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Religion in the Shahnameh

Dick Davis
Published online: 05 Mar 2015.

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To cite this article: Dick Davis (2015): Religion in the Shahnameh, Iranian Studies, DOI:
10.1080/00210862.2014.1000621

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 Iranian Studies, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2014.1000621

Dick Davis

Religion in the Shahnameh

This article discusses the reasons why Ferdowsi does not begin the Shahnameh with the
episode of Zoroaster, which he quotes from the version of Daqiqi, but rather with an
account of the creation of the world that, in contrast to Islamic historians writing
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before Ferdowsi, does not attempt to accommodate a Qur’anic view of creation and
human history, but neither does he give a cosmology dominated or well informed by
Zoroastrian theology. Similarly, Ferdowsi tends to present pre-Islamic Iran as having a
consistent religious history, and perhaps avoids beginning with Goshtāsp’s conversion to
the religion of Zoroaster, as he makes Daqiqi appear to do, in order to minimize the
role of religious conflict in Iranian history, again diverging from historians of
the Islamic period writing before him. The article also explores the role of God in the
Shahnameh and the absence of theodicy.

Keywords: Daqiqi; Ferdowsi; God; Goshtāsp; Iranian Identity; Islam; Religion;

Theodicy; Zoroaster

Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh begins with the creation of the world and ends with the Arab
conquest of Iran in the seventh century CE, and so, whatever else it is, it is in some
sense a historical work. At least we can say that it is, in its opening mythological
and legendary sections, a work in which the unfolding of history is implicitly
present as a backdrop to the narratives that Ferdowsi foregrounds; after the
establishment of the Sasanian dynasty, a little more than half-way through the
poem, the Shahnameh becomes unequivocally a work of versified history.
But when we compare the poem to other historical works that concentrate on or at
least refer to the early history of Iran, and which also begin with the world’s creation,
we see that Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh differs from such works in one crucial way. Abu
Jaʽfar Mohammad al-Tabari (224–310 H/839–923 CE) and Hamzeh of Isfahan
(280 to after 350 H/893 to after 961 CE), for example, both writers whose work
would have been available to Ferdowsi, were historians who wrote in Arabic but
hailed from Iran, and, perhaps not surprisingly, both showed a particular interest in
figures from the Iranian mythological and legendary past.1 One of the major preoccu-
pations of both Tabari and Hamzeh of Isfahan when they mention legendary figures

Dick Davis is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the
Ohio State University.
© 2015 The International Society for Iranian Studies
 2 Davis

from pre-Islamic Iran, like Jamshid, or Hushang, or Key Kāvus, is to locate them
according to a chronology built up from figures mentioned in the Qur’an; they will
say, for example, that a certain king or hero in the Shahnameh lived “at the time of
Musā” (Moses), or “at the time of Solomon.” In Tabari’s work especially, this
matrix of Qur’anic and Iranian mythological cross-referencing is consistently
present when Iranian figures are mentioned, and indeed it is often the primary
context within which they are discussed. Some of these cross-references and identifi-
cations stuck; in the eighth/fourteenth century for example, when Hāfez was writing,
the legendary Persian king Jamshid and the Biblical and Qur’anic King Solomon were
seen as the same person.2 Ferdowsi never does this; he pays no attention whatsoever to
the Qur’anic version of history, and he makes no attempt to reconcile Iran’s mytho-
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logical past with that embodied in the Qur’anic tradition; his Iran does not emerge out
of a Qur’anic reality filled with personages like Adam and Nuh (Noah), but appears
center-stage as the Creator’s primary concern. The appearance of Islam, and the per-
sonages and preoccupations of Islam, are, as it were, postponed until the very end of
the poem. As far as I know, Ferdowsi is unique in his period and place in writing an
account of the creation of the world and its early history that omits all reference to the
Qur’anic version of these events.
Pre-Islamic Iran was of course Zoroastrian, and one might expect Ferdowsi to give
us the Zoroastrian version of the creation if he was not planning to give us the Islamic
one; but apart from utilizing the names of the earliest kings as they appear in Zoroas-
trian tradition, he does not provide much of this either. The Zoroastrian version of
these events is very complicated, and is full of figures like the Amesha Spentas and
the Yazatas, but Ferdowsi skips all this complicating material, that is he skips every-
thing that is actually to do with the creation itself, and he also skips the Zoroastrian
theological justification for the creation.3 Perhaps, and this suspicion grows on one as
one reads further in the poem, Ferdowsi did not actually know very much about the
details of Zoroastrian belief; or if he did, he does not appear to have been interested in
structuring his poem according to such beliefs.
What is especially notable about the religious feeling, or more accurately the super-
natural feeling, of the first narratives of the Shahnameh, is that the benign Zoroastrian
deity, Ahura Mazda, is hardly mentioned. What is mentioned instead describes the
supernatural as the source of evil; the supernatural is almost entirely represented by
the demonic embodiments of evil in Ferdowsi’s opening pages. Although the first
major battle involves supernatural forces on both sides, good and evil, in general it
is the evil aspect of the supernatural that draws the poet’s attention. Divs (demons)
appear far more often than good angels; Ahriman, the evil principle of the universe,
is mentioned far more often than Ahura Mazda, its benign principle, and this
remains the case throughout the poem. Ahura Mazda, goodness, is seen as remote
and rarely interfering in human affairs; Ahriman, evil, is seen as an ever-present
threat. The opening mythological pages of the poem are largely concerned with the
subduing of demons, the conquest of evil, and the emergence of civilization, order,
and social stability; in general this is done by human agency and sagacity alone,
perhaps inspired by, but also unaided by, at least in any obvious way, the example
 Religion in the Shahnameh 3

