Katalog

182 Cat. 86 | Ca 2017-1 The Iranian Shāhnāma (The Book of Kings) is among the most complex ethical, myth- ological, and historical lyric poems of world literature, to be considered alongside with Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey , the Indian Mahābhārata , the Tibetan Gesar saga, and Dante’s Divine Comedy . It is divided into fifty chapters, each devoted to one Iranian king, and has between 55,000 and 66,000 verses (there are several different versions). It took the author, Abū‘l-Qāsim Firdausī, thirty-five years to complete the epic, in 1010. Firdausī took over from Abū-Mansūr Daqiqī, who died after completing only the first few chapters. The first part covers the mythical age. It relates history from the first man, Keyu- mars, who became the first king, until the great king Kay Khusrau and the conflict between Iran and Turan. The hero of these battles is Rustam, born in Zabulistan (pres- ent-day Zabul in southern Afghanistan). The second phase deals with the heroic age. It briefly mentions Garshāsp and his son Narimān, under whom the doctrine of Zarathustra is spread. The battle against Turan and its ruler Afrāsiyāb, begun by Rustam, is won by the hero Isfandiyār, the grandson of Luhrāsp. After heroic battles against evil forces and sinister predators, Isfandiyār is sent by his father to capture the ruler Rustam. However, Rustam shoots the hero in the eye with the feather of a Sīmurgh. Part three deals with the historical age. It begins with Darab and Dārā, known to the Greeks as Darius, and his war against Alexander the Great. His victory and succession as Shāh of Iran culminated in the fall of his nation to this ruler from the West. Little is said about the history of the Parthians, but a selection of stories, legends, and romances from the Sasanian period is included. The epic ends with the Arab invasion of Iran and the death of the last Sasanian ruler, Yazdigerd III (r. 632–51), who was killed at Marv. The work exerted a profound impact during the Mongol and Timurid periods (1222–1506) as well as under the last monarchs of the Qājār and Pahlavī dynasties in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This ongoing fascination is surprising, for the epic, which was composed in the early days of the Islamisation of Iran, deals exclusively with the pre-Islamic history of the country and its great kings and heroes. Firdausī dedicated the epic to Sultān Mah. mūd-i G. aznavī (971–1030), who was of Turkish descent and initially did not like it, perhaps because of his own literary naivety. The Sunni ruler also may have disliked Firdausī’s Shī’a leanings, which were not in favour in Iran at the time. A central motif of the Shāhnāma is the conflict between the rulers of Iran (roughly present-day Iran and Afghanistan) and those of Turan (Central Asia), which had for centuries been settled and dominated by Turks. The epic deals with this conflict at all levels, political as well as ethical, and offers a wide range of interpretations of the role of the key figures. On the one hand, Firdausī depicts Iranian heroic virtues and superhuman strength in a manner that might be seen as “nationalistic.” On the other hand, the poet tempers this exaggeration with the real- ity that the early Turanian kings belonged to the same Iranian dynasty. Only one ruler on the Turanian throne, who is deceived by the devil, is of Arabic origin: Żah. h. āk, out of whose shoulders grow man-eating snakes. It is this very Żah. h. āk who subjugates Iran and becomes one of its great kings. Also included among the great kings is Alexander the Great, known by his Eastern name, Iskandar or Sikandar. According to the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism, Alexander is condemned for vanquishing Darius III and looting Persepolis. But Firdausī has Alexander mourn the murder of Darius as unjustified; he relates his succession in accordance with Hellenistic tradition and Ca 2017-1/1 (p. 1) Front page with ornamental head ( ‘unvān ) and invocation basmala Cat. 86 | Ca 2017-1 Illustrated manuscript of the Shāhnāma by Firdausī, written 976–1010 brown leather binding (modern), gold-embossed margin, 29.5×20×7.6 cm Mughal India, 18 th century; calligraphy nasta’līq , black ink; headings in red ink; golden and bluish black borders; added in the same calligrapher’s hand are parts of the Iranian epic Humāy and Humāyūn by Khvājū Kermānī, written in 1331, begin- ning of text missing; ornamental head- piece ( ‘unvān ) in lapis lazuli and gold, inscribed with the basmala (invocation of God). Illustrations in the northern Indian style, probably Kashmir, late 18 th –early 19 th cen- tury (before 1814), 96 illustrations of the Shāhnāma and 4 illustrations of Humāy and Humāyūn , 24 large and small areas left blank for illustrations; watercolour, gold, and silver Donation by Roland Steffan and Hans- Jörg Schwabl, Dresden, from the estate of Gertrud Rennhard, Küsnacht, Canton of Zurich An Early Nineteenth-Century Copy of the Shāhnāma