SOURCE: “Epic Poetry,” in Persian Literature, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, Bibliotheca Persica, 1988, pp. 96-108.

[In the essay below, Hanaway discusses Persian national epic poetry in general and the Shah-Nama in particular, focusing on the poem's language and the nature of its heroes. Hanaway also comments on the movement from epic to romance that occurred in the literature of medieval Persia after the Shah-Nama.]

Persian epic poetry is both extensive and little known. The following discussion will attempt to introduce this poetry by touching on several areas of literary and cultural interest. Beginning with a definition of epic poetry, it will move on to examine some of the background of the Persian national epic and then will focus on Ferdowsi's Shāh-nāma itself. The nature of the heroes and the language of the epic will be discussed, and the shift from epic to romance that took place in medieval Persian literature after the Shāh-nāma will be examined. Finally a word will be said about the place of Shāh-nāma in the Persian literary tradition.

Epic poetry in its oldest form is oral poetry, and from this unwritten form the literary epic evolved. In the present context an epic poem is understood to be an extended narrative, focusing on the deeds of high-ranking persons, with the interest generally revolving around the adventures of a few kings and great heroes. Thus it is a poetry of action, reflecting a court-centered society. Nevertheless, epic poetry always has a close connection with a particular people for whom it has a profound meaning. Likely to embody the history, the ideals, and the values of a people, it is often a cohesive force in ethnic or national consciousness. It can formulate a people's cultural and spiritual heritage and objectify it in a manner which appeals to the heart as much as to the mind. Persian epic poetry fits all of these requirements perfectly, although what survives of it today is not oral but literary. Doubtlessly a long tradition of oral poetry lies behind this, but it is a tradition lost to us today.

As Persian epic poetry is explored in terms of the above characteristics, the discussion will then focus on Ferdowsi's Shāh-nāma, its antecedents, and its descendants. The Shāh-nāma is closer than any other work in Persian literature to our definition of epic poetry and is thus the most useful pivot for a general discussion. Other works will be mentioned against the background of the Shāh-nāma.

To understand better this poetry and the way it fits into the framework of Persian literature, some general background information is necessary. Paradoxically, we have far more material available from the Iranian epic tradition than we have epic poetry embodying this material. Furthermore, the greater part of what remains to us of the epic tradition was written down in Islamic times by Muslim writers for Muslim audiences. This religio-cultural setting obviously influenced what was set down and how it was presented. Regardless of when they were written down, however, these stories, legends, motifs, beliefs, and attitudes have their roots deep in the past, and this past shows itself in ways both obvious and subtle. Some of these ways will be discussed later, but first, the main sources of Persian epic poetry must be considered.

The deepest roots lie in ancient Indo-European and Indo-Iranian traditions, and the traditions of the Iranians as they developed into a nation. The sources of this national tradition are often difficult to identify, but we can be reasonably certain that traces of myths and practices stemming from the common period of the Indo-Europeans can be seen in the Avesta and in the epic poetry that survives. It is probably from those times that the accounts of Jamshid, Faredun, Hōshang, Kay Khosrow, and others who play important roles in the Shāh-nāma have their origin.

As the Iranians moved onto the plateau that is now their homeland, they brought with them old myths and legends. In the process of territorial expansion and settlement, battles fought with the indigenous peoples also left their mark in the Iranians' memory, and accounts of these were preserved in oral tradition. Assuming that there was oral epic poetry even in this early period, it is likely that these stories existed simultaneously in several different versions. In a tradition of oral epic poetry, the concept of a “correct” version of a story, a canonized variant to be preferred over all others does not, cannot, exist. In orally transmitted epics, the story is recreated with each telling; only with the invention of writing did the concept of a fixed text develop.

In addition to ancient memories and traditions, another major source of Persian epic poetry is prehistoric religious tradition, from Zoroastrianism and other pre-Islamic religions. It is not certain how long the Iranians had been settled on the plateau when Zarathushtra appeared as a prophet in the sixth century b.c., or earlier. This would give at least fifteen hundred years for episodes from that period to work their way into the national legend and the material that Ferdowsi used as his source.