of the divine. The massive strength of evil is shown by the fact that the demons fre-
quently break free again after they have been subdued; their conquest is not easy, and it
has to be repeated a number of times, by three different kings (Hushang, Tahmurat,
and Jamshid).4 The poem’s opening pages suggest that evil comes to man from outside
(in the form of demons), but effective goodness is something that his own mind must
elaborate and strive for; there are very rarely external angels to help him, good angels
who might combat the evil demons by which he is assailed.5
For a medieval poet, writing at a period when religion was a fairly pervasive reality
in most people’s lives, when almost every facet of human existence was, we might say,
saturated with a sense of the religiously sanctioned or prohibited, what was sinful and
what licit, we might expect to find poems imbued with an awareness of divine punish-
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ment or reward after death. But for a poet writing in such a milieu, Ferdowsi strikes
me as quite extraordinarily uninterested in religion. This might sound heretical (to use
a religious term) to some readers, because Ferdowsi is justly known as a poet who con-
stantly returns to ethical problems with an almost obsessive interest, repeatedly
mulling over dilemmas of duty to authority on the one hand and to one’s conscience
on the other (we see this most clearly and compellingly in the stories of Seyāvakhsh
and Esfandyār), and he is also known as a poet who is preoccupied with notions of
justice—the Shahnameh has been called by one astute commentator, a hamāseh-ye
dād, an Epic of Justice.6 But to be concerned with ethical issues and the search for
justice does not necessarily presuppose a religious outlook; ethics and justice in Fer-
dowsi’s poem tend to be centered on the human rather than on God. I also get the
distinct impression that, besides being not especially religious in his own temperament,
Ferdowsi really did not care for religious controversy, though he lived in a world that
was rife with just such controversy.
These sweeping generalizations need some backing up, and the rest of this paper
will attempt to support my contentions that: (a) Ferdowsi was not especially interested
in religion; and (b) he abhorred religious controversy and avoided it whenever the
material he was working with allowed him to do so.

Daqiqi and Ferdowsi, and Zoroastrianism in the Shahnameh

The Shahnameh falls into two more or less distinct sections, with the mythological
and legendary material preceding the appearance of Eskandar, that is Alexander the
Great, and the more or less historical material following on from Eskandar’s appear-
ance and culminating in the Arab conquest of the seventh century CE. The appear-
ance of Zoroastrianism in the poem, or to be more accurate, the appearance of
Zoroaster (a difference that will be explained below), occurs during the reign of Gosh-
tāsp, a king whose period of rule comes very close to the end of the legendary section.
As is well known by students of the poem, one small section of the Shahnameh was
not written by Ferdowsi at all, but by the poet Daqiqi.7 In fact, so the story goes, the
Shahnameh was actually begun by Daqiqi, but he was then murdered by a slave, after
which Ferdowsi undertook to complete the work.8 Medieval authors who mention
 4 Davis

