Explore Iranica

In the summer of 1963 I had to write a foreword to the new English prose translation of the Shahnameh by Reuben Levy, having just completed an exhaustive reading of the whole of Ferdowsi’s epic not long after reading Latimore’s translation of Homer’s Iliad.  Naturally the two poems were ringing…

ŠĀH-NĀMA nn. The Šāh-nāma as a historical source Broadly speaking, Persian histories may be divided into three groups:  universal (e.g. Jāmeʿ al-tawāriḵ-e rašidi), dynastic (e.g., Tāriḵ-e Bayhaqi), and local (e.g., Tāriḵ-e Bayhaq).  Abu’l-Qāsem Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma falls outside this general scheme because to the extent that it is concerned with the…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS i. INTO TURKISH Turks have been influenced by the Šāh-nāma since the advent of the Saljuqs in Persia. Their last prince in Persia, Ṭoḡrel III, recited verses from the Šāh-nāma while swinging his mace in battle (Jovayni, II, p. 31). There is a great deal of evidence that…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS ii. INTO GEORGIAN One of the important research problems of Georgian humanities, to which scholars have devoted great attention, is the thorough study of Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma and its Georgian translations. Nikolaj Marr (1864-1934) and Justin Abuladze (1871-1962) laid the foundation of this research at the end of the…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS iii. Into English The numerous and varied English versions of the Šāh-nāma can be divided into two groups: direct translations from the Persian and adaptations of earlier translations. DIRECT TRANSLATIONS FROM THE PERSIAN Ferdowsi’s name, along with those of Hafez and Saʿdi, has been known in the West…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xiii. INTO POLISH The first brief mention of Ferdowsi in Polish was made by Ignacy Krasicki (1735-1801) in his work on poets and poetry (Krasicki, 1803, III, p. 483). Besides, Krasicki included in his collection of Oriental tales two passages originating from the Šāh-nāma: “On Alexander and an…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xiv. INTO RUSSIAN The first translation of the Šāh-nāma into Russian dates from 1849 when V. Zhukovski (d. 1852), the great Russian poet and translator of the Iliad, inspired by Fr. Rückert’s verse translation of the story of Rostam and Sohrāb, wrote his poem Rustem and Zorab (Zhukovski,…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xv. INTO JAPANESE After ʿOmar Ḵayyām, whose Robāʿiyāt was introduced to Japanese readers around the turn of the 20th Century, Ferdowsi was the first Persian poet to attract the attention of Japanese writers and authors, who translated selections of his Šāh-nāma, first and mostly the tragedy of Rostam…

ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xvi. IN SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES Among the works of classical Persian literature, Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma is the one best known in the Scandinavian countries. It has been repeatedly translated but never inextenso. In 1843, C. A. Holmboe (1796-1882) published the Norwegian translation of an excerpt, which is the first Šāh-nāma…

ŠĀH-NĀMA vi. The Šāh-nāma as a Source for Popular Narratives In dāstāns. Dāstāns are fictional prose narratives with common structural and thematic characteristics rooted in the tradition of oral storytelling (see DĀSTĀN-SARĀʾI; FICTION i. Traditional Forms).  Their composition and transmission are connected with the institution of professional or semiprofessional storytellers,…

SAḤĀB, ʿAbbās (b. Tafreš, 1921; d. Tehran, 2000), founder of Sahab Geographic and Drafting Institute (q.v.; SGDI); considered by many as the father of modern Persian cartography (Figure 1). At the age of seven his family moved from Tafreš (q.v.) to Tehran, where he was educated in the modern schools…

SAHAND MOUNTAIN (Kuh-e Sahand), With 3710 m the third of the great volcanoes in the volcano province of Eastern Anatolia and Northwestern Iran, the other two being Ararat and Sabalān (qq.v.).  In its geological history and structure comparable to the Kuh-e- Sabalān, the Kuh-e Sahand marks the southern fringe of the…

ṢĀḤEB EBN ʿABBĀD, Esmāʿil Kāfi-al-Kofat (938-95), vizier and belletrist. Ebn ʿAbbād was born on 14 September 938 in the village of Ṭalaqānča located approximately 20 miles south of Isfahan (Ṯaʿālebi, III, p. 237; Tawḥidi, pp. 126-27). His father, Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAbbād b. ʿAbbās (d. 946), was a prominent local bureaucrat and intellectual,…

ṢAḤIFA AL-SAJJĀDIYA, AL-, celebrated collection of supplicatory prayers (see DOʿĀ) attributed to Zayn-al-ʿĀbedin ʿAli b. Ḥosayn, also known as Imam Sajjād, the fourth Imam of the Imami Shiʿites.  The Ṣaḥifa is an important source of Shiʿite piety, and its prestige is reflected in its honorific titles, Zabur āl Moḥammad (the…

ŠĀHIN, Šams-al-Din Maḵdum (b. Bukhara, 1859; d. Qarši 1894), Bukharan Tajik poet and satirist. The only child of Mollā Amān, Šams-al-Din Maḵdum Šāhin was born when his father was in his seventies (Hodizoda, 2006, p. 7). The main source for his biography is Ṣadr-al-Din ʿAyni, according to whom Šams-al-Din’s father…