As the Iranians wandered onto the plateau, some of them began to shift from nomadism to agriculture. This development implied a more settled life, the growth of villages, and a change in their view of the world. It must have been during these transitional times that one of the great motifs of Persian epic poetry began to emerge: the theme of Iran versus Turan. In the Shāh-nāma we see a late and confused form of this theme, cast in terms of Iranians versus Turks, with the Oxus River forming the boundary between the two hostile peoples. The wars between these peoples occupy such a large part of the Shāh-nāma that they must reflect older and deeper oppositions, possibly beginning with the age-old animosity between nomads and settled people. Zoroastrianism contributed religious and ethical dimensions to this conflict, and it is no surprise that such opposition, growing out of conflicting social and religious systems, was also seen as a struggle between the forces of good and evil. In the entire national legend the Iranians have no more bitter enemies than the Turanians.

Along with national and religious traditions, a third major element entering into Persian epic poetry can be called the popular tradition. This consists of legends, stories, traditions, and fantasies about persons and places, real or imagined, that form a part of a nation's culture but are not necessarily part of the mainstream of the national tradition and its heroes. Many stories from popular tradition are grafted onto great figures in the national tradition. The sources of the popular tradition are found all over the world and are productive even today.

With some idea of the principal elements that go into Persian epic poetry, we may now turn to the major example of that poetry. The Shāh-nāma is an epic poem of some fifty thousand lines, written over a period of about thirty years and completed around a.d. 1000 by Abul's-Qāsem Ferdowsi, a member of the landed gentry from the village of Tus, a few miles north of Meshed in eastern Iran. It is written in rhyming couplets in the motaqāreb meter: … Ferdowsi displays great pride in his work and takes pains to tell us that he has written this poem as a monument that will endure the ravages of time. It should be stressed that the Shāh-nāma is a carefully created literary epic and not a product of the oral tradition, although there is certainly much from that tradition in it.

The epic falls into natural divisions of an introduction and fifty sections of unequal length, each devoted to the reign of a king. The fifty reigns are grouped chronologically into four major dynastic divisions—the Pishdadians, the Kayanians, the Parthians, and the Sasanians—and form a chronicle of the Iranian people from the creation of the world to the Arab conquest of Iran. Overlapping the first two dynastic divisions is a special cycle of tales integrated into the mainstream of the narrative. This is the so-called Seistan cycle, part of a much larger cycle of stories originating in eastern Iran and devoted to the exploits of the great hero Rostam and his descendants. Thus it can be said that Ferdowsi cast a considerable portion, but not all, of the national legend into the form of an epic poem. The parts that he left out will be discussed later.

The Shāh-nāma is a poem of action. The characteristic pursuits of the Iranian nobles are hunting, feasting, and war—three closely related activities. In hunting for sport, the aggressive drives of the warrior are directed toward animals, thus satisfying the desire for action and conflict while reducing the risks involved. Feasting, with its erotic overtones, represents the other side of the coin, where the urge to violence is sublimated. Since the heroes of the Shāh-nāma are free of the administrative duties of kingship, they have little else to do but hunt, drink, and fight, and thus pass their time alternating between excesses of violent action and, as it were, violent indolence. They never flag in their pursuit of personal honor and glory. The kings, on the other hand, fulfill a different role and hence tend to behave with a greater degree of decorum and gravity.

We recall that it is the rule for epic poetry to focus on the deeds of a great hero. The conventions of the epic, however, allow for little psychological development in the characters, with the result that the heroes of the Shāh-nāma are born, not made. Cast in the heroic mold from birth, the hero's life is merely the working-out of its predestined nature. The great hero of the Shāh-nāma is Rostam, and his career is no exception to this rule. Descended from a long line of Seistani rulers tracing their lineage back to the mythical hero Keresāspa, Rostam, like many heroes in world literature, was born by cesarian section and showed astounding prowess practically from his first day. He matured much more quickly than other boys of his age, and while still a youth, he killed an elephant singlehandedly. Entering into a lifetime of heroic behavior, he fearlessly met all challengers, natural and supernatural. He was independent in the rule of his own territory but subservient to the ruling monarch of Iran. After a long and splendid career of service to several kings, he met an ignominious and unheroic death.

