At Home: The Shāhnāmeh in New Persian

Although the word “Shāhnāmeh” has come to mean Ferdowsi’s epic exclusively, we know that Ferdowsi did not create the Shāhnāmeh’s stories. As we have seen, the word “Shāhnāmeh” originally referred to the genre of literary narrative about ancient Persian kings and heroes that existed in prose and poetry long before Ferdowsi. The factual background of Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāmeh is so generally misunderstood that it is probably worthwhile to describe the pre-Ferdowsi Shāhnāmehs in some detail here.