CHAPTER 3

Alexander the Great in the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī

 Timeworn kingdoms don't cope well when juveniles

in the flush of fortune strut upon the scene.

 One can conjecture and surmise this is the case

 from Darius's and Alexander's circumstances.

Ṣā'ib Tabrīzī (d. 1676)¹

Firdawsī's Shāhnāma, completed in 1010, though conceived as a historical work, is closer in mode to epic poetry.² Its register is highly sophisticated and bears comparison with Homeric language, particularly in the use of what has been called the ‘Homeric simile’.³ It reflects the pre-eminently Persian perception of history as focused on the deeds of the kings who ruled ancient Iran. Owing to its richness of detail, the Shāhnāma remains the most important source for the history, literature and culture of pre-Islamic Persia.⁴

The story of Alexander the Great in the Shāhnāma is also the first complete representative of the Pseudo-Callisthenes tradition in the Islamic world.⁵ Like the sources that follow the Khudāynāmag tradition, as discussed in the previous chapter, the Alexander episode in the Shāhnāma covers three different reigns – including those of Dārā(b) and his sons Dārā and Alexander (Iskandar or Sikandar) – and contains 2,458 verses in the Khaleghi-Motlagh edition.⁶

As Dick Davis points out, the Alexander story in the Shāhnāma is a bridge from legendary to quasi-historical material,⁷ and thus deserves particular attention. This might be due to a change of perspective, which marked a turning point in the Persian conception of history. In order to analyse the Alexander episode in the Shāhnāma, we must first briefly look at the background of the poem's compilation and its possible sources, before we go on to examine its characteristics and motifs, especially those that distinguish Firdawsī's Alexander Romance from other versions. We can then focus on the Syriac materials that appear in the Shāhnāma, and what the presence of these materials tells us about the development of the Alexander Romance in the Persian tradition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic period.

Sources and Content of the Shāhnāma

Firdawsī's Shāhnāma is based primarily on a Persian prose work compiled in 957/958 (completed in 1010 in Khurāsān, north-eastern Iran) by order of Abū Manṣūr ʻAbd al-Razzāq Ṭūsī, the governor of Ṭūs; however, the only part preserved is the glossary.⁸ Derived ultimately from Sasanian sources, this prose work, which was also named Shāhnāma (Book of Kings), seems to have been independent of the Arabic translations and was probably based on Pahlavi material, since the names of the compilers are all Zoroastrian and they are also called mubeds, Mazdean priests.⁹ This prose work incorporated not only the Khudāynāmag but also a number of historical fictions, popular tales and legends.¹⁰

Although some scholars have tried to demonstrate that Firdawsī's Shāhnāma is based on oral sources,¹¹ there can be no doubt, as De Blois rightly points out, that the poem is based on written sources, though we cannot necessarily presume that it is all based on one single source.¹² This last point is more obvious in the case of the chapter featuring Alexander in the Shāhnāma, which is an amalgam of independent sources, but nevertheless uniform and coherent. In order to analyse the sources and origins of Alexander's chapter in the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī, we first need to examine a brief summary of its contents.

Summary of the Alexander Romance in the Shāhnāma

Dārā(b)'s Reign

(1)In a war between Philip and Dārā(b), Philip is defeated and agrees to pay tribute in the form of golden eggs.¹³ He also gives his daughter, Nāhīd, in marriage to the Persian king.

(2)From this union, Alexander is born, but Dārā(b) is unaware of this because he had sent Nāhīd back to Philip on account of her bad breath.

(3)Meanwhile, Dārā(b) has another son with another woman, and calls him Dārā.

Dārā's Reign

(1)Dārā delivers a speech on ascending the throne of Persia.

(2)Alexander ascends the throne after Philip's death and makes Aristotle his advisor.¹⁴

(3)Dārā's ambassadors demand the tribute of golden eggs.¹⁵ Alexander refuses and replies: ‘The hen that laid those golden eggs has died.’ This leads to war between Dārā and Alexander.

(4)Alexander goes to Dārā's court disguised as his own ambassador. At a banquet, he hides some golden cups inside his clothes. When Dārā discovers this, he queries Alexander's strange behaviour. Alexander answers that it is a Greek custom.¹⁶ Thus the Persian king gives the golden cups to Alexander, full of jewellery. The ambassadors who were sent to demand the tribute are present; they recognise Alexander and he has to flee.¹⁷

(5)Dārā and Alexander exchange letters.¹⁸

(6)The first battle takes place on the bank of the Euphrates and lasts eight days. Dārā is defeated and has to flee the battlefield.

(7)Dārā tries to gather more troops and a second battle takes place over three days. However, he is defeated again and flees to Jahrum and then to Isṭakhr (Persepolis).

(8)In a third battle, Alexander defeats Dārā and conquers Isṭakhr. Dārā flees to Kirmān (south-eastern Iran).

(9)Dārā writes a letter to Alexander offering him the treasures of Persia. At the same time, he also writes a letter to Fūr (Porus), the Indian king, in order to ask him for help against Alexander.¹⁹

(10)In a fourth battle, the Persians surround Alexander. Dārā is killed by two of his own men. According to Firdawsī, they are Māhyār and Jānūsyār,²⁰ one a mubed and the other a vazīr (‘minister’).²¹

(11)Alexander finds the king as he lies dying and weeps for his misfortune.²² He hears Dārā's last words and concords with his plea for Alexander to marry his daughter, Rawshanak (Roxana), punish the king's murderers and allow Persian customs and Zoroastrian feasts.²³

(12)Alexander punishes the murderers. He is accepted as the legitimate king of Persia. He writes a letter to the Persian nobles.²⁴

Alexander's Reign

(1)Alexander delivers a speech on ascending the throne.²⁵ He also writes a letter to Rawshanak (Roxana) and her mother.²⁶

(2)Alexander asks his mother, who is in Amorium, to come to Iran and prepare the wedding.²⁷ There is a detailed description of Rawshanak's dowry.

