Shahnameh, Part 1

Leyla: salām, Dr. Sahba Shayani, how are you today?

Sahba: Just call me Sahba, please!

Leyla: Yes, Sahba! Well, thank you for joining me today! This is a very exciting new series that we have. We're going to be talking about the Shahnameh, which, for those of you who don't know what that means, it means the ‘book’, ‘letter’, ‘story’, the ‘Book of Kings’.

Sahba: ‘The book’, yeah.

Leyla: Okay, ‘the Book of Kings’! Yeah, this is going to be a first, hopefully, of a series of many of the stories of the Shahnameh. In this Part One, we're going to focus on the Story of Zal, and so, Sahba, if you can give us an introduction to the Shahnameh and tell us what we're going to be talking about today…

Sahba: Sure, of course, of course! Thank you again for having me; it's wonderful to be here! The Shahnameh is the magnum opus of Ferdowsi. Ferdowsi was the poet of it, and it was completed in 1010 CE, so in the 11th century. Now, New Persian, which we speak today, begins to be formed in the ninth century, essentially. In 670, you have the Arab or Muslim conquest of Iran, and that's when Arabic enters the Persianate field as a dominant language. Little by little, through the centuries, Persian begins to evolve, and by the ninth century, we have what we call New Persian, which is the Persian that we speak today. This is the beauty of Persian, that it hasn't really changed much since the ninth or 10th century, and the Shahnameh plays an important role in the lifespan of Persian because it's known as the text that really saves Persian. You know, there's a line that's attributed to Ferdowsi. The scholars think that he didn't actually write this, but it's attributed to him. He says, “besee ranj bordam dar een sāl see ajam zendé kardam bedeen pārsi.” ‘For 30 years, I struggled’, because it takes him 30 years to write the Shahnameh, ‘for 30 years I struggled, and I revived the ajam with this, through this Persian’. Now, “ajam” is a term that the Arabs used to call the Persians. They used to call all Iranians, or all non-Arabic, or a lot of non-Arabic, speakers, essentially, but it particularly sticks to the Persians, and it's essentially kind of a derogatory term. It means a person who can't speak properly, and then at some point, the Persians own it. They say “yeah, we're ajam,” and so Ferdowsi says, “ajam zendé kardam,” ‘I brought back to life the ajam through this Persian’, “bedeen pārsi.” Whether he's ever said this or not, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that the legacy of the Shahnameh is such that it's seen as the text that preserves Persian language, in contrast to another language that had come as the conquering language, as the domineering language, and also takes that within it. As we know, modern-day Persian has quite a lot of Arabic vocabulary in it, too. It takes it and then reinvents itself, but the Persian that we have at this point and the Persian affair of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is also special because he tends to use a very minimal amount of Arabic words in his Shahnameh, actually. It also becomes this lexicon or this text that saves Persian or keeps Persian as it was before the further Arabic influence on it, essentially.

Leyla: But are you saying that he doesn't have any Arabic loanwords in the Shahnameh?

Sahba: No, it's not “any,” but it's very minimal, yeah.

Leyla: Gotcha, so if he could use a Persian origin word, he would use that.

Sahba: Yeah. He's used predominantly Persian-origin words. Yeah, yeah.

Leyla: Gotcha.

Sahba: The beauty of the Shahnameh is that we can still read it and understand it, but also, there are points where you're like “oh, what's this? I'm not really familiar with this word.” Then you look it up, and you're like “oh, this is actually the original Persian of a more Arabic word that we use today, right!”

Leyla: Okay, and there's kind of a movement right now to bring those words back, I think. It's growing and growing.

Sahba: Yes, it has been. That sort of movement has happened since the time of the Pahlavis, I think,  when there's more of a nationalization, but yes, even to this day, there is still more of a move towards, more recently probably, to use the Persian instead of the Arabic in some words.

Leyla: Yeah. Do you… where do you stand on that? Do you say “dorood” when you see people? Do you still stick to “salām” or…?