him say that Daqiqi wrote many thousands of lines of his Shahnameh (Hamd Allāh
Mostowfi says 3,000, ‘Owfi in his Lobāb al-albāb says 20,000),9 even though only
about a thousand of them have found their way into Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. But
remarks like these by medieval writers are not especially reliable, and it may be that
in reality Daqiqi wrote no more than the thousand lines that Ferdowsi incorporated
into his poem. Of particular interest for the purpose of this paper is what the one
passage in the Shahnameh that Ferdowsi did not write is actually about: The lines
in question describe the appearance of the prophet Zoroaster at Goshtāsp’s court,
his preaching of the new religion, and Goshtāsp’s acceptance of Zoroaster’s faith as
his faith.10 Goshtāsp’s son, Esfandyār, then sets about a vigorous proselytizing cam-
paign, and the new religion is spread by the sword; Esfandyār makes no bones
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about this and later he boasts in graphic terms to the hero Rostam of how much
heathen blood he has spilt, and of how many pagan temples he has destroyed. If
Daqiqi did in fact write thousands of lines, why did Ferdowsi incorporate into his
Shahnameh only those lines describing the appearance of Zoroaster at Goshtāsp’s
court? And if Daqiqi only wrote those lines and no others, what particular reason
does Ferdowsi have to utilize them? After all, even the shortest manuscripts of the Shah-
nameh run to well over 40,000 lines, and knocking off a couple of hundred more lines
should not have been much of a chore for such a prolific poet. We can be certain that
Ferdowsi did not include the lines out of respect for Daqiqi, because after inserting
Daqiqi’s lines into his poem, Ferdowsi is at pains to point out to us how lame and
badly written they are.11 I think there can be only one reason for Ferdowsi to have incor-
porated this episode and no other from the pen of another poet into his poem: he did
not want to write the episode himself, and he furthermore makes sure the audience is
aware that he has not written this passage by explicitly telling us so.
Why would Ferdowsi have wished to avoid writing the passage about the appear-
ance of Zoroaster? We cannot know. Perhaps he thought it might get him into
trouble with an Islamic court (though it does not seem to have done Daqiqi any
harm); perhaps he just did not like writing about religion. But for whatever reason,
when in the long course of composing the Shahnameh the opportunity to describe
the appearance of Iran’s chief pre-Islamic faith presented itself to him, a faith that
had an enormous defining influence on the pre-Islamic Persian culture that is his
subject throughout the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi balked.
Ferdowsi’s reliance on Daqiqi at this point is not the only evidence of his uneasiness
with this particular moment—that is, the moment of the appearance of Zoroastrian-
ism in Iran. The great hero of the Shahnameh is of course Rostam, the hero to whom
Esfandyār boasts about how many heathens he has killed. Rostam gives as good as he
gets in the boasting match that develops (though he does not boast about killing
people who do not belong to his faith);12 soon after the boasting ends, Rostam and
Esfandyār fight to the death, with Rostam killing Esfandyār.13 According to the Shah-
nameh, Rostam and Esfandyār confront one another because Esfandyār has been sent
on a mission to bring Rostam to his father’s court in chains, all because Rostam has
omitted to pay homage to king Goshtāsp, Esfandyār’s father, and Goshtāsp is resentful
of this.14
 Religion in the Shahnameh 5

Although Ferdowsi in his Shahnameh plays down any such suggestions, a number of
other texts that preceded the Shahnameh or are more or less contemporary with it give
a quite different reason for Rostam’s quarrel with Esfandyār’s father, Goshtāsp.
According to these texts, Rostam emphatically rejected the “new” religion of Zoroas-
trianism, and this was the reason for his break with Goshtāsp’s court. This is the
account as it is given in Dīnawarī’s History, in the anonymous Arab history
Nihāyat al-Arab fī Akhbār al-Furs wa-l-‘Arab, in the Tārikh-e Sistān, and in the popu-
list compendium of knowledge, the ʽAjāyebnāmeh.15 All of these texts say essentially
what Dīnawarī says, so we can let his text speak for the group:

When he heard news of Boshtāsef’s (i.e. Goshtāsp’s) becoming a Zoroastrian, and

that he had left the faith of his fathers, he (Rostam) became extremely angry about
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this matter and said, “He has abandoned the faith of our fathers, which has come
down to us as an inheritance from former times, and turned to a new faith.” And he
collected the men of Sistan together and recommended that Boshtasef be
dethroned, and openly incited them against Boshtasef, who summoned his son
Esfandyād (Esfandyār), the strongest man of his time, and said to him, “I shall
soon give you the throne, and there will be no more tasks for you, except that
you kill Rostam … ”16

