The Shahnama and Related Epics

Мифы и мифические сказки разных народов, являются памятниками старины, и знаком культуры и цивилизации этого народа. Мифические герои являются образцом национальной гордости для разных наций. Все народы в своей жизни создали легенды и мифы, которые, более или менее, были приняты ими.

Scholarship on Persianate painting has overlooked sixteenth-century Mawarannahr manuscript arts of the Shaybanid Uzbeks, a Turkish and Mongol tribal confederation that occupied present-day Central Asia. Art historical research has relegated the Shaybanid realm and its arts to a peripheral position always in relation to Safavid Iran that is perceived as its enemy, but this paper shifts the Shaybanids from a marginal position to become the center of a focused study. Prior research created the category “Bukharan School” to label certain single-page specimens and to privilege subject matter with romantic themes at the expense of others. These readings have ignored the wider array of materials, subjects, and styles coming out of multiple centers at the same time.   
This study rectifies the skewed understanding of the manuscript arts in the realm of the Abulkhayrid branch of the Shaybanids (1500-1598) in the context of confrontations and encounters with --and also rapprochement and divergence between-- the Safavids. It looks at select “militant manuscripts” copied in the mid-sixteenth century that blend mythical heroes with historical figures. Whether it is an historical chronicle like the Shaybanināma or a collection of myths and legends within the Shahnāma, the artists insert Shaybanid leaders into the chronology of descendants of Chinggis Khan, noticeably disregarding the preceding Timurid dynasty whom the Shaybanids conquered. While the Safavids looked to the fifteenth-century Timurid dynasty to obtain legitimacy, the Shaybanids were pursuing connections to the more distant fourteenth-century Ilkhanid age and promoting a Mongol heritage derived from it. Taking an alternate position than that which has been published in articles on Safavid perceptions of Shaybanids to date, the Safavids were not so much averse to Shaybanid Turkification as to Shaybanid Mongolification.

In 1981 Stuart Welch and Martin Dickson published a study of [a] strange and amazing book in two volumes so huge and expensive as almost to be unreadable except in the best libraries. For a novel I am working on, I studied, this spring, the volumes of The Houghton Shahnameh (Harvard University Press) in the New York Public Library, and was astounded and delighted by the writers' eccentric scholarship. By examining and re-examining pictures of countless kings,

This is a revised and corrected version that supersedes the one published in Iran after the Mongols. Ed. by S. Babaie. The Idea of Iran 8. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 235-269. In the published version, mistakes in numbering footnotes were inadvertently introduced in the editorial process, which are here rectified.

This paper first compares the statements about religious affiliation made by Daqiqi and by Ferdowsi, and then considers the section about the conversion of Goshtasp and Lohrasp to Zoroaster's call, and how the process of changing religious affiliation is presented in the Shahnameh.  Next, we see how the two sisters or daughters of Jamshid, Shahrnaz and Arnavaz (who are the first two women named in the Shahnameh, despite several generations having gone by without the appearance of any women characters) introduced as undergoing a change of allegiance from the household of Jamshid to that of Zahhak.  The threat of rape or death under which this process takes place raises the question of how these two sisters feel about being the consorts of Zahhak, a subject on which the Shahnameh gives only very subtle clues.  After Feraydun conquers Zahhak's castle, he "converts" the women back by a process of purification, a process which is analyzed.  There are long-term problems for all the characters who convert or change affiliation in these cases. 

From the publisher's website:
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In this paper, first, I will briefly define what ritual is, and then, review its main functions, mostly based on the views of Mircia Eliade, Nadja Berberović, Ian Maxwell, and Richard Schechner, among others. After that, I will describe an important ritualistic performance called Shahnameh-khani/Shahnameh-recitation, which is an ancient Iranian form of storytelling/story-performing. And, ultimately, I will describe how Morshed/Master Saghi Aghili, as a Naqqal/Shahnameh-reciter, have invented experimental techniques to create ritualistic effects and enhance Shahnameh-recitation’s effectiveness.