Sahba: You know, I think language is a living entity. I think while it's really important to try to preserve it in some ways, to try to use Persian words instead of using English words all the time, which we do in the diaspora a lot, I think it's important to try to preserve it, but I also think this idea of seeing the influence of another language in it as like some sort of lessening of the language or sullying of the language, I don't really believe in. I think these things all help. They make the language more splendid and glorious, actually. It becomes more versatile. It's able to take different things and use them in different ways, and then at some point, it also feels forced and performative to me.

Leyla: Like you're saying, this dates back to the ninth century. It's not a recent thing. People talk about it as if like 50 years ago someone came and said, "Use only ‘salām’, no ‘dorood’!"

Sahba: No…yeah, yeah. No, it's something quite old and quite organic, so if someone prefers to say “dorood,” I think that's fine and that's beautiful on its own, too, but there's a difference between using words here and there and a sort of actual attempt to rid the language of any other words. I think that's heavily problematic, and we should never do that because I think Arabic has actually helped, the Arabic that we have in Persian has helped Persian become a more versatile and flexible language and helped us understand another language in some ways. The Semitic languages, Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, I believe they all have three-letter roots, so if you know the roots of the word, then you can understand different forms. That helps beautify the language and make it richer rather than impoverish it.

Leyla: Back in Ferdowsi’s time, he made a conscious decision to use this ajam language, basically.

Sahba: Yeah, and, I mean, that is understandable because a) it's right… or it's not that far from the conquest and b) it's a language that potentially, we don't know the… this isn't 100% clear because it's so long ago, but that was potentially sort of in decline and Arabic taking over. And so he does this… and we see this with a lot of other countries that were conquered by the Muslim armies, where they lose their original language, and it's actually really thanks to people like Ferdowsi that we were able to preserve the Persian that we have today.

Leyla: And it's very unique in that if we read something, a text in English from like the ninth century, it would probably be much further from our level of understanding of English right now than this Persian is.

Sahba: Definitely, definitely, yeah, definitely, all that to say that it's a gift that we have, really, the Shahnameh. Another aspect of it that's really important is that it preserves a lot of ancient Iranian and Zoroastrian mythology and lore within it, too, so a lot of the stories that we have in the Shahnameh come from Zoroastrian texts. Oftentimes, they come from Zoroastrian texts. The roots of them are Zoroastrian mythology and their history, and then there's elements of oral traditions and stories that have come into it, too. The Shahnameh, I should say, is not… Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is not the first Shahnameh that was written. There were other Shahnamehs, but Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is the only Shahnameh that we have preserved in full, actually.

Leyla: So who was Ferdowsi, and why did he write this? Did someone pay him to write it?        

Sahba: Yes, Ferdowsi was a “dehghān,” which means a landowner, that he was from the landowning class of society. He lived in Khorasan, in Tus, in what is northeastern Iran of today, but Greater Khorasan is a region that expands over Iran and Afghanistan, so obviously, these borders are all very modern things. These were all part of the same thing at that point, and this is why we share the same language as the people of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan and all of that. Ferdowsi was commissioned by the king, actually, yes, by the king, to write the Shahnameh. There is a myth about it, a story that says that he composed the Shahnameh and it took him 30 years. Once he composed it, he presented it to the king. The king had promised to give him gold coins, but instead of the gold coins, he gave him silver coins because he didn't value his work very much. Ferdowsi was devastated. He gave the gold coins away to the attendants in a bath, I believe it is, or someone else, getting rid of them and saying they're not even of value for me to keep, and he dies of the distress of having been snubbed like this. Then by that point, the king realizes that he made a mistake, and he sends his retinue to go give Ferdowsi the gold, but they see… as they approach Ferdowsi’s home, they see his body being carried out to the cemetery, and so it was too late. It's a legend, most likely, but it carries its weight nonetheless. Ferdowsi is one of the pillars of Persian poetry. He's one of our earliest poets, and the Shahnameh is an epic. It's the national Iranian, Afghan, Tajik epic. A lot of people compare it… for a Western audience, they would compare it to the Iliad or the Odyssey of Homer, and it's actually the longest poem ever written by a single author.

Leyla: Yeah.

Sahba: There are longer poems, but there are different authors in them. The longest poem that was written by one author is the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. It's a really canonical and important text. It's one of our earliest texts that we have, and for all the reasons that I said, it's extremely important to the preservation of the Persian language.