Ferdowsi is not alone in his account of the split between Goshtāsp’s court and Rostam,
since his version is essentially that of Tabari and Thaʽālebi; but theirs was not the only
version current. Although mainstream “universal history” texts like Tabari’s tend to
support the view of the conflict between Rostam and Esfandyār as one largely con-
cerned with lineage and royal amour propre—as Ferdowsi also presents it—more mar-
ginal texts suggest that the clash was also seen as a specifically religious one, provoked
by Rostam’s rejection of Zoroastrianism. Cumulatively, there seems to be strong evi-
dence that Rostam was not in origin a Zoroastrian hero, and that, despite Sasanian
efforts to co-opt him to the cause, he continued to be perceived by many as a
figure who emphatically rejected Zoroastrianism. It is not, I think, an exaggeration
to see in him the Shahnameh’s last shadowy representative of a magical and animist
pre-Zoroastrian, and perhaps “pre-Iranian,” world, one which disappears forever
with his death.
To believe that Ferdowsi was not aware of this alternate religious version of why
Rostam and Goshtāsp quarreled seems incredible; it is for example, as we have just
seen, the version that Dīnawarī gives, and it is clear that Ferdowsi used Dīnawarī’s
history in his portrayal of the Sasanian general and rebel, Bahrām Chubin, so this
was not a text with which he had no acquaintance. But Ferdowsi wants nothing to
do with this religious quarrel. If he was aware of it, as I think he must have been,
he nevertheless ignores it, and gives no hint of it in his poem.
Iran cannot logically have been a Zoroastrian country before the appearance of
Zoroaster, but the reader must keep her/his wits about to realize this from reading
the Shahnameh. The Zoroastrian scriptures (the Zend Avesta), fire-temples, and Zor-
oastrian concepts like Ahriman, are constantly invoked before Zoroaster’s appearance
 6 Davis

at the court of Goshtāsp towards the end of the poem’s mythological and legendary
sections, so that pre-Zoroastrian Iran is by implication made Zoroastrian avant la
lettre. And as I have just suggested, the possibility that the poem’s greatest hero was
not in fact a Zoroastrian at all is quietly, as it were, swept under the carpet. The insis-
tence on Iran’s perpetual Zoroastrian heritage becomes particularly explicit in the
Sasanian, quasi-historical, section of the poem, where the implication is that Iran
has always, from the beginning of time, been Zoroastrian, and that there has never
been a religious conflict within its existence as a historical entity. For example,
when Anushirvān’s son Nushzād abandons Zoroastrianism for Christianity he is
accused of abandoning “the faith of Geyumart, Hushang and Tahmurat” (be-gashti
ze din-e Geyumarrati / ham az rāh-e Hushang o Tahmurati)—i.e. the faith of the
“pishdādiān,” the very earliest kings, who according to the poem itself lived long
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before the advent of Zoroaster.17

Clearly, Ferdowsi is not interested in structuring any part of the Shahnameh around
the idea of a pre-Zoroastrian Iran followed by a Zoroastrian Iran, even though the
prophet Zoroaster preaches his new faith about one-third of the way through the
poem. Such a division would have been very easy for Ferdowsi to articulate, since
all the details for the contrast between the two world-views are present in the Esfan-
dyār–Rostam conflict, which was indeed seen in other texts as a primarily religious
conflict.18 But by suppressing this religious version of the Esfandyār–Rostam
quarrel, and by insinuating Zoroastrian details into the pre-Zoroastrian sections of
his poem, Ferdowsi implies that there has been a seamless continuity of religious
belief from the poem’s opening pages until the Arab conquest in its closing pages.
And even then, at the moment of the conquest, we see him at some pains to minimize
the transition from pre-Islamic to Islamic Iran, in the same way that he had been at
pains to minimize—indeed all but obliterate—the transition from pre-Zoroastrian to
Zoroastrian Iran. The incestuous royal marriages of pre-Islamic Iran were a scandal to
Muslims, and Ferdowsi is clearly aware both that such marriages existed and that they
were unacceptable to an Islamic world-view.19 Ferdowsi is obviously very uncomfor-
table about all this, and when he has no choice but to tell us that King Bahman
made his daughter Homāy pregnant, he omits the fact that they were also married
to one another, and makes a shamefaced remark about such father–daughter pregnan-
cies being a Pahlavi custom:

‫ﺑﺮ ﺁﻥ ﺩﯾﻦ ﮐﻪ ﺧﻮﺍﻧﯽ ﻫﻤﯽ ﭘﻬﻠﻮﯼ‬ ‫ﭘﺪﺭ ﺩﺭ ﭘﺬﯾﺮﻓﺘﺶ ﺍﺯ ﻧﯿﮑﻮﯼ‬

‫ﭼﻨﺎﻥ ﺑﺪ ﮐﻪ ﺁﺑﺴﺘﻦ ﺁﻣﺪ ﺯ ﺷﺎﻩ‬ ‫ﻫﻤﺎﯼ ﺩﻝ ﺍﻓﺮﻭﺯ ﺗﺎﺑﻨﺪﻩ ﻣﺎﻩ‬
The father accepted her out of goodness
in accord with that religion you call “Pahlavi.”
That charming, bright-shining moon, Homāy—
so it came to pass—became pregnant by the Shah.20

