, and the conversion
of Gushtasp to Zoroastrianism.
The placement of Daqiqi's composition
in the body of Firdowsi's masterpiece
is noteworthy. Apparently attempting
a history of western Iran in
verse, Daqiqi had begun his
Shahname with the rise of Zoroaster
and the movement of events west,
that is, away from Central Asia
and into the sphere of the Median
and Achaemenian kingdoms. Firdowsi,
on the other hand, begins his
Shahname with the creation of
the sacred land of Iran in the
east and with developments that
lead to the breakup of the ancient
Iranian world, culminating in
the emergence of the independent
states of Iran and Turan and
their subsequent reunification.
As Daqiqi had intended to versify the
historical chronicles of western
Iran, Firdowsi apparently intended
to write an account that used
the chronicles of the eastern
Iran. After Daqiqi's premature
death, Firdowsi incorporated
Daqiqi's work in his own as
a transition from one set of
chronicles to another and, as
the third stage of his composition,
he completed the saga by versifying
western-Iranian chronicles and
archival accounts based on more
recent times.
The preparation of the completed Shahname,
after Firdowsi reached an agreement
with Mahmud Ghaznavi, took another
five years before all the appropriate
praises of the king and others
were included.
It took Firdowsi thirty years to versify
the entire account. In the early
stages of the work, he had a
steady income from his land
holdings to sustain him. In
his later years, however, especially
following the rude rejection
of his merit at Mahmud of Ghazna's
court (AD 1010), he lived a
hard life.
Mahmud Ghaznavi's rejection of Firdowsi's
work was surely not based on
a whim, as some later authors
wish us to believe. There must
have been an agreement between
the poet and the king that provided
Firdowsi with the incentive
to return to Tus from Ghazna
and work another five years.
There also must have been a
stipulation regarding the opinion
of the poet's peers. Firdowsi
held his peers responsible for
the king's disfavor. Firdowsi
felt that in their evaluation
of his work his peers allowed
religious bias, racial and nationalistic
concerns, and conflict of interest
to interfere with a fair assessment.
No doubt, Mahmud of Ghazna's
love of religion, Turkism, and
gold played a major role in
what resulted in the humiliation
of the bard as well. A Satire,
possibly written by Firdowsi,
is all the ramains from this
final chapter of Firdowsi's
life.
Firdowsi died in Tus at about the age
of eighty (circa AD 1020-1026).
He was buried on his personal
property in the outskirts of
the town and was survived by
an only daughter for whose financial
security he had undertaken the
completion of his Shahname.
Page Last Updated:
Saturday, December 10, 2005 23:50:23 -0500
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