Leyla: Okay. Well, I'm very excited, and like I said before the call, I'm very embarrassed that I don't know more about the Shahnameh! I haven't read these texts. I haven't, but it's sad because it's such an important text to our culture. We know the Iliad. We know the Odyssey. I can say tons of stories out of that. Why is it that you think that this hasn't kind of entered into the consciousness, like those poems have?

Sahba: I think it's the West has always had sort of an obsession with Greece, with Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Those are the paragons that it looks towards, essentially, and as a result, it's sort of… I mean, they are societies on which the West sees itself having been built through its democracy and so on, but as a result of it, it neglects these other giant texts of world literature. I think that's why, and I think nowadays, we see much more of a opening-up of our vision to these other texts of the world, but I think actually, Persian literature is still up and coming for the West, essentially, whereas they are still familiar with perhaps, let's say East Asian literary traditions more. I remember learning about The Tale of Genji in middle school and what an important text it is but never about the Shahnameh or anything like that.

Leyla: So when did you first get into it? When did you first read it?

Sahba: I first read it in university, actually. I first read it when I was doing my doctoral program at UCLA. I took classes with Professor Rahim Shayegan, and anything really I know from the Shahnameh is from him and the classes that I took with him. Then I decided to continue it for my own dissertation, but I was always aware of the Shahnameh. I think we're all, as Iranian or hyphenated-Iranian kids, we’re culturally aware that there is a Shahnameh, and we know that there's a Rostam and there are these dragons and myths and epics and legends, but really, my first encounters with it, or official encounters, were in graduate school.

Leyla: Wow, yeah, and there's a lot of work being done! I mean, I think that's a good point. These stories, a lot of them are presented to children, and it's just a part of your childhood lore. There's a lot of work being done by many people in the diaspora to try to make children's stories, and we have several books now. My kids know Shahnameh more than I do now, because they do kind of pore over these stories. They're so interested in these kinds of myths!

Sahba: I mean, there was this, recently… I think his name is Pendar, Pendar Yousefi…

Leyla: Yeah, we got that one!

Sahba: …released those children's books on the Shahnameh, and they're beautiful.  

Leyla: Yes, so more of this work is being done, and now we're going to introduce these stories, hopefully one by one! We're going to start with the story of Zal. What is that, and where is it in the context? Or actually, before I say that, can I ask, have you read the entire text in Persian?

Sahba: I've read a large… yes, I've read not the whole thing, but I've read a large part of it in Persian, yes, yes.

Leyla: We were saying before you would recommend the best version for someone who just wants to read the whole thing would be Dick Davis in a translation.

Sahba: Dick Davis in translation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think the Shahnameh is really, it is meant to be orally recited. That is traditionally how it was done, through "naghālee," and I think no English translation really captures, as with most Persian poetry or all, it doesn't really capture the essence of it the way that you can in the Persian and in hearing it. That's why I decided to have the Shahnameh classes that I've been having, and the recitation part of it, and… which we’ll experience here too, is a big part of enjoying it, but yes, translation-wise, I think Dick Davis’ translation is a great option, and it's a complete, relatively complete option, and we were talking about this earlier. Another great option, too, is Hamid Rahmanian’s illustrated version, which is… it's not the entirety of the Shahnameh, but it's a beautiful visual. It's a visual feast to look at.  

Leyla: Right. So these, you're going to be reciting sections of it, which we’ll have on our guide in Persian. And so this is more we're not going to go through it word by word like we do in poetry lessons, but we are going to go over the lesson, or the full story kind of in English and talk about that and then do the recitations in Persian.

Sahba: Yes, yes, yes. My plan was to sort of do them intertwined with one another. Is that okay with you?

Leyla: Yes, wonderful. So now, yeah, let's get into what is the story of Zal? Where does it fit into the context of the Shahnameh?

