A New Introduction to the First Part of the Salarnameh with a Comparison between the Shahnameh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani

Abstract

From the time when Ferdowsi introduced the Shahnameh to the circle of poets at the court of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, and the Sultan himself examined its pages, down to the present, in every period, poets—whether Iranian or non-Iranian—have shown an inclination to test their poetic talent in the domain of epic composition. Among them, some, such as Nezami and Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, produced successful works. During the Qajar era, several poets also composed narrative poems in imitation of the Shahnameh. Among these works, there exists a poem that should be regarded as a supplement to the Shahnameh: a short poetic composition contained in a book entitled Salarnameh, written by Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, the great philosopher, intellectual, freedom-seeker, and writer of the Qajar period, whose diverse works in both prose and poetry contributed, to some extent, to the awakening of Iranians during the Constitutional era. His profound love for the homeland led him toward a new investigation of Iranian history, making him the first Iranian historiographer to produce a scientific history comparable to classical European works. In this respect, the modern style of historiography is indebted to his efforts. The poetic work Salarnameh was composed in the mutaqārib meter and in the form of rhyming couplets, and it was published in two parts. The first part, written by Mirza Aqa Khan as a research-based account, presents the history of pre-Islamic Iran up to the end of the Sasanian period under the title Nameh-ye Bastan; the second part, written by Ahmad Adib Kermani, continues this history from the Arab Muslim conquest to the reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah. Since only the first part is thematically related to the Shahnameh, the present study is based specifically on that first part. However, prior to comparing the Shahnameh with Aqa Khan’s poem, this article first discusses the title of the first part of the Salarnameh, namely Nameh-ye Bastan, a point addressed here for the first time. For many years, writers and researchers have been mistaken about the title of this poetic work, and this error has resulted from a lack of attention to the opening and closing verses of the poem. This study will, for the first time, reveal the truth about which book bears the title Nameh-ye Bastan.