(3)Kayd, the Indian king, gives four fantastic gifts to Alexander. During ten nights Kayd, the king of Qānūj, has different dreams. Mihrān, his vizier (vazīr) interprets them to mean that Alexander will attack Kayd's kingdom unless he gives Alexander four marvellous things the like of which no noble has ever seen in all the world (Kayd's daughter, a philosopher, a physician and a magic cup). The two kings exchange letters and finally Alexander sends nine wise men to examine the gifts. Having had the authenticity of the gifts appraised and verified by the wise men, they bring them to Alexander, who personally tests them too. He marries Kayd's daughter according to Christian custom.²⁸

(4)Alexander writes a letter to the Indian king Fūr.²⁹ A battle takes place between the two kings in which Alexander uses iron horses, with iron saddles and iron riders, filled with black oil. They are mounted on wheels and look like cavalry. Alexander orders that the iron horses be set on fire on the battlefield.³⁰ Alexander challenges Fūr to single combat, and he manages to kill the Indian king.³¹

(5)Alexander marches towards Mecca to liberate the descendants of Ismael, son of Abraham.³²

(6)From Jidda he sails to Egypt, where he stays for one year. Here he learns of the Queen Qaidāfa (Candace) of al-Andalus (Spain) and decides to visit her kingdom.³³

(7)Alexander visits Queen Candace and her sons (this is given in a very detailed account, very close to the Greek Alexander Romance).³⁴

(8)Alexander meets the Brahmans in order to learn ancient practices from these ascetics.³⁵

(9)Alexander marches to the East and undergoes strange and marvellous experiences (fabulous tales are related belonging to the mirabilia genre).³⁶

(10)Alexander reaches the ‘Western sea’ and Abyssinia (Ḥabash). A battle with Abyssinians takes place.

(11)Alexander visits the land of narm-pāyān, who are creatures with ‘soft feet’ (with no bones).³⁷

(12)Alexander slays a dragon by feeding it five oxen, which he had killed and filled with oil and poison.³⁸

(13)Alexander sets out to visit Harūm, the Land of Women.³⁹ Marching towards this land, he has to face many adventures.

(14)Alexander enters the Land of Darkness.⁴⁰ His adventures in the Land of Darkness comprise four stories:

a.His search for the Water of Life.

b.His dialogue with two enormous green birds that speak the Greek language.

c.His encounter with the angel Isrāfīl (the Angel who trumpets the Day of Resurrection).

d.His visit to the Valley of Diamonds.

(15)Alexander builds a wall against Gog and Magog.⁴¹

(16)Alexander sees a corpse in the Palace of Topaz⁴² and also a talking tree,⁴³ which foretells his death.

(17)Alexander marches towards Chīn (China). He writes a letter to the Chinese Emperor and receives a response, then goes to the Chinese court disguised as his own ambassador.⁴⁴

(18)A battle takes place against the people of Sind.⁴⁵

(19)Alexander reaches Yemen.

(20)Returning to Babylon, he comes across a creature called Gūsh-bastar (literally ‘ear-bed’), who has ears so large that he sleeps on them. He describes a city in which the houses are adorned with portraits of Afrāsīyāb and Kay Khusraw – two ancient kings from the Persian tradition.

(21)Alexander writes a letter to Aristotle informing him that he wants to kill the Persian nobles. Aristotle advises him not to, and that he should instead divide the Persian kingdom among the Persian nobles so that they will not rebel against Rūm.

(22)A woman bears a child that is half-human half-monster, with a lion's head, hooves and a bull's tail. It dies at birth. Alexander's astrologers interpret it as a sign of Alexander's death.⁴⁶

(23)Alexander writes a letter of consolation to his mother.⁴⁷

(24)Alexander dies in Babylon. The Persians and the Greeks argue about where they should bury him. At last, a man advises them to pose their question to a mountain, which responds to each question by way of an echo. The mountain answers that they should bury him in Alexandria, in Egypt.⁴⁸

(25)Philosophers lament Alexander's death with wise sayings.⁴⁹

(26)Firdawsī concludes that Alexander killed 36 kings, established ten cities and reigned for 14 years.⁵⁰

From this summary of the contents of Firdawsī's Alexander Romance we may conclude that the story of Alexander in the Shāhnāma has some important characteristics that can help us understand the development of the Alexander Romance in the Persian tradition, and its transition from the pre-Islamic period to the Islamic era. Firdawsī's account represents an amalgam of various sources (as mentioned above), which contains different parts; the five key points can be enumerated as follows:

(1)The chapter on Alexander in the Shāhnāma represents the first complete adaptation of the Romance, and contains detailed parts of the Greek original not found in any previous source. The best example is the scene in which Alexander goes to Darius's court disguised as his own envoy, and tries to take some golden wine cups. A comparison between the Greek and Persian versions demonstrates an astonishing similarity. Another example is the episode of Queen Candace and her sons. The Shāhnāma is the most complete version and the closest to the Greek original extant in the Arabo-Persian tradition.

