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The fourth is the pure faith of the Arab which raises the head of the intelligent out of dust. Thus they struggle for the preservation of their religion and pull the cloth towards the four sides away from each other and become enemies for the sake of religion." But Firdausi did not at all invent the material of his narrative. In actuality Ibn Moqaffa was not believed to be a sincere Muslim.
Khorasan played a vital part in the development of the modern Persian literature and especially its chief department, poetry. The entire early period of the history of modern Persian poetry, from Abbas welcoming with an ode Khalif Mamun into Merv down to Firdausi, may be labelled Khorasanian.
Noeldeke translated in 1879, the portion relating to the Sasanians into German, and added footnotes to his translation, which are a mine of information on pre-Moslem Persia. The introduction which he wrote to his translation is equally valuable especially for the light it throws on the sources of Firdausi. The following is a translation of that German introduction by Noeldeke.
Panels from left to right: "He that honors not himself lacks honor wheresoe'er he goes," from Zuhayr, the Arabian poet; "The balmy air diffuses health and fragrance; so tempered is the genial glow that we know neither heat nor cold; tulips and hyacinths abound; fostered by a delicious clime, the earth blooms like a garden," from Firdausi, the Persian poet; "A wise man teaches, be not angry.
They owe the full and closely interconnected form which they assume in the Shahna-meh and other modern Persian writings, partly to a gradual accretion during the course of centuries, partly to the inventive genius of Firdausi, who wove the various and often isolated legends into a pseudo-history, and amplified them at his own pleasure.
In the semilegendary history of Iran is to be found a tale, retold by Firdausi in the Shaknameh, of Kavi Usan, who "essayed the sky To outsoar angels" by fastening four eagles to his throne. The Iranian motif was adopted in the romances of Alexander the Great and so passed into European literature.
Now the Shahnameh of the great poet Firdausi, a national epic of the kind which no other people possess, while it on one hand, apart from the poetic license indulged in by Firdausi, contains much that is either not found at all or is essentially differently related in Arab writers; on the other, considerably accords with those Arab annalists in the order, in the whole structure, and in the details of the narrative.
Again, if the great work of Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit.
But we have no sufficient grounds to assume that he introduced arbitrary and material alterations into his translations or even that he greatly elaborated the rhetorical passages of the original text or invested them with an altogether different garb. Such a suspicion is contradicted by the coincidences with other sources which, like Firdausi, are independent of him.
The Persian poet-historian Firdausi ascribes to Jamshed the discovery of wine in his leisure from kingly duties and scientific pursuits, for to him is attributed the invention of many useful arts, and the introduction of the solar year for measurement of time, the first day of which, when the sun enters Aries, he ordered to be celebrated by a splendid festival.
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