He also omits to mention that Bahrām Chubin was married to his sister, Gordyeh—a
fact recorded by all the historians who mention the army commander and rebel
Bahrām Chubin—even though the fact that they were married to one another
 Religion in the Shahnameh 7

explains some otherwise obscure plot developments (for example Gordyeh cannot
marry while her brother is alive, but Ferdowsi’s text does not explain why this
should be the case).21 And we can also see Ferdowsi’s wish to accommodate Zoroas-
trianism, as far as he can, to Islamic norms when he describes Key Khosrow and Key
Kāvus praying before a fire-altar:
‫ﻣﭙﻨﺪﺍﺭ ﮐـﺎﺗﺶ ﭘﺮﺳﺘﺎﻥ ﺑﺪﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﺑﻪ ﯾﮏ ﻫﻔﺘﻪ ﺑﺮ ﭘﯿﺶ ﯾﺰﺩﺍﻥ ﺑﺪﻧﺪ‬
‫ﭘﺮﺳﺘﻨﺪﻩ ﺭﺍ ﺩﯾﺪﻩ ﭘﺮﺁﺏ ﺑﻮﺩ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ ﺁﺗﺶ ﺑﺪﺍﻧﮕﺎﻩ ﻣﻬﺮﺍﺏ ﺑﻮﺩ‬
They presented themselves before God for a week
Do not think they were fire-worshippers
The fire there was a mihrāb
The worshippers had their eyes full of tears.22
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Ferdowsi explicitly absolves both king and hero from any kind of idolatry, and he
describes their worship with an Islamic term (the mihrāb being the specific Islamic
term for the prayer niche which shows the worshipper the direction of Mecca), and
with the tears approved by Islamic devotional texts. At this moment we have a pre-Zor-
oastrian king (Key Khosrow) and his champion (Rostam) praying in a Zoroastrian
fashion, which is then assimilated, as far as this is possible, to Islamic practice; Ferdowsi
conflates three separate religious epochs and traditions (pre-Zoroastrian, Zoroastrian,
and Islamic) into one vignette, as if their differences were of virtually no account.
I think that Ferdowsi treats these transitions from one faith to another in this way pre-
cisely because he wishes to minimize their importance and impact; religious controversy
and difference are certainly not things on which he wishes to concentrate his or our
attention. In a way his treatment of the Arab conquest, which of course heralded the
coming of Islam to Iran, is similar to his treatment of the transition from pre-Zoroas-
trianism to Zoroastrianism; it is the politics of the situation he talks about, and the reli-
gious aspects of the society’s transformation are left virtually undiscussed.

God in the Shahnameh

So far I have talked mainly about my impression that Ferdowsi wishes to avoid any
suggestion of religious factionalism, that he gives few details specific to any faith,
either Islamic, Zoroastrian, or pre-Zoroastrian (indeed one gets the impression that
he almost wishes to elide all three of these faiths together, impossible though this
might be), and that his main characterization of the supernatural for much of the
poem is as a source of evil, of the demonic that harries human life rather than of
the benign which nourishes it. And yet a reader of the poem is very conscious of
the presence of a notion of a distant all-powerful deity who presides immutably
over the tumultuous human conflicts of the sub-lunar world. This sense of the pres-
ence of a God who is beyond human affairs, but as it were draws the poem’s nobler
characters towards Him, is strongest in the tales of Seyāvakhsh, and of his son Key
Khosrow. When Seyāvakhsh says that he must obey his conscience and not his king
and father, it is because he has sworn an oath before God that his king and father
 8 Davis

are now telling him to break. Rather than do this, he leaves Iran. When Key Khosrow
is horrified by the temptations that absolute power brings, the angel Sorush appears to
him in a dream and tells him he must leave the throne and prepare to die. These are
the two moments in the poem when the ethical demands of a supernatural authority
most clearly guide the decisions of two of Ferdowsi’s protagonists. The extraordinary
thing about these two moments is that in both cases (and we must not forget we are
dealing here with events in a national epic), the protagonist in question is guided to
abandon Iran for the sake of his own soul. That is, when he feels himself before God,
his loyalties are not national, but supranational. The sense that we have at both these
moments, that there is something in the way that God’s decrees work themselves out
in the world, is strangely at odds with the celebrations of Iranian ethnicity and identity
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that apparently occupy the foreground of the poem. This sense that something strange
and almost incomprehensible is going on reappears elsewhere in the Shahnameh.
As is usual for a Persian narrative poem, the Shahnameh opens with an invocation
to God; the particular quality that Ferdowsi emphasizes in His invocation to the
Creator is not His mercy or the sureness of His justice, but His inscrutability, how
unknowable He is, and it is a recognition of the incomprehensibleness of God’s pur-
poses that is the chief sense of the divine that we find in the poem, or perhaps it is
better to say behind or beyond the poem. If we leave aside the trappings of the Zor-
oastrian supernatural as they appear in the opening pages—the demons and Ahriman
and so on—the God Ferdowsi invokes is distant, incomprehensible, and beyond any-
thing that the human mind can think or say of Him:

