The Shahnameh

AKA: The Book of Kings.
See: Mahmud of Ghazni, The Sasanian Empire, Bahram Gur, Barbad, Ferdowsi, Classical Persian, Persian Mythology, Zoroastrian, 11th Century, Persian Literature.

References

(Wikipedia, 2022) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh Retrieved:2022-1-25.
- The Shahnameh or Shahnama is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi for Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni ^[1] between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 “distichs" or couplets (two-line verses), the Shahnameh is one of the world's longest epic poems. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic. The work is of central importance in Persian culture and Persian language, regarded as a literary masterpiece, and definitive of the ethno-national cultural identity of Iran. It is also important to the contemporary adherents of Zoroastrianism, in that it traces the historical links between the beginnings of the religion and the death of the last Sasanian emperor, which brought an end to the Zoroastrian influence in Iran.

↑ Britannica online, "Shāh-nāmeh" (link); "Shāh-nāmeh, (Persian: “Book of Kings”) celebrated work of the epic poet Ferdowsī, in which the Persian national epic found its final and enduring form. Written for Sultan Maḥmūd of Ghazna and completed in 1010, the Shāh-nāmeh is a poem of nearly 60,000 verses, mainly based on the Khvatay-nāmak, a history of the kings of Persia in Pahlavi (Middle Persian) from mythical times down to the 7th century."

(Wikipedia, 2022) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh#Message Retrieved:2022-1-25.
- According to Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq, the Shahnameh teaches a wide variety of moral virtues, like worship of one God; religious uprightness; patriotism; love of wife, family and children; and helping the poor. There are themes in the Shahnameh that were viewed with suspicion by the succession of Iranian regimes. During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, the epic was largely ignored in favor of the more obtuse, esoteric and dryly intellectual Persian literature. Historians note that the theme of regicide and the incompetence of kings embedded in the epic did not sit well with the Iranian monarchy. Later, there were Muslim figures such as Ali Shariati, the hero of Islamic reformist youth of the 1970s, who were also antagonistic towards the contents of the Shahnameh since it included verses critical of Islam. These include the line: tofu bar to, ey charkh-i gardun, tofu! (spit on your face, oh heavens spit!), which Ferdowsi used as a reference to the Muslim invaders who despoiled Zoroastrianism.

https://qwiklit.com/2013/09/10/the-20-greatest-epic-poems-of-all-time/
- QUOTE: ... One thing that the great Iranian epic has in common with the ancients is a sense of nostalgia from a lost past. Also known as The Book of Kings, The Shahnameh looks back at the old Zoroastrian traditions in the country while chronicling the entire history of the Persian Empire from its Eurasian reign to its demise in the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. While this may seem more historical than poetic, Firdawsi drives the work forward by including vivid accounts of political intrigue and betrayal.