In Iranian society of the medieval period, religious preachers, jurisprudent, sheikhs, stingy patrons, literary rivals, and women were the main characters in humorous works by Persian poets and writers. This was also the epoch during which the most revered satirical literature were created. In the fourteenth century, the city of Shiraz accommodated several artists and historians, as well as poets and writers whose humorous works are considered the best in the history of that genre of Persian literature. 1 Certainly the women were not spared their sharp senses of humour. Pretty or ugly, young or old, poor or rich, whorish or pious, the women were considered vital to witty anecdotes and poems. Although female characters are surrounded by streams of invectives and dirty jokes, there are also some sophisticated and good-natured witticisms about them in texts and images. In honor of Ulrich Marzolph's sense of humour, this paper will analyze an illustrated scene in the Inju 2 Shāhnāmeh, created in 1333; the scene 1 One of them is ʿObeyd Zākāni, the most famous Persian satirist, who during the first half of fourteenth century migrated to Shiraz, where he produced his parodies. See Sprachman, Paul: The Comic Works of Ubayd-I Zakani: A Study of Medieval Persian Bawdy, Verbal Aggression and Satire. Ph.D dissertation. University of Chicago 1981. Fakhr al-Din Ḥallāj Shirazi, known as Abu Esḥāq Atʿeme (d. 1424 or 1427) wrote his work kolliyāt-e Bosḥāq-e Atʿeme during this period in Shiraz. His book is a funny imitation of the greatest classical literatures such as epic poems of Ferdowsi's Shāhnāmeh and romantic sonnets of Hafez but in admire of various kind of foods.

Also available on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/ai9-3X6FGKw
This essay investigates the steps that, over the centuries, some Iranians have taken to transform the ancient values that, according to the Shahname, create Iranian identity into the Shi'ite values prevalent in present-day Iran. In the process, the roles that the zurkhaneh, ta'ziyeh, the farr, and velayat play in this regard, too, are explained in detail.

The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp (1524-1576): the World's most Beautiful Miniatures

ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 19η Αυγούστου 2019.

Στο κείμενό του αυτό αφιερωμένο στο κορυφαίο καλλιτεχνικό μεγαλούργημα του 16ου αιώνα, δηλαδή το διακοσμημένο με εντυπωσιακές σμικρογραφίες χειρόγραφο του Σαχναμέ του Φερντοουσί, το οποίο είχε φιλοτεχνηθεί για τον Σάχη Ταχμάσπ, ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης αναπαράγει την ερμηνεία του μυθικού έπους, την οποία έχω παρουσιάσει σε δύο ομιλίες μου το 2017 στην Μόσχα και την Αστάνα (σήμερα Νουρσουλτάν) και σε συζητήσεις μας για το θέμα. Σε μικρή έκταση, έχω επίσης αναφερθεί σχετικά σε ένα εκλαϊκευτικό κείμενο ευχών για το νέο έτος, το οποίο έστειλα σε φίλους και το οποίο εδημοσίευσα εδώ:
Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Key Qubad, and the Return of the Great Emperor – Wishes for 2021! https://www.academia.edu/44823550/Ferdowsi_Shahnameh_Key_Qubad_and_the_Return_of_the_Great_Emperor_Wishes_for_2021_

Στο μέλλον προδιατίθεμαι να δημοσιεύσω ένα άρθρο – πρότυπο ερμηνευτικής ανάλυσης των ‘ηρώων’ του Φερντοουσί τους οποίους πολλοί ιρανολόγοι κακώς επιχειρούν να ταυτίσουν με ιστορικά πρόσωπα ή οντότητες του προϊσλαμικού (σασανιδικού) ιρανικού θρύλου. Ο καθένας ‘ήρωας’ του Φερντοουσί δεν είναι ένας αλλά πολλοί. Ως ιδιαίτερη σύνθεση διαφορετικών αρετών και αμαρτιών και ως ποικιλότροπη ενσάρκωση ψυχικών ιδεών, οι αέναοι ήρωες του Φερντοουσί επαναλαμβάνονται μέσα στην Μυθική Ιστορία της Ανθρωπότητας, την οποία συνέγραψε ο Πέρσης επικός ποιητής, εξαλείφοντας κάθε εντύπωση εξέλιξης και κάθε έννοια χρόνου, εκμηδενίζοντας κάθε αίσθηση ‘γίγνεσθαι’ και κάθε αναζήτηση ‘λογικής’, και επιβάλλοντας από την πρώτη στιγμή της Δημιουργίας έως την Συντέλεια μία ατελεύτητη ανακεφαλαίωση του κάθε τινός.
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First republished on 6th October 2021 here:
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Presented at the XXX International Congress on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of Academician V. V. Barthold (1869–1930), Faculty of Asian and African Studies, St. Petersburg State University.