(2)The Shāhnāma contains parts from the Khudāynāmag discussed previously (such as Alexander's Persian ancestry and the tribute of golden eggs), as well as elements that must be based on a Persian source, such as Gūsh-bastar (the creature with enormous ears) and the city with Kay Khusraw's portraits.

(3)The Shāhnāma also contains parts from the Syriac sources discussed in the first chapter of this book: the Syriac Alexander Romance (such as the dragon slaying and the journey to Chīn), episodes from the Syriac Legend and Poem (such as Gog and Magog, and the Water of Life) and the philosophers' laments over Alexander's tomb.

(4)Beside the Syriac material, Firdawsī's version contains stories (such as that of Kayd, the Indian king) that must have been independent tales in circulation, especially in the eastern parts of the Iranian world; this will be discussed in detail later in this chapter.

(5)In addition, Firdawsī's text contains episodes that must have been developed only during the Islamic period (such as Alexander's journeys to Mecca and to al-Andalus in Muslim Spain).

Furthermore, it is clear that Alexander's story in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma contains various layers that must have been incorporated gradually into the Khudāynāmag version after the Arab conquest of the Persian world. Therefore, in order to better trace the development of the Alexander Romance from pre-Islamic Persian literature to the Shāhnāma, we need to first examine the most important characteristics of Firdawsī's version.⁵¹

Distinguishing Characteristics and Motifs of Firdawsī's Alexander Romance

The figure of Alexander in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma has some of the following distinguishing characteristics, which are not found in any other Arabic or Persian source of the Islamic period:

(1)He is a Christian and a legitimate Persian king, whose descent is traced back to the great hero Isfandīyār. Firdawsī's Alexander is well integrated in Persian legends; his ancestor Isfandīyār has much in common with certain figures from Greek mythology, in particular Achilles.⁵² It is also interesting that Isfandīyār, like Alexander, is the descendant of a ‘Caesar of Rūm’ through his mother.⁵³

(2)The name Dhū'l-Qarnayn (‘the Two-Horned One’) is an essential component of Alexander's legend in the Islamic world. However, since Firdawsī's Alexander is a Christian, the epithet Dhū'l-Qarnayn is not attributed to him in the Shāhnāma. The prophetic side of Alexander is not dealt with at all by Firdawsī. Nevertheless, we can assume that the source Firdawsī used belonged to a period when Islamic legends concerning Dhū'l-Qarnayn had not yet mixed with the Alexander Romance tradition. Through a closer study of the Alexander Romance in the Shāhnāma we will hopefully be able to identify this period, which may be at the end of the Sasanian period or very early in the Arab conquest of Persia (in the seventh and eighth centuries).

(3)It is clear that Firdawsī's source definitely passed through an Arabic intermediary because of the usage of Arabic terms, such as tanīn for dragon instead of the Persian izhdahā,⁵⁴ and muḥibb-i ṣalīb (‘lovers of the Cross’, that is, Christians).⁵⁵ Even though his source was written in Arabic, it must have belonged to a period in which Islamic legends about Alexander had not yet been formed; firstly, because his account is Christianised and not Islamised and, secondly, because Alexander is not called Dhū'l-Qarnayn in any part of the Shāhnāma, as mentioned above.

Based on the appearance of the above words, motifs and references in the story, as well as the information that Firdawsī himself gives us, we can now divide Alexander's story in the Shāhnāma into three principal layers that show the historic transmission of the legend. All three contain Christian references.

(1)The parts that contain the same common accounts that are also reported in Arabic by historians (including Ṭabarī and Dīnawarī), as discussed in the previous chapter. These parts were originally in the Khudāynāmag tradition and formed the basis of the legend.⁵⁶

(2)The material from Syriac sources, which also contains elements from the Persian tradition such as the creature Gūsh-bastar and the city with Kay Khusraw's portraits.

(3)Certain inherently Islamic words and other elements (such as Alexander's journey to Mecca and to al-Andalus in Muslim Spain), which have no specifically Islamic reference. For example, even in the story of Candace, who is Queen of al-Andalus, there are only Christian references.

How can we explain such a combination of materials? What do they reflect of Firdawsī's sources in Alexander's chapter in the Shāhnāma? When and how was all this material brought together? The remainder of this chapter will try to answer these questions.

Firdawsī's Christian References

Beside Persian proper names (such as Nāhīd, Alexander's mother), there are some references in the Shāhnāma to Christian customs (such as for wedding ceremonies), which can be seen throughout the tale from beginning to end. The first Christian reference appears in the marriage of the Persian king Dārāb to Nāhīd, the daughter of Philip of Macedon. She is accompanied by churchmen: ‘The beautiful Rūmī [princess] remained in her litter, guided by a bishop and a monk.’⁵⁷ The poet also claims that the bishop handed over the princess to Dārāb: ‘The bishop gave the beautiful princess[’s hand] to Dārāb / And the treasures [of her dowry] were counted out to the king's treasurer.’⁵⁸ Another Christian reference appears in the episode of Kayd, the Indian king: Alexander marries King Kayd's daughter according to Christian custom: ‘he asked her [in marriage] with proper ceremony according to the custom of the Messiah.’⁵⁹

In the episode relating his visit to Queen Qaidāfa (Candace), Alexander offers a very Christian oath that he will not send his army to invade her kingdom:

By the faith of the Messiah and Truthful speech, by the knower who stands witness to my words, by the rites and the faith of the Great Cross, by the life and head of the mighty prince, by the deacon's belt (zunnār) and by the Holy Spirit.⁶⁰

He also holds the Cross in reverence: ‘Your well-wisher will be my brother; your throne will be as the Cross to me.’⁶¹ It is even said that after his death, ‘a Christian priest’ washed Alexander's body and prepared him for the funeral: ‘A bishop washed the corpse with musk and rosewater and sprinkled pure camphor over his body.’⁶²

Such Christian references appear throughout the poem's account of Alexander, and it seems that Firdawsī quoted them directly from his source.⁶³ If we consider the Persian proper names (such as Dārā and Nāhīd) in conjunction with these Christian references, it is likely that the original Middle Persian version was also Christianised. Regarding Christian writings in Middle Persian, it is important to point out that they consisted largely of translations from Syriac.⁶⁴ This means that the Middle Persian Vorlage must have been based on a Syriac source (or sources). This supports the claims of Boyce and Tafaḍḍulī that the authors of the Khudāynāmag used Syriac materials for Alexander's chapter.⁶⁵ The most interesting proof of this assumption is that these Christian references generally appear in the episodes that have a Persian context, like the wedding of Nāhīd and the Persian king, or the episode of Kayd, the Indian king.

The Indian King Kayd

According to Firdawsī himself, the episode of the Indian king Kayd and his marvellous gifts to Alexander has a Pahlavi origin.⁶⁶ It consists of two principal parts: King Kayd's dreams and their interpretation, and the gifts whose authenticity Alexander examines. This narrative, which is found neither in the Greek nor in the Syriac Alexander Romance, also appears in three Arabic sources: the Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar (The Story of Alexander)⁶⁷ of ‘Umāra (d. c.902),⁶⁸ the Murūj al-dhahab of al-Masūdī (896–956)⁶⁹ and the Tārīkh Ghurar al-sayr wa Akhbār Mulūk al-Fars of Tha'ālibī Nīshābūrī (961–1038).⁷⁰ However, only Firdawsī and ‘Umāra include King Kayd's dreams.

We will study this story by comparing its various sources, in order to verify whether Firdawsī's claim that the source of this story was written in ‘Pahlavi’ is true. We will mainly focus on the Shāhnāma and ‘Umāra's tale because they are the most complete versions.

King Kayd in the Kārnāma ī Artakhshīr

(The Deeds of Ardashīr)

As an initial step in this comparison, we must take note of some important points concerning King Kayd's name and his appearance in the Pahlavi book Kārnāma ī Artakhshīr ī Pāpakān (The Deeds of Ardashīr, Son of Bābak), which is practically the only extant secular work from the Sasanian period. In this Pahlavi text (Chapter XI, number 4)⁷¹ he appears as Kaīt Hindū (which is similar to his name in the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī: Kayd-i hindī). The Pahlavi transcription Kaitān Kandākān konūshkān⁷² without doubt refers to Kidara, the founder of the Kidarite dynasty,⁷³ who emerged in Khurāsān in around AD 380 with the Sasanian title Kushānshāh ‘King of the Kushans’.⁷⁴ He is referred to in Sanskrit as Kidara or Kidāra,⁷⁵ and in Persian as Kīdār or Kaydar,⁷⁶ which explains the transformation of the name into Qaydar in ‘Umāra's work. Kayd also appears in the story of Ardashīr in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma, where he is a wise man who foretells Ardashīr's destiny.⁷⁷ The appearance of King Kayd in the Pahlavi Kārnāma and the Shāhnāma proves that this personage existed in pre-Islamic Persian literature.

Kayd and Dandamis

Nöldeke⁷⁸ was the first scholar to postulate that the story of Kayd is linked to Alexander's meeting with the gymnosophist Dandamis.⁷⁹ However, this supposition is not correct because Alexander's meeting with the Brahmans is another tale in the Shāhnāma in which Dandamis does not appear.⁸⁰ Doufikar-Aerts points out: ‘It is still not clear, however, by which channel this motif reached the Arab author; as Dandamis does not appear in the Syriac Pseudo-Callisthenes.’⁸¹ The reason for this is that the story of Kayd was an independent tale in Pahlavi, as Firdawsī affirms,⁸² which was added to the Alexander Romance tradition after the Arab conquest.

King Kayd's Dreams and their Interpretation

It is worth mentioning that the study of dreams and their interpretation were an integral part of the Persian world view.⁸³ In the Shāhnāma, 18 dreams are reported and the episode involving that of Kayd is the most elaborate one.⁸⁴ King Kayd recounts his dreams in the Shāhnāma as follows:

(1)I dreamed of a huge room like a palace in which there was a huge elephant. It had a door like a tiny hole. The formidable elephant passed through the hole without damaging its body. Its body managed to get out but its trunk was trapped inside the room.

(2)Another night, I dreamed that I was not on my throne; instead a monkey⁸⁵ was sitting on my ivory throne with the shining crown on its head.

(3)The third night, I dreamed of a canvas. Four men were pulling the canvas and the effort of stretching it made their faces blue. But neither did they become tired nor did the canvas break.

(4)The fourth night, I dreamed of a thirsty man by a river. A fish poured water on him but the man turned his face and ran away from the water. He was running and the water was following him. O wise man! What is the interpretation of this dream?