‫ﮐﻪ ﺍﻭ ﺑﺮﺗﺮ ﺍﺯ ﻧﺎﻡ ﻭ ﺍﺯ ﺟﺎﯾﮕﺎﻩ‬ ‫ﻧﻪ ﺍﻧﺪﯾﺸﻪ ﯾﺎﺑﺪ ﺑﺪﻭ ﻧﯿﺰ ﺭﺍﻩ‬
Thought cannot find a way to Him
For He is beyond both name and place.23

One hesitates to make the anachronistic and patently absurd claim that Ferdowsi was
in essence an eighteenth-century European deist, but on the few occasions when he
talks about God he often sounds like one.
Ferdowsi rarely addresses God directly, but there are a number of moments in the
Shahnameh when he expresses his puzzlement as to God’s purposes, and these
moments are particularly revelatory, if not of a theology, at least of a sense of theolo-
gical anxiety. Ferdowsi prefaces what is perhaps the most famous story in the whole
Shahnameh, the tale of how Rostam inadvertently slays his own son, Sohrāb, in
single combat, with just such a puzzled questioning:

‫ﺑﻪ ﺧﺎﮎ ﺍﻓﮕﻨﺪ ﻧﺎﺭﺳﯿﺪﻩ ﺗﺮﻧﺞ‬ ‫ﺍﮔﺮ ﺗﻨﺪﺑﺎﺩﯼ ﺑﺮﺁﯾﺪ ﺯ ﮐﻨﺞ‬

‫ﻫﻨﺮﻣﻨﺪ ﮔﻮﯾﯿﻤﺶ ﺍﺭ ﺑﯽ ﻫﻨﺮ‬
‫ﺯ ﺩﺍﺩ ﺍﯾﻦ ﻫﻤﻪ ﺑﺎﻧﮓ ﻭﻓﺮﯾﺎﺩ ﭼﯿﺴﺖ‬
‫ﺑﺪﯾﻦ ﭘﺮﺩﻩ ﺍﻧﺪﺭ ﺗﺮﺍ ﺭﺍﻩ ﻧﯿﺴﺖ‬
If a strong wind springs up
And throws an unripened fruit to the ground
‫ﺳﺘﻤﮕﺎﺭﻩ ﺧﻮﺍﻧﯿﻤﺶ ﺍﺭ ﺩﺍﺩﮔﺮ‬
‫ﺍﮔﺮ ﻣﺮﮒ ﺩﺍﺩﺳﺖ ﺑﯿﺪﺍﺩ ﭼﯿﺴﺖ‬
‫ﺍﺯﯾﻦ ﺭﺍﺯ ﺟﺎﻥ ﺗﻮ ﺁﮔﺎﻩ ﻧﯿﺴﺖ‬
 Religion in the Shahnameh 9

Do we call this tyranny or justice?

Do we say it is a noble act, or ignoble?
If death is justice, what could injustice be?
If it is just, why do we weep and wail about it?
Your soul cannot understand this secret,
There is no path for you to pass beyond this veil.24

