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The paper reconsiders the apocryphal stories regarding the Shahnama's initial reception to propose that it was only after long narrative poems gained currency that the Shahnama was recognized as a masterpiece. The paper analyzes the structure and themes of several histories written before and during the Samanid period and compares them with the Shahnama and the content of histories and epics produced immediately afterwards, to argue that the initial reception of the Shahnama did not depend on Sultan Mahmud Ghazni alone. It further argues that the Shahnama's aim, content, and execution differed from the histories and poetry produced in the decades immediately preceding and succeeding it, which would account for the lag in its acceptance and popularity. This led later biographers to superimpose their regret over Firdausi's treatment onto Sultan Mahmud Ghazni, who by their accounts denied him the fame and glory he deserved in his lifetime.
1 Modern scholarship has determined that Firdausi himself did not travel to Mahmud's court to present his work to the sultan personally and that Mahmud did not receive the Shahnama well. Refer to Shahbazi, A. Shapur, Ferdowsī: A Critical Biography (Costa Mesa, CA, 1991), 91–93.Google Scholar For the latter point, see Davis, Dick, Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Fayetteville, 1992Google Scholar; repr. Washington DC, 2006), 179.
2 Shahbazi, Ferdowsī, 94–96.
3 See Ethé, Hermann, Yûsuf and Zalîkhâ by Firdausî of Tûs (Oxford, 1908)Google Scholar; the work has since been recognized as being written by a later poet; see Abdullaeva, Firuza and Melville, Charlesv, The Persian Book of Kings. Ibrahim Sultan's Shahnama (Oxford, 2008), 15.Google Scholar
4 According to Shahbazi, the satire against Mahmud, which it is believed to have been inserted into the Shahnama by Firdausi after Mahmud's cool reception of it, is apocryphal. See Shahbazi, Ferdowsī, 101.
5 Recent studies of the Shahnama refer to the well-known fact of Mahmud's interest in Persian history, literature, and culture, without making a connection between such specific interests and the kinds of histories being produced before and during his reign. See Shahbazi, Ferdowsī; Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition; and Yamamoto, Kumiko, The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry (Leiden, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 Khalidi, Tarif, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge, 1996), 34–51.Google Scholar
7 See Ghazzal Dabiri, “The Origins and Development of Persian Epics” (Dissertation, UCLA, 2007), chapter 2.
8 See Selheim, R., “Prophet, Chalif und Geschichte: Die Muhammed-Biographie des Ibn Ishāq”, Oriens, 18–19 (1966): 33–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 I use the term “precursor” in the Borgesian sense of the term: “The fact is that each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future,” though, unlike Borges I do not “purify it from every connotation of polemic or rivalry,” but rather the reverse. See Luis Borges, Jorge, “The Precursors of Kafka,” in Other Inquisitions: 1937–1952, trans. Simms, Ruth L. C. (Austin, 1975), 108.Google Scholar
10 While other historians of this period also engaged in this controversy, it is well beyond the scope of this paper to address them, though future studies are needed for a clearer understanding of the movement from its inception.
11 Mottahedeh, Roy, “The Shu‘ûbîyah Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 7 (1976): 161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Though Mottahedeh states that the shu‘ubis had no overt political motivations since they were not concerned with the creation of new governments (see p. 162), I view the “cultural-as-political-struggle,” to borrow the phrase from Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London, 2008), 52.Google Scholar
12 Mottahedeh, “The Shu‘ûbîyah Controversy,” 164.
13 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 52.
14 Abu Ja‘far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk, ed. by Barth, J., Th. Nöldeke et al. (Leiden, 1879), 154–155Google Scholar (emphasis added). See also The History of al-Tabari. An Annotated Translation. Volume 1, General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood, trans. Rosenthal, Franz (Albany, 1989), 326.Google Scholar
15 Mottahedeh, “The Shu‘ûbîyah Controversy,” 167–172. In particular, refer to page 171 where Mottahedeh states, “The Qur’ân commentaries therefore give us a partial explanation of the common agreement according to which the Iranians considered themselves to be a people; for Iranian Shu‘ûbîs (and probably for the majority of Iranians) the agreement was based in large part on ties to the land.”
16 I do agree with Andrew Peacock, however, that there is little to suggest that Bal‘ami was writing to revitalize Iranian nationalism (an anachronism in and of itself). See Peacock, A. C. S., Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Bal‘amī's Tārīkhnāma (London, 2007), 107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 For a full analysis on the complications of ascertaining Bal‘ami's original text, see ibid., 52–59.
18 See Dabiri, “The Origins,” chapter 1 for an extended discussion on Yima/Jamshid's sin.
19 Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 9.