(5)The fifth night, I dreamed of a city by the sea. All its inhabitants were blind but yet they were not angry at being blind. It was so crowded as if there was a battle in the city.

(6)The sixth night, I dreamed of a city in which all the people were ill. They went to greet healthy people, and looked at their urine to diagnose the sicknesses.

(7)In the middle of the seventh night I dreamed of a horse with two heads, two hooves and two paws. It was rapidly eating all the plants because it had two mouths. But in its body there was nowhere for which the food to come out.

(8)The eighth night, I dreamed of three jars, all of them similar. Two were full and the one in the middle remained empty for many years. Two men poured cold water from [the] full jar[s] into the empty one, but they never became empty and the empty jar never became full.

(9)The ninth night, I dreamed of a cow lying on the grass in the sun. There was a thin calf beside it. The thin calf was feeding the fat cow.

(10)The tenth night, I dreamed of a spring on a vast plain. The plain was full of water but everything was dry around the spring.⁸⁶

The interpretation of the second dream is very interesting, for Firdawsī refers to four religions:

Regarding the canvas and four men, in the future a renowned man will rise from ‘the plain of lancer riders’. A good man who will cause the division of God's religion into four branches. One is the dihqān, the old fire worshipper, another is Moses's religion called juhūd (Judaism), which says that no other religion deserves to be worshipped. Another is the Greek (yūnānī) religion, which will bring justice to the king's heart. The fourth is the religion of that benevolent man⁸⁷ who will raise the wise men up from the dust.

While Firdawsī describes ten dreams, ‘Umāra's text reduces them to six, as follows:

(1)Kayd dreamed of his demise and the end of his kingdom.

(2)Another of his dreams involved a calf nursing a cow.

(3)He dreamed of blind people in a city buying and selling, eating and drinking, and fighting.

(4)He dreamed of people obliging a huge man with two heads, who ate everything in his path.

(5)He dreamed of an elephant enclosed in a small space that managed to get out, all but its tail. He was surprised to see that the elephant's head and body were able to come out but its little tail could not.

(6)He dreamed of a thirsty man who was dying from thirst as he drowned in water.⁸⁸

But it is notable that during his interpretation of the above six dreams, ‘Umāra mentions the existence of a few more dreams, such as the three jars with the middle one empty or the water flowing dry. This means that in ‘Umāra's own source there were other dreams similar to those seen in the Shāhnāma.

The man who interprets the dreams in ‘Umāra's text is described as a ‘spiritual leader’, while in the Shāhnāma he is called ‘Mihrān’, a man who has reached the heights of knowledge and lives far from people among wild and domestic animals. Firdawsī's description of Mihrān coincides with the figure of the Indian ascetic monk, a spiritual leader mentioned by ‘Umāra.

King Kayd's Four Marvellous Gifts

The second part of the story of King Kayd comprises a description of the four wonders or marvellous gifts given by the king to Alexander, during which Alexander and Kayd exchange letters and Alexander assesses the four gifts. All four sources agree on the nature of the four wonders: Kayd's daughter (although according to Mas‘ūdī, she is his servant), his philosopher, his physician and a goblet that is always full. Tha'ālibī is the only source that gives names to the three people among these marvellous gifts: Kayd's daughter is Kanka, the philosopher is Shanka and the physician is Manka.⁸⁹

King Kayd's Daughter. Kayd's first marvellous possession is his daughter. According to Firdawsī and Mas‘ūdī, when the wise men sent by Alexander to verify the gifts’ authenticity saw Kayd's beautiful daughter, they were so astonished that each of them could only write a description of a single part of her body for Alexander.⁹⁰ Khaleghi-Motlagh rightly points out that the similarity of Firdawsī's and Mas‘ūdī's accounts indicates that this story is based on a written source.⁹¹

King Kayd's Philosopher. In order to verify the knowledge of King Kayd's philosopher, Alexander puts him to the test by sending him several objects within which are secreted a special message. Each time, by means of a gesture or an alteration to the object, the philosopher shows that he has outwitted Alexander.

For instance, during the exchange of symbolic objects, Alexander sends a dark piece of iron to the Indian philosopher, who turns it into a mirror. In the Shāhnāma, the dialogue between Alexander and the Indian philosopher presents the symbolic meaning of a mirror as a reflection of his heart.⁹² In these encounters with the philosopher, Alexander is always reproached for his greed for warfare and bloodshed, which ‘darkened his heart’.⁹³ The Indian philosopher is the first person to offer him a solution to ‘brighten’ Alexander's heart: like a dark piece of iron that becomes a bright mirror by polishing, his heart can become as crystal clear as water by polishing it with divine knowledge (dānish-i āsmān).⁹⁴ The mirror motif becomes an important element of later Persian versions of the Alexander Romance; in fact, it would appear that from this basic motif later Persian poets derived and developed the mystical aspect of Alexander's legendary personality.

