Tales of Love and War
“The worldview of a people, though normally left unspoken in the daily business of buying and selling ... is to be found in a culture’s stories, myths, and rituals.” (Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews ). The epic of pre-Islamic Persia (Iran) is the Shahnameh , or Epic of Kings, a collection of heroic tales written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi at the end of the 10th century C.E. This monumental effort took 30 years to complete and, sadly, the poet died in poverty and embittered by royal neglect in 1020 C.E. Significantly, the work is written in Persian, even though Arabic was the primary language of government and education at the time. The Shahnameh deals with heroes and kings, but it is much more than a warrior-hero story or a collection of romantic tales of love and war. The epic is a window revealing the people and the rich culture of pre-Islamic [pre-7th century] Persia. On one level, it is a patriotic chronicle of the central role of monarchy in Persian history. On another lev...