The Šāhnāmeh of Catherine (شاهنامۀ کاترین) is a late eighteenth-century poetic Persian text dedicated to the Russian Empress Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great (1762–1796). Its author Moḥammad b. Moḥammad Moḥsen Ašrafi Ilči (محمد بن محمد محسن اشرفی ایلچی) was a member of a diplomatic mission of the Qajar Prince Mortażā Qoli Khan, brother of Āḡā Moḥammad Khan, the founder of the Qajar dynasty. The mission lodged at the royal court in Saint Petersburg during the last years of Catherine’s reign. Ašrafi’s work was translated into Russian and published as a bilingual book by the Imperial Printing House (Императорская Типографiя) in Saint Petersburg in 1793.

Halliday`s Systemic Functional Grammar analyzes text in context. Based on this theory, in the study of texts, , we are faced with three metafunctions: Ideational metafunction, Interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction, that Ideational metafunction divided into experiential and logical ones. In experiential metafunctions the six processes, participants, and circumstances are analyzed. According to some experts, Garshasbnameh is the best heroic poem after Shahnameh among heroic texts. For this reason, in this study, the Tahmidiyehs of Shahnameh and Garshasbnameh have been selected for comparison based on Ideational metafunction of the Halliday`s Systemic Functional Grammar to determine how similar the Tahmidiyehs of these two works are linguistically and if we assume that Asadi has tried to write a work like Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, how much has he achieved his goal? After the study, it was found that in both Shahnameh and Garshasbnameh, the material process has the highest percentage. According to the genre of these two works, which is epic, this result and attention to the material process is predictable. Since the nature of Tahmidiyeh is to praise God, God is the main participant in most of these processes and the percentages are almost equal. It can be acknowledged, with a little forgiveness, Asadi has been able to follow in the footsteps of Ferdowsi in composing the Tahmidiyeh of Garshasbnameh, and the Tahmidiyeh of Garshasbnameh is equal to the Tahmidiyeh of Shahnameh from the view point of Ideational metafunction.

Introduction
Tahmidiyeh means praise and glorification of God, and the term refers to the first lines or pages of prose or the first verses of poems. Writers and poets begin their work with the name and remembrance of God and the mention of His attributes, and thus bless their work with the name of God. In Tahmidiyehs, as a part of the preface of a work, in addition to paying attention to the name and remembrance of the great God, the genre for which the poet or writer writes the Tahmidiyeh should also be considered. For example, the Tahmidiyeh written for an epic work are different from Tahmidiyeh written for a lyrical work and from this point of view, literary works can be analyzed.
Among epic and heroic works, Shahnameh has a special place. Therefore, many writers over the centuries have tried to create a work like Shahnameh. According to some scholars, Asadi Tusi has tried to write a work similar to Shahnameh. In this regard, this research seeks to answer the question of how much Ferdowsi and Asadi in composing Tahmidiyehs of Shahnameh and Garshasbnameh have been able to create a Tahmidiyeh appropriate to the epic text and if we assume that Asadi in Garshasbnameh has tried to write a work as value as Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, how much has he achieved his goal?