The Magic Goblet. Among the wondrous objects Kayd gifted to Alexander was a magic goblet that never ran dry. Firdawsī gives the following explanation as to why it never runs dry:

Think of what happens here as analogous to magnetism, which attracts iron. In a similar way, this cup attracts moisture from the turning heavens, but it does so in such a subtle fashion that human eyes cannot see the process.⁹⁵

The magic goblet or cup was to become a key component of Alexander's legend in the later Persian poetic tradition.⁹⁶ The most famous magic cup in Persian literature is that of Kay Khusraw, in which he was able to contemplate the whole world. In the first part of his Iskandarnāma, the poet Niẓāmī relates that Alexander finds Kay Khusraw's magic cup, whose secrets enabled the Greeks to invent the astrolabe.⁹⁷

The Indian Physician. According to the Shāhnāma, King Kayd's physician was able to diagnose any illness by examining the sufferer's urine.⁹⁸ This part of the story contains advice on eating and drinking and resembles Alexander's dialogue with the Brahmans.⁹⁹ Alexander asks the Indian physician: ‘What is the most painful illness?’ The physician's reply in the ‘Umāra and Tha'ālibī versions is ‘indigestion’; in the Shāhnāma he replies, ‘Whoever overeats and does not watch what he consumes during meals, will grow ill; a healthy person will not eat too much, and a great man is the one who seeks to be healthy.’¹⁰⁰

The Indian physician is able to prepare a remedy that prevents any kind of illness and disease, including old age.¹⁰¹ Thanks to this remedy, Alexander remains healthy for years. However, the most important part in this story relates to Alexander's sexual affairs and the illness caused by them. The story according to Firdawsī is as follows:

Then the king began to devote his nights to carousing rather than to sleep. His mind was filled with the desire for women, and he sought out soft, enticing places to be with them. This way of life weakened the king, but he gave no thought to the harm he was doing to his body.¹⁰²

‘Umāra's text does not include this part of the story, but there is a sentence that symbolically expresses the same theme: the physician warns Alexander that ‘there is no sickness worse than torture by fire. You indulge yourself in your desires more than you should.’¹⁰³

The Shāhnāma links Alexander's illness directly with his devotion to overindulgence in sexual relations. In ‘Umāra's text the illness is called sulāl, which means ‘consumption or tuberculosis’.¹⁰⁴ The word Firdawsī uses is kāhish, which literally means ‘decrease’ and indicates an illness that consumes the body and causes the sufferer to lose weight.¹⁰⁵

In both Firdawsī's and ‘Umāra's texts, the physician prepares a remedy against Alexander's illness. In the Shāhnāma, Alexander sleeps alone for one night, unaccompanied by any of his beautiful women.¹⁰⁶ When the physician examines Alexander's urine the next day, he finds no sign of illness. He thus throws away the remedy he had prepared for the sovereign.

In ‘Umāra's Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar, the physician prepares a medicine against sulāl. There are some sentences similar to the above account in this narrative. ‘Umāra says:

Before drinking the medicine, Dhū'l-Qarnayn had to go to relieve himself. While in the toilet, a vision came to him and said: ‘I am the sulāl that was planning to stay inside you for four years. However, I saw the medicine the doctor had prepared and decided to leave you instead of being tortured by his medicine.’¹⁰⁷

Alexander's sexual affairs are omitted in ‘Umāra's account, and the story finishes in a completely different way. ‘Umāra is the only source in which the disease called sulāl causes Alexander's death:

Once the doctor returned to India, the disease quickly returned with a vengeance. Now sulāl became personified and told Alexander: ‘I shall torture you, making you weep as you cause the weeping of mothers and fathers over the deaths of their children.’ Soon Alexander felt the burning fire which the doctor told him was the worst of deaths, and he dies in Babylon.¹⁰⁸

Zuwiyya interprets this denouement as a moral:

The lesson Alexander could have taken away from the Angel of the Horn, and from his disputations with the Brahmans did not improve his character. The trio of the Indian king, the philosopher and the physician with their humble wisdom, and some divine aid in the way of sulāl, managed to trick Alexander with a riddle he could not solve. Consequently, he died and they kept their kingdom.¹⁰⁹

It is not clear which version, Firdawsī's or ‘Umāra's, constitutes the original form of the tale. As we saw above, the original form of this story must have been added to the Alexander Romance tradition through a Pahlavi source, just as Firdawsī claimed. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the fact that Kayd is mentioned in the Pahlavi Kārnāma ī Artakhshīr ī Pāpakān indicates that this character was known in Sasanian literature. Secondly, as this story appears in Mas‘ūdī's Murūj as an independent chapter on Alexander in India, it is probable that Kayd's tale was originally an independent story that was integrated into the Alexander Romance tradition during the Islamic period. Khaleghi-Motlagh postulates that this passage was an independent story preserved in Sanskrit, which was added to the Alexander Romance that had been translated into Pahlavi.¹¹⁰ However, as this Kayd episode is not mentioned by Ṭabarī, Dīnawarī or the anonymous Nihāya, it did not feature in the Khudāynāmag tradition. On the other hand, it is included in Tha'ālibī's Ghurar, which is also based on the same prose text of the Shāhnāma of Abū Manṣūr as the verse composition of the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī.¹¹¹ All of this demonstrates that it is probable that this independent story was added to the Alexander episode of the Shāhnāma of Abū Manṣūr from a Pahlavi source.

Syriac Materials in the Shāhnāma

Most of the parts of the Alexander episode in the Shāhnāma are based on the Syriac sources mentioned in the first chapter. There are two main themes in most of these stories:

(1)Alexander's adventures in wondrous lands, which were originally part of his letter to Aristotle about the wonders of India.¹¹²

(2)Alexander's concern with his own death.¹¹³ Alexander is not just a world conqueror. His expeditions become campaigns in search of something more: knowledge, wisdom and immortality. The tone of the last parts of Alexander's legend in the Shāhnāma changes, and there are high moral themes, as mentioned, and reprimands addressed to Alexander for his greed (āz) and his insatiable desire for conquest.