According to Northrup Frye's definition, the epic hero's power of action is superior in degree to other men's but not superior to the natural environment. In this respect too Rostam is a typical hero, endowed with superhuman strength and endurance but still subject to fatigue, the pain of wounds, and the normal human emotions of anger and love. He is not immune to the rigors of old age, and he cannot fly through the air, control the elements, or make himself invisible. Because of these limitations, we can easily identify with Rostam as a human being. If he is more powerful than we, he still cannot challenge nature or the gods, nor can we. If Rostam's pride sometimes interferes with his good sense, who of us can claim never to have had this happen? As an epic hero, Rostam is solid and dependable, with a clear idea of his own importance in the general scheme of things.

Rostam and his royal masters are not the only characters in the epic, at least in the legendary parts. While the majority of the actors are human and most of the action motivated by human concerns, supernatural agents are present as well. Divs (demons) are a common breed of the latter. Rostam is captured and carried off by a div named Akvān in a very peculiar episode, and in a famous series of adventures the great hero rids the province of Mazanderan of these creatures.

One of the most spectacular of the supernatural creatures is the Simorgh, a mythical bird who nourishes Rostam's father and protects Rostam himself. This bird, with its healing powers and its protective attitude toward great heroes, may embody a very old Iranian or Indo-Iranian belief. In his well-known battle with Esfandiyār, Rostam faces an enemy who seems to be his match. In desperation Rostam summons the Simorgh, who provides him with the magical means of killing his enemy. Such aid is not given without recompense, however, and the direct result of Rostam's victory is his own death at the hands of his brother later on.

The most pervasive of the supernatural forces is God, and He too intervenes on behalf of the hero. When Rostam is fighting Sohrāb in their tragic conflict, Rostam is hard-pressed by his adversary. Although earlier he had prayed that God take some of his excessive power from him, now he prays for added strength. The ironic result is that Rostam is victorious, only to learn, as his heroic opponent lay dying, that he has killed his own son.

One might object here that Rostam is something less than a real hero because, when he is hard-pressed, he can call upon supernatural help. There are two dimensions to this problem, one literary and the other moral. First, Rostam is an epic hero, and the job of epic heroes is to win. He does not indulge in scruples, mainly because they are irrelevant here. This is not to say that he is amoral, but only that he is required by epic convention to win, and win by whatever means necessary. Second is the moral dimension. We have seen that in both instances when Rostam is forced to call upon nonhuman help, the aid comes, but a price is exacted in return. In the one case Rostam kills his own son, and in the other he subsequently loses his own life, just as the Simorgh predicted he would if he accepted the means to kill Esfandiyār. The epic hero will win by any means, but he must also win at any cost, and in Rostam's case the cost of winning is the greatest price a person can pay.

The world of the Shāh-nāma is centered in Iran and extends outward in all directions. As the action flows in and out like the tide, it surges over much of the then-known world. The geographical scope of the epic is vast. Hunting expeditions and wars carry the heroes far beyond the boundaries of Iran to encounter Arabs, Byzantines, Central Asians, Chinese, Indians, and other non-Iranian peoples. Long journeys and marches are frequent; prolonged absence from home is the rule for heroes. With all of this variety, however, local color plays almost no role at all. Other than the numerous depictions of sunrise and sunset, nature is hardly described. Whether the action is in Arabia or China, the only variable is the enemy, and the terrain and climate might not exist for all we know.

It must not be thought that the whole Shāh-nāma is concerned with the exploits of Rostam, for historical material is present in generous measure as well. As mentioned earlier, the epic is divided into four major dynastic sections, and by the end of the second dynasty Rostam is dead and the Seistan cycle has come to an end. The last two sections, on the Parthians and Sasanians, bring the narrative out of the mythical and legendary eras and into historical periods.

The section on the Parthians is very short, while that on the Sasanians is relatively long, taking up roughly one-half of the epic. Here we are given a great deal of historical information on the Sasanians and their principal enemy, the Byzantines, plus, among other things, the amorous adventures of Bahrām Gor, the romance of Khosrow and Shirin, the story of Bahrām Chobin, and a number of throne speeches of ethical content. From this it is evident that the Shāh-nāma combines different kinds of material: mythical, legendary, epic, historical, ethical, and romantic.

It is worth noting that in Iran, today's audience is interested only in the earlier part of the Shāh-nāma and not in the Parthians and Sasanians. They rightly sense that with the death of Rostam, the truly epic part of the Shāh-nāma ends, and what remains is essentially a historical account with no hero to give it focus. To satisfy their audiences and prolong their sessions, the storytellers now interpolate various other tales from the Seistan cycle into their narratives of the Shāh-nāma. It is thus mainly the Seistan cycle that provides the true epic heroes, while the latter part of the narrative purports to give us history.