Methodology
In this research, based on the Halliday`s Systemic Functional Grammar, two works of epic literature are examined in order to achieve the extent of their use of epic language. Halliday`s Systemic Functional Grammar examines the function of language in context: context of culture and context of situation. Halliday considers language as a social phenomenon and he considers it necessary to pay attention to social function in language analysis. In Halliday`s Systemic Functional Grammar, language depends on the community in which it is used and must be analyzed from a social perspective.
In structural linguistics, the unit of language processing is sentence, while in functional linguistics clauses are important; This is because sentences alone do not convey the meaning of the text and should be considered in conjunction with other sentences. For this reason, the text is divided into clauses and analyzed. According to Halliday, each clause as a discourse chunk must be examined from three perspectives:  field, tenor and mode of discourse. Halliday defines the metafunctions with the help of these three domains. Thus, in the structural study of each text, according to the context of its position, we are faced with three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Each of these metafunctions is also divided into several sub-categories. From these three metafunctions, ideational metafunction has been selected for analysis in this research. Ideational metafunction itself is divided into two experiential and logical metafunctions. In experiential metafunction, the six processes (three main processes and three sub-processes), participants and circumstances are examined. But in the logical metafunction, the relations between the clauses are discussed. Processes occur in the verb and are divided into three main processes and three sub-processes. Material, mental, and relational processes are the three main processes, and behavioral, verbal, and existential processes are the three sub-processes.

Discussion and Conclusion
After determining the absolute frequency and relative frequency of ideational metafunction processes in the initial verses of Shahnameh and Garshasbnameh and putting them together, considerable results were obtained. One of the results is that in both works, the highest percentage is related to the material process. In both Shahnameh and Garshasbnameh, about 37% of all processes are related to the material process. As mentioned, the material process implies doing a work or happening an event, which according to the genre of the two works, which is epic, this amount of attention to the material process is predictable. Another process that should be considered according to the genre of the two works is the mental process. It seems that in composing an epic work, mental processes are less than genre like lyrical. The epic expresses the efforts and struggles of the heroes and pays less attention to mental issues (than material issues). In Shahnameh, about 18% and in Garshasbnameh, about 17% of the total processes are mental processes. Material and mental processes with few difference are the most similar among the types of processes and this shows that Asadi in composing Garshasbnameh has been able to be very close to Shahnameh linguistically in these two processes. The percentage of relational process in Shahnameh is higher than Garshasbnameh and this difference in verbal and existential processes in Garshasbnameh has been compensated. The percentage of the behavioral process in both works is zero, which is justifiable considering that the Tahmidiyehs of two works have been examined and have not yet entered the narrative section.
The results obtained for the participants in these processes are also significant. In Shahnameh, participant of about 31% of processes and in Garshasbnameh, participant of about 39% of processes is God. Considering that in this study, Tamhidiyehs of the two works were analyzed, assigning the highest percentage of participants to God was reasonable and predictable, and this shows the dominance and ability of the two poets.
In the end, with a little connivance, it can be acknowledged that Asadi was able to cope well with Ferdowsi in composing the Tahmidiyeh of Garshasbnameh, and the Tamhidiyeh of Garshasbnameh is equal to the Tahmidiyeh of Shahnameh based on ideational metafunction

Mint az közismert, a turanizmus, ez az ázsiai eredetünket hangsúlyozó ideológia, az utóbbi kétszáz évben nagy népszerűségre tett szert. A jelen tanulmány azzal a kérdéssel foglalkozik, mikor és hogyan jelent meg először Magyarországon a Turán kifejezés, és az orientalisztika születő tudománya hogyan gyakorolhatott figyelemreméltó hatást a magyar értelmiség identitására a 19. század elején.