By examining these materials we can shed light on the development of the Alexander Romance in the Persian tradition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic period.

Alexander's Adventures in Wondrous Lands

Alexander in the Land of Creatures with ‘Soft Feet’

Alexander's adventure with the soft-footed creatures appears in the Syriac Alexander Romance as part of his letter to Aristotle about the marvels of India.¹¹⁴ In the Persian tradition these creatures with soft feet or legs are also known as davāl-pā (‘hidden/leather foot or leg’).¹¹⁵ The Shāhnāma seems to be the earliest source in which there are references to such creatures: they feature not only in the Alexander section of Firdawsī's epic poem but also in another story, in the adventures of another Kayānid king, Kay Kāvūs, in Māzandarān, where they are also called sust-pāyān (‘limp-footed creatures’).¹¹⁶

Alexander the Dragon-Slayer

The story of Alexander slaying a dragon in the Shāhnāma is based on an episode in the Syriac version of the Alexander Romance. In the Syriac Pseudo-Callisthenes the story takes place in a region close to Prasiake in India.¹¹⁷ Fighting a dragon is an archetypal labour of many kings and heroes in the Shāhnāma, including Alexander's ancestors Isfandīyār and Bahman Ardashīr.¹¹⁸ However, as Ogden points out, ‘it is possible to find Greek precedents’ behind these dragon-slaying tales in the Shāhnāma.¹¹⁹ Ogden studied the origins of this motif in the α-recension and earlier Greek dragon-slaying narratives,¹²⁰ and also examined the symbolism of the dragon in the Zoroastrian tradition.¹²¹ The yasht collection of Avestan hymns lists various types of dragons and killers of dragons, transmitted mainly from the Indo-Iranian period.¹²² According to the later Zoroastrian scriptures of the Vidēvdāt (or Vendidād), the ‘law against the daevas’ divided ‘creation into two mutually antagonistic halves – the creatures of the Ahūrā Mazdā (the Great Wisdom) on the one hand and the creatures of the Ahrīman (the Evil Power) on the other’.¹²³ According to this understanding, serpents or dragons (azhi- in Avestan, and azh- in Pahlavi) were identified as creatures of the ‘hostile spirit’ Ahrīman. They were defined as evil, noxious and harmful to man and his animals and crops (khrafstra in Avestan),¹²⁴ and thus deserving of death.¹²⁵ Firdawsī indeed uses the Avestic term khrafstra¹²⁶ in the tale of the ‘night of terror’,¹²⁷ when, after pitching camp in India by a freshwater lake, Alexander's army has to endure scorpions, huge beasts and serpents (Pseudo-Callisthenes, III, 7–16).¹²⁸

However, the dragon-slaying legends in the later epic tradition of Persian poetry seem to have largely lost their religious (that is, Zoroastrian) importance. In the national legends, the meaning of the dragon-slaying motif becomes a royal or heroic act required as proof of the king's/hero's legitimacy.¹²⁹ As Khaleghi-Motlagh affirms:

The requirement that every king or hero should demonstrate the legitimacy of his status by slaying a dragon or doing some other fabulous deed or receiving miraculous aid prompted not only the tendency to historicize mythology but also a contrary tendency to mythologize history … In the case of Alexander, unlike the Zoroastrian priests who never acknowledged the Macedonian conqueror, the court historians attempted to justify Alexander's rule in Iran with all sorts of arguments for his legitimacy … from stories which the Iranians themselves had invented for the purpose of legitimizing Alexander: Alexander's Iranian lineage and his slaying of a dragon.¹³⁰

The method used by Alexander to slay the dragon is also found in other Persian legends. In the Shāhnāma, Alexander kills the dragon by feeding it five oxen stuffed with poison and naphtha.¹³¹ This method is also used by the hero Rustam in the Shāhnāma, curiously in India, where he slays a dragon called Babr-i Bayān.¹³² According to Firdawsī, Rustam fills oxhides with quicklime and stones and carries them to the place where the dragon comes out of the sea once a week. The dragon swallows them and its stomach bursts. Rustam then has the dragon flayed and makes a coat from its skin, which is also called babr-i bayān.¹³³ A similar method is also used by Farāmarz, Rustam's son, to slay a dragon called Mār-i jawshā (‘the hissing snake’), which lives on a mountain in India. Farāmarz slays the dragon with the help of another hero (Bīzhan). They hide in two boxes and allow themselves to be swallowed by the dragon.¹³⁴ In general, as Ogden points out, ‘the motif of the killing of the dragon by feeding it burning or combustible material may well be best considered a folktale motif’.¹³⁵

Gūsh-bastar and Apocalyptic Figures

Creatures with enormous ears appear constantly in the Persian tradition, not only in various stories of Firdawsī's Shāhnāma, but also in other epics.¹³⁶ In the Shāhnāma, on his return to Babylon, Alexander finds the aforementioned creature Gūsh-bastar,¹³⁷ who has such huge ears that he uses one as a mattress and the other as a blanket. Curiously, in many sources, Gog and Magog are described with enormous ears and also referred to as pīl-gūsh (‘elephant ears’) or gilīm-gūsh (‘carpet ears’).¹³⁸ Firdawsī also uses this description for Gog and Magog: ‘their breast and ears are like those of an elephant. If they go to sleep, one of the ears serves as a bed, while the other is folded over their bodies.’¹³⁹