To the extent that the Shāh-nāma presents a linear sequence of events, many of which are linked by the process of cause and effect, and also conveys much information, it does constitute a work of history as well as an epic poem. In fact, Shāh-nāma means “Book of Kings,” and this may be regarded as a generic as well as a specific title. Before Ferdowsi's time there was a long tradition of writing Shāh-nāmas, stretching back to the late Sasanian period when an official chronicle called “Book of Kings” was compiled. The intention of this latter work clearly seems to have been historical.¹

Along with the historical material in the Shāh-nāma, however, there is much that falls outside of historical time. Some events described are not susceptible to any sort of verification, and with others the narrative time cannot be historical. What does it mean to us, for example, that Rostam lived several hundred years? What is the real significance of his battle with Esfandiyār? These events have a different kind of meaning for us from those connected with Khosrow II and the Byzantines. We cannot accept as true Ferdowsi's explanation of how material culture developed in the world. Nor could those who explained material culture by the myth in the Shāh-nāma understand the history of the world as a process. Thus the Shāh-nāma contains not only different kinds of material, but different modes of thought as well, and the tension that exists among these modes of thought is only resolved by the synthetic vision that the poet has imposed on his material.

Turning now to a different sort of question, that of the language of the epic, we see that the Shāh-nāma, like much epic poetry, is written in relatively plain language. In this case, the Persian is considered simple for two reasons: it contains a very low percentage of Arabic loanwords, and it is relatively free of rhetorical devices and complicated figurative language. These two qualities are linked: for technical reasons, it is quite difficult to write highly figured poetry in Persian while severely restricting the Arabic which can be drawn upon. The question is, why should the language of the Shāh-nāma be this way? The traditional answer gives Ferdowsi great credit as a nationalist but little credit as a poet. Since great nationalists do not necessarily make great poets, a different answer will be suggested below.

Ferdowsi's images are succinct and appropriate. He rarely piles image upon image, and he seldom employs extended metaphors requiring several lines. An example will help make this clear. At one point, Ferdowsi has an enemy general say to his men before battle:²

We will make the air like a spring cloud;
          We will rain arrows upon them.

The Persian is richer than the English, but the point comes through in translation. He uses the image of a spring cloud to express a threat to the Persians. In the first half-line we are presented with the unqualified image of a spring cloud, which might carry with it associations of abundant rain, revivification, and movement. But these are immediately eliminated by the second half-line, which focuses the image on the rain alone. We now understand that the rain will consist of arrows and that it will bring death rather than new life. It is appropriate that this image is used by an enemy, for how could an Iranian, whose new year commences with the vernal equinox, ever ironically link spring with death? Beginning with a common military cliché, tir bārān (raining arrows), Ferdowsi lifts it out of an anonymous and moribund state to endow it with a new freshness and create an image that goes directly to the point.

In contrast to this economy of imagery, the writers of later epics and romances tend to be more prodigal. Images in a long series or large conglomerations are characteristic of these works, as is a more general use of imagery altogether; thus, they depend on figurative writing rather than on precise description. Here then lies one of the basic differences between the epic and other kinds of narrative poetry.

This distinction leads us back to our question of why there are so few similes and metaphors in Ferdowsi's epic language compared with other Persian poetry of his time. The answer lies in the tension which exists between the need to use rhetorical devices and figurative language to render vivid the action of the heroes, and the seductive dangers inherent in the use of such language—seductive because in poetry of heroic action, the listener's attention must remain fixed on that action. The meaning of the event lies in its action. If the action is described in figurative and suggestive language, flights of associations are started up in the listener's mind, associations which add new dimensions and nuances. These in turn divert the mind to contemplation and interpretation and away from the speed, the sequences, the actions and reactions that are the stuff of this poetry. In this respect, Persian epic poetry is not autonomous. It demands the imaginative participation of the listener, as any Tehran storyteller will affirm. It will not, however, bear the kind of imaginative extension which comes with the reading of lyric poetry. The lines of epic poetry should ring like a sword on a shield, or a hammer on an anvil, not like a carillon in a bell tower.

