Conclusion: Shāhnāmeh and the Tyranny of Eurocentrism

Ipointed out early in this volume that all scholarship emerges from a cultural background, and that Western studies of Iran’s national epic must be understood in the context of their profound Eurocentrism. The Eurocentric feature of Western Shāhnāmeh scholarship presupposes the “Western” to be the norm, while it measures and redefines the “Oriental” against that norm. What’s more, it does so regardless of historical context, cultural circumstance, or even in the face of substantial contrary evidence. In this respect, most Western scholars tend to mirror their governments’ behavior in a mutual interpretation of the “Oriental.” Their interpretive stance does not depend on evidence per se, because evidence does not matter in a relationship that is almost exclusively based on power, force, and the sense of entitlement that goes with their exercise. Evidence in such relationships is not necessary because it can be manufactured. After all, if a sovereign state may be invaded on the basis of manufactured evidence, violations of scholastic norms in an esoteric field of learning would hardly present a problem. The attitude of Western scholars toward the Oriental is very similar to the attitude of the Western politician toward the non-Western. Context matters little and evidence even less. Both groups operate on the same my-way-or-the-highway ideological paradigm of American Exceptionalism.