20 Ibid., 10.
21 Crone, Patricia, God's Rule. Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought (New York, 2004), 4–32.Google Scholar
22 While it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the problematic nature of Firdausi's sources, it should be stated that I see no reason to assume that Firdausi was not aware of either Bal‘ami or Tabari's works and, furthermore, believe that he had access to them in addition to other texts and oral sources. On the question of the portrayal of Jamshid, see also Bogolyubov, M. N., “Jamshid in the Shahnama and Yima in Zarathustra's Yasna 32,” in Shahnama Studies IGoogle Scholar, ed. by Melville, C., Pembroke Papers, 5 (2006): 41–48.Google Scholar
23 The exceptions to this are the founding king of the Sasanian Empire, Ardashir, and the king who would become the preeminent representative of just kingship in poetry and works belonging to the popular ethics and mirror-for-princes genres, Anushirvan the Just (r. 531–79 AD).
24 See Dabiri, “The Origins,” 121.
25 Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 11.
26 Tabari, Ta'rikh, 201; the translation by Brinner, William M., The History of al-Tabari. Volume 2, Prophets and Patriarchs (Albany, 1987), 1Google Scholar, gives a much blander view of Zahhak's “accomplishments.”
27 Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 79.
28 Bal‘ami even uses a few key terms from the proceedings at Abbasid courts.
29 Abu ‘Ali Muhammad ibn Muhammad Bal‘ami, Tarikh-i Bal‘ami, ed. by Taqi Bahar, Muhammad (Tehran, 2003), 89.Google Scholar
30 Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 12.
31 Abu al-Qasim Firdausi [Ferdowsi], The Shahnameh, ed. by Khaleghi-Motlagh, Dj. (Tehran, 2006), 1: 44–45Google Scholar, ll. 62–70; the verses between asterisks are variants recorded in note 9. (All references to the Shahnama are from the Khaleghi-Motlagh edition.)
32 See de Bruijn, J. T. P., “Poets and Minstrels in Early Persian Literature,” in Transition Periods in Iranian History: Actes du Symposium de Fribourg-en-Brisgau (22–24 Mai 1985), Studia Iranica Cahier, 5 (Paris, 1987), 15–23Google Scholar, and Yamamoto, The Oral Background, 58.
33 With the exception of the Samanids, who patronized poets like Rudaki, who composed poems on a wide variety of subject matter.
34 Bosworth, C. E., “The Heritage of Rulership in Early Islamic Iran and the Search for Dynastic Connections with the Past,” Iranian Studies, 11 (1978): 18, 25–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mahmud's claims to connections with the Iranian past were faint. By contrast, the Samanids traced their lineage to Bahram Chubin. For the complex relationship between the Parthians and the Sasanians, refer to Pourshariati, Parvaneh, Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian–Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran (New York, 2008), 56–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 394 and see also p. 446 for possible connections between texts on Bahram Chubin's revolt and the Buyids. Refer also to Shahbazi, Ferdowsī, 84.
35 The primary references to Mahmud frame the Shahnama. In the beginning, the verses appear before the main story begins and after the sections in praise of the prophet and the stories of Abu Mansur and Daqiqi. Immediately after the Shahnama ends with the defeat of the Iranians, Firdausi praises Mahmud, Shahnama, 8: 487, l. 888. The following noted verses are a sample of the references to the Sultan in the Shahnama, 5: 220, ll. 19–20, which appear at the end of Gushtasp's story; 5: 439, ll. 7–8, which is a dedication to the sultan appearing before Rustam and Shaghad's story; 5: 515, ll. 1–6, which is a eulogy to the Sultan at the beginning of Darab's story; 6: 135–37, ll. 23–63, which is a eulogy to the Sultan at the beginning of the Ashkaniyan's story; 7: 409, l. 3862 and 7: 409 (footnote 17), which appear at the beginning and the end of Nushiravan's letter to Hurmuzd respectively. Each of these references frame the individual story (either by beginning with a praise/reference to Mahmud or ending with one).
36 Scott Meisami, Julie, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh, 1999), 53.Google Scholar
37 Ibn Ishaq and Tabari usually add the line “God knows best” when the veracity of a story is in doubt.
38 In fact, the texts that deal with the mythical and fantastical were met with suspicion by certain groups and rejected outright as reliable histories by many later historians. See Khalidi's Arabic Historical Thought for more on the development of historical narratives in general.
39 Meisami, Persian Historiography, 58. See also Robinson Waldman, Marilyn, Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography (Columbus, OH, 1980), 47Google Scholar, on Baihaqi and who he perceived his audience to be, what he expected his audience to know, and what he aimed to provide by way of aim and content. See also note 46 below for more on the histories produced during the later Ghaznavid and Saljuq periods.