In this sparing and very precise use of imagery I believe we can understand some of Ferdowsi's success. He knew well how to control his language in order to achieve a desired effect. He used epic language with his raw material and produced epic poetry, while others, with no less appropriate material at their disposal, were not able to restrict themselves to the linguistic leanness of the master. Precisely this ability contributes in large measure to his poetic stature.

The language and form of the Shāh-nāma had a profound effect on how the remaining material from the national legend—those stories not included in the Shāh-nāma—were preserved for posterity. The Persian national legend was enormously broad in scope and in Ferdowsi's time undoubtedly contained much material now lost to us. Hints of such material may be gained from Sogdian, Armenian, Middle Persian, and Arabic sources. All was not lost, however, for we have the numerous post-Shāh-nāma epics and traditional romances to supplement these hints. In outward form the later epics closely resemble the Shāh-nāma and are written in the same meter and rhyming couplets; traditional romances are in prose for the most part, although in some of them the verse original shows through the thin spots.

As mentioned above, imposed upon the main narrative of the Shāh-nāma is a cycle of stories about a family of heroes residing in Seistan who were descended from Keresāspa. Ferdowsi treats the life and adventures of Sām, his son Zāl, and Zāl's son Rostam, all members of this Seistan family. After Rostam's death there is little news of the rest of the family in the Shāh-nāma, yet many stories must have been current in medieval Persia, because for four or five hundred years after Ferdowsi's death, tales of the other members of the Seistan family were put into verse on the model of the Shāh-nāma, and thus saved from oblivion.

The earliest of the post-Shāh-nāma epics, completed about a half-century later, is Asadi Tusi's Garshāsp-nāma, which describes the deeds of Garshāsp, a descendant of the legendary King Jamshid. Likewise we have in verse the adventures of Sām, of Rostam's son Farāmarz, of his grandson Borzu, and of various other relations such as Jahāngir, Bahman, Āzarbarzin, Kush, and of one woman, Bānu Goshasp. She is a daughter of Rostam who marries the mighty Giv, son of Godarz. Both of them are prominent figures in the Shāh-nāma. They fall into such violent domestic strife that Rostam has to intervene and bring about peace. Their son is Bizhan, whose love for the Turanian Manizha gets him into deep trouble, and he must be rescued by Rostam.

The most extensive of the later epics is the Borzu-nāma, of which some manuscripts are equal in size to the Shāh-nāma. Borzu is the son of Sohrāb, but he is not mentioned in the latest edition of the Shāh-nāma. The Seistan family comes to an end with Borzu's son Shahryār, whose life is described in the Shahryār-nāma. Nor does this exhaust the post-Shāh-nāma epics, as there are several others concerned with lesser figures.

While all of these works share the epic characteristic of being focused on the deeds of one hero, they differ from the Shāh-nāma in their conception of the hero and the nature of his actions. This divergence from the essence of epic poetry (which also includes language, as indicated above) increased over time. The seeds of change can be seen even in the Garshāsp-nāma, the closest chronologically to the Shāh-nāma. By the time of the Sām-nāma of Khwāju Kermāni, written in the fifteenth century, the shift from epic to romance was complete.

The reasons for this change are not known at present; the best one can do is describe the nature of the change and hope this will provide a clue to its causes. What happened, in brief, was that one set of heroic models was substituted for another. Characters who appear in the Shāh-nāma as typical but minor epic figures, Sām or Farāmarz for example, are changed when they appear as the central characters of a later epic. In the case of the prose romances, we find the substitution of characters such as Dārāb, Firuz Shāh, and Khorshid Shāh for the Kayanian kings of Ferdowsi's epic.

Our admiration for the older epic heroes is based on their superhuman strength and courage and the patriotic service to which these are put. In this case the poet, the reciter, and the audience are drawn together by a collective memory of the national past. One function of this past is to set norms for the future, thus binding together the whole span of Iranian civilization in a unity of values.