Sahba: Okay. So to begin, so Shahnameh begins with creation, and it ends with the arrival of the Muslim army. So this is the time span, it's a long time span. And it encapsulates both myth and history, essentially. And the first part of it is more mythical and it becomes pseudo-historical to some extent. And the later parts of it are more historical, actually, because they were closer to the time frame of Ferdowsi. The story of Zal takes place in the first half of the Shahnameh, so it's in the mythical era. It's in the era of the Pishdadian, which is that it's a dynasty. It's Pishdadian, Kayanian and Sasanian. These are the three different dynasties that it's divided into. And the story of Zal is between the story of the Pishdadians and the Kayanians, yeah. And the story of Zal takes place under the reign of Manuchehr Shah. So the Shahnameh, as it's called the Shahnameh is the Book of Kings because it goes from king to king to king. This is essentially the format of it. It's from reign to reign to reign. But really, in my opinion, the most interesting characters aren't. Some of the kings are interesting, but it's actually more the heroes and the, you know, that take center stage in a lot of the stories. So the story of Zal begins in the region of Zabulistan, which is in south eastern Iran, between what is modern-day Iran and Pakistan, essentially. That region of Sistan and Balochistan. So it begins there with the father of Zal, whose name is Sām. Sām Narimān, who is the king of Zabulistan. And so Ferdowsi begins the story for us, and he says, konoon por shegeftee yekee dāstān bepayvandam az goftéyé bāstān! Now a por shegeftee, a very fascinating story, I will sow for you from goftéyé bāstān from ancient times. Yeah. negah kon ké mar-sām-rā roozegār ché bāzee namood, ay pesaré goosh-dār! nabood eech farzand mar-sām-rā delash bood jooyandéyé kām-rā. So Sām really wants a child, but he doesn't have one. And then there is a beauty, a beautiful wife of his in the haram that he has. And with her, he is finally able to have a child and nine months passes of her pregnancy, and she finally gives birth to the baby. And the baby is beautiful and wonderful, except for one small flaw. So Ferdowsi says,  bé chehré nekoo bood barsāné sheed valeekan hamé mooy boodash sepeed. So he's beautiful, like the sun. But all of his hair was white. Yeah. And so this is seen as a problem by them and as a source of great worry. So the women of the harem think what should we do? What should we do? And they shut all the doors and the windows, and they keep the baby hidden for a long time, until finally the head mistress of the harem, the head dāye, the head nanny of the harem, essentially, wet nurse, she says I'll take care of it. And here you see the first sort of sign of a strong female character who says, let me, let me take care of this. Yeah. And she goes before sām and she says to him ké "bar sāmé yal rooz farkhondé bād! delé badsegālāné oo kandé bād! pasé pardé andar yalé nāmjooy yekee pāk poor āmad az māhrooy. So a beautiful boy has come from a moon-faced mother, in your harem. tanash noghréyé pāk ō rokh chon behesht. His body is of pure silver. va rokh chon behesht, and his face like heaven. baroo bar nabeenee yek andāmé zesht, and you can't see a single ugly limb on this child. az āhoo hamān k'ash sepeed-ast mooy. His only fault is that his hair is white. choneen bood bakhshé tō, ay nāmjooy!" And thus was your lot o great King. And sām, when he hears this, is terrified, and he says, What? What do you mean? What do you mean that the child has white hair and he rushes off to the harem and throws everything aside and opens the cradle and looks at the child, and he's shocked, and he's shocked and he's disgusted. And he says, he turns to God and he says, ké "ay bartar az kazhee ō kāstee, behee z'ān fezāyad ké tō khāstee! He's speaking to God. O one who are greater than all that is crooked and right. behee z'ān fezāyad ké tō khāstee! Goodness comes from what you decree. agar man gonāhee gerān kardé-am If I have committed a great sin,  v'agar keeshé āhreman āvardé-am And if I followed the ways of evil, bé poozesh magar kerdegāré jahān bé man bar bebakhshāyad andar nahān! If only that the creator of the world would forgive me in secret. In the private of my own solitude. Yeah. bepeechad hamee teeré jānam zé sharm! bejooshad hamee dar delam khooné garm! But now my soul is twisting in pain and blood is boiling in my heart. And then he says,  azeen bachéyé chon bachéyé ahreman, seeyah paykar ō mooyé saré chon saman…?" From this child that is like the child of Ahreman. That is like the child of the demons, of the devil, who has a black body and white hair. And then he says, what should I say? How am I going to show my face to the grandees once they say, what is this? Why is your son such a strange creature? Yeah. Well you see also in this the element of shame, but also the element of wondering how do I, it's not so much that he's worried for his own sake, but he's worried about what are other people going to say. Right.

