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Alexander the Great was a king of ancient Greece and Macedon who forged one of the largest empires in world history. Soon after his death, a body of legend began to accumulate about his life and exploits. With the Greek Alexander Romance and its translation into numerous languages including Armenian, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, and more, an entire genre of literature was dedicated to the exploits of Alexander in both Christian and Muslim realms. Alexander was also the one most frequently identified with Dhu al-Qarnayn, a figure that appears in Surah Al-Kahf in the Quran, the holy text of Islam, which greatly expanded the attention paid to him in the traditions of the Muslim world.
The Iskandarnameh, not to be confused with the Iskandarnameh of Nizami, is the oldest Persian recension of the Alexander Romance tradition, anonymous and dated to some time between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, although recently its compilation has been placed in the eleventh century by Evangelos Venetis, during the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni in the court of the Ghaznavid Empire. This may have been followed by two stages of recompilation which helped to propagate the mode of rulership of Mahmud. Alexander is described as a Muslim king and prophet and is identified with the conqueror named Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Quran. This identification is also witnessed in the Arabic recensions of the Alexander romance, such as the Qissat al-Iskandar and the Qissat Dhulqarnayn. As such, he is double-horned and builds the famous Gates of Alexander against Gog and Magog.
The Ayina-i Iskandarī is a Persian legend of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great composed by the poet Amir Khusrau, completed in 1299/1300 during the reign of Muhammad II of Khwarazm. It is presented in the form of 35 discourses, running at 4,416 verses in the 1977 edition of the text produced by Jamâl Mirsaydof. Like his predecessor Nizami Ganjavi, Amir Khusrau's Alexander legend formed the fourth part of his Khamsa, and it was the first response to Nizami's Iskandarnameh. The text expresses a wish for the peace and stability brought about by Alexander as opposed to the period of instability and political turnover of his own time, and makes frequent reference to the "second Alexander" as a means of addressing his ruler Muhammad II, who assumed that title for himself during his reign.
The eleventh-century Shahnameh of Ferdowsi preserves the earliest version of the Alexander Romance in the Persian language, following closely the text in its Syriac translation. The Romance genre functioned to preserve and describe the legends and exploits of Alexander the Great. Although the Shahnameh is a much larger text and contains legends of many other rulers of Greater Iran, three consecutive sections of it cover Alexander, amounting to ~2,500 verses. Furthermore, the sections about Alexander act as a bridge between the narratives of the kings before and after him, representing a transition from a realm of mythological kings and exploits to the historical kings of the Sasanian Empire.
The Kherad-nâme-ye Eskandari of Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi is a piece of Persian literature which existed as an heir to the tradition of the Khamsa of Nizami Ganjavi. It constitutes the final book of Jami's larger seven-book composition, his Haft Awrang. More specifically, it focuses on legends of Alexander the Great as recounted in Nizami's Iskandarnameh and ultimately in the tradition of the Alexander Romance genre of literature. Jami's representation of the genre offers his readers a spiritual reflection on Alexander's journeys interspersed with long philosophical meditations exemplified through short anecdotes (hekâyat). As with other Islamic authors of this era, Alexander is ultimately identified with Dhu al-Qarnayn in his construction of the eastern wall against Gog and Magog.
The Ayina-i Iskandari of Ahli Shirazi is a Persian courtly version of the Alexander Romance literature, completed in 1543.
The Sadd-i Iskandarī was composed by Ali-Shir Nava'i (1441–1501) in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is the only rendition of the Alexander Romance in Chagatai Turkish. Alexander legends did exist in other forms of Turkish though, such as Taceddin Ahmedi's Iskendername.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 De Blois, François. "ESKANDAR-NĀMA OF NEẒĀMĪ". Encyclopedia Iranica.
- ↑ De Blois, Francois (2004). Persian Literature - A Bio-Bibliographical Survey: Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period (Volume V). Taylor & Francis. pp. 366–368.
- ↑ Abel, A. (1978), “Eskandar nāma”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Ed., vol. 4:127–129. Online: Abel, A.; Ed(s). "Iskandar Nama." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill online edition). Excerpt: "In the Shahnama, Firdawsi already makes Iskandar an exemplary figure, whom the companionship of Aristotle helps to rise still higher, by the path of wisdom and moderation, in the direction of abstinence and contempt for this world. And Firdwasi laid stress on the defeat of Dārā (the Darius of the Greeks) as something desired by "the rotation of the Heavens"....At the time of Niẓami, however, Islam is from then onwards well established in Iran, and it is the prophetic and ecumenical aspect of his destiny that the poet makes evident in his hero. As a learned Iranian poet, Niẓami, who demonstrates his eclecticism in the information he gives (he says, "I have taken from everything just what suited me and I have borrowed from recent histories, Christian, Pahlavi and Jewish ... and of them I have made a whole"), locates the story of his hero principally in Iran. He makes him the image of the Iranian "knight", peace-loving and moderate, courteous and always ready for any noble action. Like all Niẓami's heroes, he conquers the passions of the flesh, and devotes his attention to his undertakings and his friendships. These features appear in the account, which follows ancient tradition, of his conduct towards the women of the family of Darius, in his brotherly attitude on the death of that ruler, in his behaviour towards queen Nushaba (the Kaydaf of Firdawsi, the Kandake of the pseudo-Callisthenes) whom he defends against the Russians.
- ↑ Abdullaeva, Firuza; Melville, Charles (2023). Ratiana, Irma; Elbakʻiże, Maka (eds.). Identifying Cultural Intersections in the Works of Shota Rustaveli and Nizami Ganjavi. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 204–206.
- ↑ Berg, Gabrielle van den (2011). Bürgel, Johann-Christoph; Ruymbeke, van, Christine (eds.). A Key to the Treasure of the Hakim : Artistic and Humanistic Aspects of Nizami Ganjavi's Khamsa. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 87–88. doi:10.5117/9789087280970. ISBN 978-90-8728-097-0.
- ↑ Uluç, Lâle (2014-01-29). "An Iskandarnāma of Nizami Produced for Ibrahim Sultan". Muqarnas Online. 30 (1): 235–253. doi:10.1163/22118993-0301P0011. ISSN 0732-2992.
- ↑ Hanaway, William L. (1998). "ESKANDAR-NĀMA". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
- ↑ Asif, Manan Ahmed (2016). A book of conquest: the Chachnama and Muslim origins in South Asia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-674-66011-3.
- ↑ Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī; Losensky, Paul E. (2011). In the bazaar of love: the selected poetry of Amīr Khusrau. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. pp. xlix. ISBN 978-0-670-08236-0. OCLC 711982709.
- ↑ Casari, Mario (2023). "The Alexander Legend in Persian Literature". In Ashtiany, Mohsen (ed.). Persian narrative poetry in the classical era, 800-1500: romantic and didactic genres. A history of Persian literature / founding editor - Ehsan Yarshater. London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney: I.B. Tauris. p. 491. ISBN 978-1-78673-664-2.
- ↑ Casari, Mario (2023). "The Alexander Legend in Persian Literature". In Ashtiany, Mohsen (ed.). Persian narrative poetry in the classical era, 800-1500: romantic and didactic genres. A history of Persian literature / founding editor - Ehsan Yarshater. London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney: I.B. Tauris. p. 512. ISBN 978-1-78673-664-2.
- ↑ Vasunia, Phiroze (2013). The classics and colonial India. Classical presences. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-19-920323-9. OCLC 847943593.