40 Meisami, Persian Historiography, 69.
41 Meisami states, “[Gardizi] has a clear aversion to the sort of fantastic and legendary elements for which the Shāhnāma was criticised”; ibid., 69.
42 The Ghurar was composed in Arabic and was commissioned by Mas‘ud for his own legitimating purposes.
43 Gottfried von Herder, Johann, Against Pure Reason: Writings on Religion, Language, and History, trans. and ed. by Bunge, Marcia (Minneapolis, 1993), 151.Google Scholar
44 Though both these scholars were well traveled and collected their data in different cities, their base was Baghdad, among the many other scholars of the eighth and ninth centuries.
45 Here the issue of Daqiqi is slightly problematic since he was most probably born in Tus but lived at the Samanid court in Balkh as a court poet. He was commissioned by Nuh ibn Mansur (r. 975–97 AD) to compose a verse Shahnama. However, it cannot be ascertained what the final content of the epic would have been, since only 1000 of his lines were incorporated by Firdausi into his own version. However, Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Daqīqī,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 6: 662bGoogle Scholar, supposes that “Daqīqī chose to begin his versification of the text, not from the beginning, but from the accession of Goštāsp … Before Ferdowsī the major heroes of the Iranian national epics were Goštāsp and Esfandīār, not Rostam” (http://www.iranica.com/newsite (last accessed 12/09/09)). If so, Firdausi's Shahnama appears to differ significantly from what the Samanids had commissioned.
46 Other histories written during the Ghaznavid period such as the Tarikh-i Sistan still treat Iran's pre-Islamic past, although cursorily. The Tarikh-i Sistan primarily does so to the extent that it dealt with Sistan's glory and Sistan's perceived foreknowledge and acceptance of Islam. Refer to Meisami, Persian Historiography, 108–111 for more information and refer to the fourth chapter, “Historiography of the Saljūq Period,” for a discussion on the themes and structures of the late eleventh and twelfth-century histories such as the Mujmal al-Tawarikh and the Farsnama, which deal with pre-Islamic Iranian history in other contexts.
47 See Waldman, Theory of Historical Narrative, 63, for a discussion on the use of encomiastic poems as a medium for military history.
48 The scope of the article is limited to the specific aforementioned histories. More research, however, is needed on the intellectual concerns and the context of the development of Iranian historiography (I use the term Iranian historiography for histories that deal with Iranian history irrespective of language used).
49 The Abu Mansuri Shahnama is excluded from discussion here since, besides the Preface, which was appended to an early copy of Firdausi's Shahnama, the text is no longer extant. Therefore, any discussion on the topic of what the text may or may not have included or how similar it was in structure, aim, and content to the other histories produced around the same time period is too speculative by nature.
50 Azarnush, Azartash, Chalish Miyan-i Farsi va ‘Arabi dar Sadaha-yi Nukhust (Tehran, 2006).Google Scholar
51 For instance, Gurgani's Vis va Ramin, Asadi Tusi's Garshaspnama, Nizami's Khusrau va Shirin, Layli va Majnun, Haft Paikar for the first group; the Alinama, Abu Tahir al-Tartusi's Abu Muslimnama for the second group; and Sana'i's Hadiqat al-Haqiqa, Nizami's Makhzan al-Asrar, and ‘Attar's Mantiq al-Tair and Ilahinama for the third.
52 See Gurgani, , Vis va Ramin, ed. by Raushan, Muhammad (Tehran, 1999).Google Scholar The assumption that the story is based on historical figures is a reflection of the beliefs of the poets, historians, and biographers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries who mention the romance. See Minorsky, V., “Vīs u Rāmīn, a Parthian Romance,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 11, no. 4 (1946): 741–742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
53 See Nizami, , “Haft Paikar,” in Kulliyat-i Nizami Ganjavi: Mutabiq-i Nuskha-yi Vahid Dastgirdi, ed. by Baba'i, Parviz (Tehran, 1999).Google Scholar
54 See Nizami, “Iskandarnama,” in ibid.
55 For more on anecdotes and “counterhistories” in new historicism, see Gallagher, Catherine and Greenblatt, Stephen, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago, 2000), 49–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Dabiri, “The Origins,” chapter 3, for a discussion of the relationship between the Mantiq al-Tair and preceding epics through historiography and the theme of just kingship. For ‘Attar's Ilahinama, see also trans. Boyle, J. A., The Ilāhī-nāma or Book of God (Manchester, 1976).Google Scholar