Why should the unripened fruit, Sohrāb, be killed? What does God mean by this; how
can it be just for the young and guiltless to die?25
Prince Seyāvakhsh is perhaps the most noble of the innocent youths who die vio-
lently in the Shahnameh. Some of the details of his death-scene are reminiscent of the
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biblical account of the death of Christ (he is explicitly compared to a slaughtered lamb,
his blood is caught in a bowl, a dust storm springs up and obscures the land) and there
may indeed be an echo of the biblical narrative here.26 When Seyāvakhsh is murdered
Ferdowsi is even more unequivocal in the expression of his perplexity as to why God
allows such things to happen:
‫ﺳﺮ ﻭ ﭘﺎﯼ ﮔﯿﺘﯽ ﻧﯿﺎﺑﻢ ﻫﻤﯽ‬ ‫ﭼﭗ ﻭ ﺭﺍﺳﺖ ﻫﺮ ﺳﻮ ﺑﺘﺎﺑﻢ ﻫﻤﯽ‬
‫ﺟﻬﺎﻥ ﺑﻨﺪﻩ ﻭ ﺑﺨﺖ ﺧﻮﯾﺶ ﺁﯾﺪﺵ‬ ‫ﯾﮑﯽ ﺑﺪ ﮐﻨﺪ ﻧﯿﮏ ﭘﯿﺶ ﺁﯾﺪﺵ‬
‫ﻫﻤﯽ ﺍﺯ ﻧﮋﻧﺪﯼ ﻓﺮﻭ ﭘﮋﻣﺮﺩ‬ ‫ﯾﮑﯽ ﺟﺰ ﺑﻪ ﻧﯿﮑﯽ ﺯﻣﯿﻦ ﻧﺴﭙﺮﺩ‬
I turn to right and left, in all the earth
I see no signs of justice, sense, or worth:
A man does evil deeds, and all his days
Are filled with luck and universal praise;
Another’s good in all he does—and dies
A wretched broken man, whom all despise.27

When, at the end of the poem, the last Persian king, Yazdegerd III, is killed as the Arab
invaders sweep across Iran, Ferdowsi expresses the same bewilderment, but at this
point, as his poem is ending, he also councils a stoic acceptance of what cannot be
comprehended but must be endured:
‫ﻧﺒﺎﺷﺪ ﻧﺪﺍﺭﺩ ﺧﺮﺩ ﺩﺭ ﻧﻬﺎﻥ‬ ‫ﺍﮔﺮ ﺭﺍﻩ ﯾﺎﺑﺪ ﮐﺴﯽ ﺯﯾﻦ ﺟﻬﺎﻥ‬
‫ﺷﻮﺩ ﮐﺸﺘﻪ ﺑﺮ ﺑﯽ ﮔﻨﻪ ﯾﺰﺩﮔﺮﺩ‬ ‫ﺯ ﭘﺮﻭﺭﺩﻩ ﺳﯿﺮ ﺁﯾﺪ ﺍﯾﻦ ﻫﻔﺖ ﮔﺮﺩ‬
‫ﮐﻪ ﺍﺯ ﻟﺸﮑﺮ ﺍﻭ ﺳﻮﺍﺭﯼ ﻧﺒﺮﺩ‬ ‫ﺑﺮﯾﻦ ﮔﻮﻧﻪ ﺑﺮ ﺗﺎﺟﺪﺍﺭﯼ ﺑﻤﺮﺩ‬
‫ﻧﻪ ﭘﯿﺪﺍ ﺑﻮﺩ ﺭﻧﺞ ﻭ ﺧﺸﻤﺶ ﺯ ﻣﻬﺮ‬ ‫ﺧﺮﺩ ﻧﯿﺴﺖ ﺑﺎ ﮔﺮﺩﮔﺮﺩﺍﻥ ﺳﭙﻬﺮ‬
‫ﻧﺪﺍﺭﯼ ﺯ ﮐﺮﺩﺍﺭ ﺍﻭ ﻣﻬﺮ ﻭ ﺧﺸﻢ‬ ‫ﻫﻤﺎﻥ ﺑﻪ ﮐﻪ ﮔﯿﺘﯽ ﻧﺒﯿﻨﯽ ﺑﻪ ﭼﺸﻢ‬
A man who understands the world soon says
There is no sense or wisdom in its ways:
If this is how imperial blood is spilled
And innocents like Yazdegerd are killed,
The seven spheres grow weary of their roles—
No longer do they cherish mortal souls.
The heavens mingle their malevolence
With kindnesses, in ways that make no sense,
 10 Davis

And it is best if you can watch them move

Untouched by indignation and by love.28

Do not love the world, do not be angry at it, accept it but understand that you will not
understand it. There is I think a real nobility in this stoicism, but it is a deeply pessi-
mistic and not particularly religious view of man’s position in the universe, and it is the
last one that Ferdowsi offers us, coming as it does at the end of his poem. Part of the
greatness of Ferdowsi is that he never allows us easy answers, and that he shows that all
decisions can have evil as well as good consequences. He does not flinch from diffi-
culty, nor does he flinch in the face of his apprehension that the world is unjust
and cruel, and that God’s purposes, if they exist, are incomprehensible; in any case,
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they are certainly not to be explained away by the dogmas of any faith.