As the epic hero changed to a romantic hero, the relations binding together the poet, the reciter, and the audience also changed. In Frye's terms, the powers of action of the romantic hero are superior in degree both to ours and to the natural environment. Thus, our admiration for the romantic hero is based on our desire to escape from everyday life into a fabulous world of adventure and idealized love, a world where everything turns out well, a world where the passions of mortals are magnified but where, in the process, the characters have lost their human vulnerability. The result is a hero once removed from those we can identify with as we do with an epic hero. The romantic vision of the past sets no norms for the future, and the audience is merely entertained by the stories, having little sense of participation in shared values which have formed his civilization across the centuries.³

Keeping in mind this very general picture of the shift from epic to romance, we may suggest some possible reasons for such a change. One could argue, for example, that after Ferdowsi's death there was a general decline in the epic spirit, which might be linked in some fashion to social and intellectual changes in the Iranian cultural area. This point of view, however, would be very difficult to defend. Alternatively, one could suggest that the writers of romances and their audiences had always been present, and that Ferdowsi was an exception. This proposition would be much easier to defend, and would better account for the evidence. No doubt there are other ways to explain the rapid disappearance of epic poetry after Ferdowsi, but any explanation must take into account the long pre-Shāh-nāma tradition of oral romance in Persia, a tradition which continued in full force until the twentieth century.

Finally, something should be said about the place of epic poetry within Islamic Persian literature. From one perspective, the Shāh-nāma stands out as a towering monument in the literary tradition. As we examine it more closely, we see that, like many monuments, over the years it has developed an extremely complex relationship with its surroundings. For one thing, the Shāh-nāma stands at the end of the oral epic tradition in Persian literature. Oral transmission of epic poetry went on after a.d. 1000 to be sure, but its status would never be the same, since a literary tradition now ran parallel to it. Furthermore, the existence of the Shāh-nāma galvanized others to write down those parts of the national legend that Ferdowsi had left out. As we have seen, these later epics looked something like the Shāh-nāma, but were quite different in language and spirit. In fact they form a major link between the epic and the romance traditions of medieval Persia.

The Shāh-nāmā, while incorporating elements of earlier romances such as Khosrow and Shirin, had a strong influence on subsequent romance writing. In the verse romances such as Vis and Rāmin and those of Nezāmi, the weight of the Shāh-nāma is felt everywhere: in the language, in the presentation of battle scenes and descriptions of warriors and heroes, in the description of sunrise and sunset, and in the very structure of the works themselves, where such standard epic elements as single combats and long overseas journeys appear frequently. Much the same can be said of the epic's influence on the traditional prose romances where, in addition to the above, direct quotations from Ferdowsi are frequent.

Beyond the direct influence of the Shāh-nāma on the writing of later epics and romances, a large category of pseudo-epics was directly inspired by it. These historical or religious pieces are modeled on the form of the Shāh-nāma but are unlike it in the use of language and in epic spirit. The historical pseudo-epics are very numerous. For example, Hamdallāh Mostowfi brought the Shāh-nāma up to his own period of the fourteenth century with his Zafar-nāma. Many of the pseudo-epics were written about the lives of the Moghul emperors, and the practice was continued into the nineteenth century with the George-nāma, produced in India in honor of a visit by the British monarch.

Religious pseudo-epics are also numerous. They are for the most part concerned with the battles and successes of Mohammad and ‘Ali. Here the epic form has been used to mold historical and religious material, from a very particular Iranian point of view. The result is a linking of ‘Ali, Mohammad, and other religious figures prominent in the Shi‘ite tradition, to the older Iranian epic heroes. This brings the religious events in question under a strong Iranian light, and presents them squarely within the tradition of epic-romantic narrative poetry.

While the Shāh-nāma had a powerful literary effect in subsequent centuries, it also had and continues to have a powerful psychological effect on the Iranian people through its patriotic and nationalistic sentiments. Since these are extraliterary matters, they will not be discussed here beyond observing that Ferdowsi was able to formulate the national ideals and values of the Iranians in a manner which had no parallel in their literature. His achievement was such, however, that the Shāh-nāma can be enjoyed as epic poetry for its own sake by those unaffected by its patriotic and nationalistic appeals. Its literary and symbolic values combine to make it a true monument, with a life of its own and a message for us all.

Notes

1. See also p. 10 (Ed.).

2. Shāh-nāma, ed. E. Bertels (Moscow, 1960-), vol. 4, 229, l. 316.

3. See chap. 8 on romances (Ed.).

Bibliography

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Jauss, H. “Levels of Identification of Hero and Audience,” New Literary History 5 (1974): 283-317.

Merkelbach, R. “Inhalt und Form in symbolischen Erzählungen der Antike,” Eranos Jahrbuch 35 (1966): 145-75.

Safā, Z. Hamāsa Sarā'i dar Irān (Tehran, 1954).