Every year, May 15 is celebrated in Iran as the Day of the Protection of the Persian Language and Ferdowsi Day. Abolghasem Mansur bin Hassan Tusi, nicknamed Ferdowsi, was born in the Khorasan region of Iran in 940 and died in the same region in 1025. He lived for 85 years, and at the age of thirty he began writing his world-famous work, the Shahnameh. The Shahnameh is one of the greatest works of ancient Persian literature. It took Ferdowsi about 30 years to write the Shahnameh. Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is a poetic work with more than 60,000 verses.
The Shahnameh is part of Iran’s national identity and culture. Iranian national heroes and legends are reborn in the poems of the Shahnameh and begin the fight against bad nature and depravity. Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh has preserved the traditions and culture of the country of Iran for many years and passed them on to the current generation of this country.
The importance of the Shahnameh is not only due to its literary value; it can also be called a written identification map of the ancestors of the Iranians.
By studying the Shahnameh in depth, we can understand the richness of culture and civilization in ancient Iran. In the Shahnameh, national heroes and mythological heroes fight against injustice, and the reason for this resistance is reason and wisdom. The good people in Ferdowsi’s work never bow their heads to tyranny and are not afraid of sacrifice.
The resistance of Kaveh Ahangar against Zahhak, the fight of Siavash against Sudabeh, the battle of Rostam and Sohrab, the conflict between Esfandiar and Siavash, and the story of Zal and Rudabeh are among the most prominent examples of Ferdowsi’s stories in the Shahnameh, which many writers, poets, and playwrights have used as inspiration for their works.
The theme of the Shahnameh is based on the desire for freedom and libertarianism of the Iranian people. Shahnameh heroes like Fereydoun, Siavash, Kaykhosro, Rostam, Goodarz, Kaveh, Sohrab, Esfandiar and Afrasiab are also in constant struggle for freedom and liberty. Throughout the entire book of the Shahnam, good and bad, good and evil, truth and lies, are in constant battle with each other.
Despite the fact that Firdusi’s Shahnama is more than 1000 years old, this book is not only enjoyable and understandable for the people of Iran, but also attracts attention around the world. And as Firdusi predicted, this impeccable and solid work highlighted the Persian language in the world. An example of this is the translation of the story about Rostam and Sohrab into Bosnian, which was translated many years ago by dr. Fehim Bajraktarević and which for many years was taught as a textbook in secondary schools in Yugoslavia. In 2020, the story of Rostam and Sohrab was translated again by dr. Elvir Music, and it was published by the Bosanska riječ Publishing House in Tuzla. There are more than 2,500 Persian words in the Bosnian language that are also used in the Shahnama. Last year, those words were collected and published in a book.
Reason and wisdom as the main teachings of Firdusi
Firdusi considers wisdom and reason to be the source and capital of all goodness. Firdusi is a true worshiper of God and a monotheist and places great value on wisdom. Firdusi did not hesitate to express his respect for wisdom and knowledge wherever he could in his poetry, he spoke highly of them, considered them the reason for salvation and better and superior to everything that God gave. Praising wisdom, Firdusi, following the belief of the sages, held that it was the first of created things. He began his poetry by mentioning wisdom, which he considered the highest level of creation:
“In the name of the Lord of soul and wisdom,
than which no higher thought can rise.”
Firdusi considers wisdom to be the source and capital of all goodness. According to his belief, even life or its discomforts, sorrows and joys, are all a consequence of the presence or absence of wisdom, and a wise person, since he has a very orderly and ordered life plan, always progresses and slowly reaches the peak of humanity, which is the ultimate goal of man. He believes that a person with wisdom can distinguish good from evil and thus achieve happiness in this world and salvation in the next:
Wisdom is a guide and wisdom exposes the heart,
Wisdom holds you by the hand in both worlds,
He who has no wisdom,
his heart will be wounded by his own actions.
In every period of human history, when the circle of wisdom is abandoned, it leads to disaster, and even today, a return to Firdusi’s teachings, uttered more than a thousand years ago, will pave the way for human progress.
Two main lessons from the story of Rostam and Sohrab
1- Consequences of mistakes in recognizing the truth
Rostam tries to hide his identity and name, and Sohrab, too, because of his youth and rawness, ignores his father’s signs. This ignoring of truth and cognitive error lead to disaster. If there had been a correct recognition, the disaster would never have happened.
2- War has replaced dialogue
Dialogue can remove many misunderstandings. While Rostam and Sohrab clashed swords instead of talking, if they had talked to each other, the truth would have been revealed and war would not have broken out.
Written by Dr. Abuzar Ebrahimi Torkaman