Notes

1. Rosenthal, History of Muslim Historiography, 92–3, remarks that the “majority of historians who
dealt with pre-Islamic dynasties” seem to have “refrained from any attempt to interconnect the
history of various nations according to some scheme of synchronization”; however, he singles out
Tabari and al-Dīnawarī for their interest to “construct a chronological relationship of the Persian
kings with the first man of Jewish and Christian mythology, etc.” See also Meisami, “The Past in
Service of the Present”; and Tavakoli-Targhi, “Contested Memories.” For Hamza al-Isfahani’s
specific use of sources, see Pourshariati, “Hamza al-Iṣfahānī and Sasanid Historical Geography”;
and Adang, “Chronology of the Israelites.” For the controversial question of Ferdowsi’s own use
of sources, see Davis, “The Problem of Ferdowsî’s Sources.”
2. For more on this question, see Dominic Brookshaw, “Mytho-Political Remakings of Ferdowsi’s
Jamshid in the Lyric Poetry of Injuid and Mozaffarid Shiraz,” in the present issue of Iranian Studies.
3. For an overview and bibliography, see Kreyenbroek, “Cosmogony and Cosmology.”
4. Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, ed. Khaleghi-Motlagh (henceforth abbreviated SN), 1:24–24, lines 57–66;
1:36–7, lines 27–44; and 1:44, lines 49 and 57.
5. For more on this question, see the article by Laurie Pierce, “Serpents and Sorcery: Humanity, Gender,
and the Demonic in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh,” in the present issue of Iranian Studies.
6. Javānshir, Hamāseh-ye Dād.
7. SN, 5: 76–174, lines 14–1028.
8. On Daqiqi, see Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Daqīqī, Abū Mansūr Aḥmad. ”
9. See Davis, “Problem of Ferdowsî’s Sources,” 55, footnote 28 (following Zabihollāh Safā).
10. Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Daqīqī, Abū Mansūr Aḥ mad,” points out, following Bernhard Geiger, that while
Daqiqi’s thousand lines covers the subject matter of the Pahlavi treatise Ayādgār ī Zarērān, it was not
taken directly from it, but rather from a divergent version given in the Khwadāy-nāmag.
11. The section immediately following Daqiqi’s (goftār andar bāz gashtan beh sakhon-e Ferdowsi, SN, 5:
175–8, ll. 129–163), has several lines disparaging the quality of Daqiqi’s achievement (e.g. line 1030:
negah kardam in nazm sost āmad-am / basi beyt-e nā-tandorost āmad-am = I looked it over and the
verse seemed weak to me; many of its lines seemed malformed to me), though Ferdowsi does recog-
nize Daqiqi’s wisdom in selecting a fitting subject for a Persian poem—if it were well versified, that is.
12. SN, 5:349ff.
13. SN, 5:405ff.
14. The story of Rostam and Esfandyār comes at SN, 5: 291–438, and in my translation, Davis, Fathers
and Sons, 217–70.
15. Nihāyat al-Arab and Tārikh-e Sistān. For al-Dīnawarī’s history, see the following note.
16. Dīnawarī, al-Akhbār al-Tiwāl, 25. See also the Persian translation of the Akhbār al-Tevāl, 50.
 Religion in the Shahnameh 11

17. SN, 7:159, line 907.

18. For details on the description of this conflict in other sources, see Davis, “Rostam and Zoroastrian-
ism.”
19. A good overview of Khwēdōdah, the custom of pre-Islamic incestuous marriages can be seen in the
Sasanian legal compendium by Farraxvmart î Vahrâmân, Book of a Thousand Judgments, which has a
number of inheritance laws concerning the children of siblings, somewhat fewer for children of
father–daughter marriages, and there is one pertaining to the children of a mother–son marriage.
See also Skjaervø, “Marriage ii. Next of Kin.”
20. SN, 5:483, lines 141–2.
21. Gordyeh is introduced at SN, 7:596, lines 1560ff (yaki khvāharash bud rowshan-ravān).
22. SN, 4:312, lines 2216–17.
23. SN, 1:3, line 6.
24. SN, 2:117–18, lines 1–4.
25. Other articles in the current special issue of Iranian Studies also address this question from various
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angles: Cameron Cross, “‘If Death is Just, What is Injustice?’ Illicit Rage in Rostam and Sohrab and
the Knight’s Tale”; and Richard Gabri, “Framing the Unframable, in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh”; as well
as Franklin Lewis, “Ethical Hermeneutics and the Moral Universe of the Shahnameh.”
26. For the slaying of Seyāvakhsh, see SN, 2:354ff.
27. SN, 2:358, lines 2291–3; translation from Davis, Fathers and Sons, 80.
28. SN, 8:467, lines 665–9; the verse translation, from Davis, Sunset of Empire, 509, however, follows the
Moscow edition of the Shahnameh.

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