Leyla: Right.

Sahba: Right. And it's interesting that this is such an ancient anxiety of human beings, you know, and we see it particularly in Persian culture even today. too mardom chi migam, you know?

Leyla: Yeah.

Sahba: It's a big, it's a big, it's always a source of anxiety and always something we actually I think in the younger generations struggle against, oftentimes. And we're like, who cares what other people think? Like, you know, you got to live your life, you know. So it's interesting to see elements of it from its text in the 10th century. Yeah.

Leyla: Yeah. And I also think it's, like, I recently watched  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and that was a big part of it. You know, the Rudolph gets born with this red nose.  But I was watching it thinking, wow, things have changed so, like, it's not, like at the time, you know, his father was like this Dasher, I guess, is his father. And he's like, this child brings me so much shame. I was like, whoa. So it's reminding me very much of this.

Sahba: Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so. Exactly. Very much so. Exactly. Very much so. So he says what to do, what not to do. And he decrees that they take the child to Mount Alborz and desert him there, and leave him there to die.

Leyla: Even though he wanted a son so badly?

Sahba: Even though he wanted a son so badly. Yeah, exactly. Even though he wanted a son so badly. But because of this anxiety of shame and what is he going to say to the other grandees when they see his son, he says, take him, take him away, far away from me and leave him out in the sun and the elements to die. So

Leyla: Is that where we're going to stop? That's that's a cliffhanger.

Sahba: That is what we're going to stop.

Leyla: Wow. Okay, well, this is fun. So for our listeners, so some of you are at a more advanced speaking level. And so we're going to have these lines that we've learned with both the English phonetics, so that you can read it and the translation. And yeah, these words are very similar to a lot of English words. Sorry, a lot of Persian words that we use in conversation. So you'll be able to easily understand this. And for those of you who aren't further along in your study, still look at those. You'll be able to learn a lot. I love this way of learning. We're learning the story, and you're going through it line by line. But it's not necessarily that we're going through it word by word the way we usually would.

Sahba: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leyla: But this is exciting. Yeah. So, what do you want us to be thinking about before our next lesson based on this text?

Sahba: Oh, that's a great question. I think, you know, try to really think about the things we talked about, about the Shahnameh and its origins, its importance and what it really, the weight that it carries. I think it's really important to internalize that and understand that as a society where we're not really familiar with these texts oftentimes. Yeah. And then also think about all the modern themes that are in this text from an ancient period. You know, it's like, and actually it might have been written in 1010 C.E., but it's still applicable to this day and age, like we were saying, like, oh what are people going to think? Or that you wish for something so hard and then when it comes, just because it's not exactly the way that you would’ve anticipated it, you're disappointed, you know, there's a lot of elements there that are at play.

Leyla: Absolutely. And there's this like kind of mythical element of it, of this like baby born with like stark white hair. So, be thinking about that imagery, I think that's very interesting. And you also mentioned women. Can you talk a little bit about, I think that's one of your specialties, right? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sahba: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my, what I work on is the role of women in classical Persian epic poetry. And so, women in the Shahnameh is a fascinating topic. There are fascinating characters to study, and they vary throughout the different eras of the Shahnameh. Like I was saying, there's the mythical era and the historical or pseudo-historical era, and their roles vary, but on the whole, women tend to play, they tend to have very strong characters in the text, and they play important roles, very important roles to the unfolding of the narrative. And we'll encounter some of these beautiful women in the story of Zal, actually, as we continue onwards.

Leyla: Wonderful, I can't wait. Well, thank you so much. That was a very exciting first lesson. I can't wait to see what comes next. And again, go through the text, read it, internalize these few lines that we've learned, and we'll be back next time with Sahba with part two of The Story of Zal.

Sahba: Looking forward to it.