Tanulmányom első részében a Turán kifejezés gyökereire és kontextusára igyekszem rávilágítani az iráni kultúrában. Forrásaink szerint a Turán nevet Nyugat-Európába a 18. század első felében Abū’ l-Ḡāzī Bahādur khívai kán közép-ázsiai krónikájának, a Šajara-yi turknak a fordítása vezette be. E mű európai fordításai a 19. század elején értek el Magyarországra, és a perzsa hatások beáramlása hamarosan érdekes ötvözet forrásává lett, amelyben a hun-szkíta rokonság régi elképzelése olvadt össze az iráni Turán-fogalommal, ahogy azt a nyugati tudomány felfogta. Az első magyar turanisták (Jerney, Kállay, Pulszky, Maróthy) mind eltökélt perzsabarátok voltak, akiket Turán és Irán perzsa felfogása erősen befolyásolt, s új elméleteket alkottak a magyar őstörténetről, amelyek együtt alapultak magyar elképzeléseken és a kortárs orientalisztika újonnan felfedezett adatain.
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Ferdowsi, the Paradisiacal: National Poet of all Iranians and Turanians, Founder of Modern Eurasiatic Civilization
ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 28η Αυγούστου 2019.
Στο κείμενό του αυτό ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης παραθέτει στοιχεία από ημερήσιο σεμινάριο στο οποίο παρουσίασα (Πεκίνο, Ιανουάριος 2018) τα θεμέλια της ισλαμικής και νεώτερης παιδείας και πολιτισμού όλων των Τουρανών, Ιρανών και πολλών άλλων μουσουλμάνων και μη Ασιατών.
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First republished on 14th November 2021 here:
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Abstract: The ideals of manhood have been celebrated in all cultures through interesting stories of adventure, warfare, and love. The concept of Sahibqiran as an ideal king and
world conqueror remained ingrained in the consciousness of the Muslim ruling elite as well as in the common reader’s sensibility throughout Islamic history and across the widespread Islamic territories from the Arabian Peninsula to the South Asian subcontinent.
This article analyzes the concept of Sahibqirani as illustrated by the compositional techniques and thematic devices employed by storytellers of an oral narrative titled
Dastan-e-Amir Hamza Sahibqiran (1855). It explores the historical, political, and cultural backdrop of the honorific Sahibqiran and its romanticization in popular Islamic literature. The Adventures of Amir Hamza: Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction (2007) is
an English translation of Dastan-e-Amir Hamza Sahibqiran. The work is the longest romance cycle in Urdu, comprising a forty-six-volume written record of an oral storytelling tradition. The stories in this work are centered on the heroics of Amir Hamza, a fictitious character with complex historical and religious affiliations. As a popular Indo-
Islamic romance, it combines history, religion, and culture. This article explores the ideals of manhood and kingship as depicted in this romance and introduces a non-native speaker of Urdu to a new world of collective imagination informed by history, religion, and culture.

Painting the Shahnama: A Traveling Exhibition (2010-2012)

Ranked with some of the world's greatest literature like the Mahabharata and the Iliad, the Shahnama or 'Persian Epic of Kings' is at the heart of a traveling exhibition that opened at London's Princes Foundation Gallery in December 2010. The 'Contemporary Shahnama Millennium Painting Exhibition' celebrates the importance of the epic poem a thousand years after the great Iranian poet Firdausi composed it in 1010 CE.

Invoked over the centuries as "a political statement against power and tyranny", Shahnama's concern with universal values and deepening of human conscience makes it an enduring text for all times.

There is much that is groundbreaking in the new readings of the Shahnama and this is exemplified in the essays and images of the exhibition. Representations of the epic's main hero Rostam, for example, range from his traditional depictions as heroic warrior, to comical macho, digital war machine, and Talibanic dev. Likewise, some of the Catalogue essays unveil a surprising facet of Shahnama women. Bold and confident, these women show remarkable perseverance as individuals, taking a stand especially when it comes to choosing their husbands, or raising sons as single parent.

The essays in the Exhibition Catalogue further examine the epic's importance in a turbulent region spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran—a region that largely constitutes the poem's theatre of action and is the epicentre of extremist Islamic insurgencies today that are both a product and response to the 'global war on terror'.  A vibrant array of artists and academics from Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Iran, India, Pakistan and Russia who created this exhibition are testament to Shahnama's relevance in a nascent global culture where the creation of new consciousness is a heroic act.

Originally designed to accompany the exhibition of Shahnama manuscripts and paintings that opened in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (11 September 2010 – 9 January 2011), the exhibition traveled to Lahore's National College of Arts In March, 2011, and will be moving on to the UAE, Iran and the US later this year.

Miniature painter and curator Fatima Zahra Hassan-Agha organized the exhibition in association with Charles Melville, Director of the Cambridge Shahnama project, University of Cambridge, and Suroosh Irfani, Director of the Research & Publication Center, National College of Arts, Lahore.