It is also worth mentioning that similar creatures appear in the Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg (Memorial of Jāmāsp), a Zoroastrian apocalyptic work¹⁴⁰ in Middle Persian,¹⁴¹ also known as the Jāmāspnāma. These figures are called Bargūsh (or Vargūsh), which means people with long ears or with ears on their chest.¹⁴² Firdawsī also uses the same word (Vargūsh) for Gūsh-bastar in a verse where Alexander calls the creature Gūsh-var.¹⁴³

Another interesting issue regarding the Persian aspects of the tale of Gūsh-bastar appears on Alexander's way to Babylon, when a Gūsh-bastar creature speaks of an island on which there are images of Afrāsīyāb and Kay Khusraw painted on bones. It is an island where the only food is fish. In the Greek Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes, III, 7), Alexander's letter to Aristotle about the wonders of India recounts that when they reached the city of Prasiake, they discovered people on ‘a conspicuous promontory in the sea’ who looked like women and fed on fish. Alexander also discovered that they were barbarian in speech. They pointed out an island where there was the grave of an ancient king.¹⁴⁴ This passage appears in two different parts of the Shāhnāma. In the passage ‘Alexander travels to the East and sight of its wonders’, after his encounter with the Brahmans, he reaches a deep ocean where there ‘lived men who veiled themselves like women. Their language was not Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Chinese or Pahlavi. Their diet consisted of fish.’¹⁴⁵ In another passage, in Gūsh-bastar's tale, there is a similar description of a city whose buildings are covered with fish skins and fish bones, and the people eat fish.¹⁴⁶ Curiously, the grave of the ‘ancient king’ from the Greek Romance becomes in the Shāhnāma the faces of Kay Khusraw and Afrāsīyāb, two ancient kings from the Persian tradition, whose portraits were painted on bones.

As we can see here, in these fabulous legends and tales the description of Gog and Magog is mixed with the apocalyptic figures of Persian tradition (Vargūsh). The legends also feature other Persian elements, such as the mention of ancient Iranian kings. It is thus possible to deduce that these legends were added to the Persian Pseudo-Callisthenes tradition at an early point, when the tale of Gog and Magog was not yet linked to the Qur'ānic figure of Dhū'l-Qarnayn.

Alexander's Concern with his Own Death

Alexander's Encounter with the Brahmans

The narrative of Alexander's encounter with the Brahmans is found in a papyrus preserved in Berlin (Pap. Berol. 13044 = F. Gr. Hist., 1539), as well as in all extant works of historians of Alexander.¹⁴⁷ In the Greek Alexander Romance (III, 5–6) it features between the battle with Porus and the talking tree episode,¹⁴⁸ and it is expanded in the work of the fifth-century Palladius, De gentibus Indiae et de Bragmanibus.¹⁴⁹

The structure of this episode in the Shāhnāma coincides with that found in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes. In the Shāhnāma, the Brahmans write Alexander a letter, which is similar in content to that in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes. Firdawsī also describes the Brahmans as naked (birahna), and their diet as consisting of seeds, fruits and plants.¹⁵⁰ Alexander visits them and asks them a series of riddles. At the end, he offers them the chance to ask him for whatever they want. They ask for immortality. He explains that this is impossible since he himself is a mortal, and he justifies his greed as being his fate.

The Shāhnāma contains all the same riddles and questions that Alexander poses to the Brahmans in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes. However, the questions and the answers become more sophisticated in the Shāhnāma, where they cover more than 30 verses. They contain Persian beliefs and demonstrate a familiarity with Firdawsī's source with such profound Persian concepts as khirad (‘wisdom’) and āz (‘greed’) – terms with a pre-Islamic derivation.¹⁵¹ The best example of the similarity and yet greater sophistication of the Persian version is Alexander's question about kingship. The question in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes is simply: ‘What is kingship?’ (Pseudo-Callisthenes, III, 6). In the Shāhnāma, the poet develops the theme further: ‘Who is the king of our souls? Who always accompanies us towards evil?’ The Indian ascetic answers:

Greed is the king, the ground of vengeance and the place of sin … Greed and need are two demons [dīv], wretched [patyāra] and malevolent; one is dry-lipped from longing, the other passes sleepless nights from excess. Time passing hunts down both, and blessed is the man whose mind accepts wisdom [khirad].¹⁵²

Henceforth, Alexander's story in the Shāhnāma contains constant concern with the vanity of this world, and with death, and takes on a cautionary tone of reproach about Alexander's greed. As Charles-Henri de Fouchécour observes, Firdawsī's story of Alexander is really, to a certain extent, ‘an anthology of counsels woven into the weave of a narrative that gives it sense … each king is placed in the presence of a vanity in which there is the desire to possess a world that death will strip from him.’¹⁵³

Alexander's Dialogue with Two Giant Green Birds

According to the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes (II, 40), these two birds have human faces and speak Greek. In the Shāhnāma, Firdawsī also mentions that the birds speak in Greek (rūmī). The green birds live on top of two ebony columns that reach into the clouds, beside a high mountain. While Alexander is the one who asks the questions in his encounter with the Brahmans, in his dialogue with the birds it is he who is interrogated. In this scene, the birds ask Alexander certain questions to verify his wisdom in order to decide whether he has the aptitude and capability to ascend to the heavens. The focus of their dialogue is on mundane pleasures and worldly lifestyles. This passage is so vivid and explicit that when reading the verses, the scene comes alive in one's imagination. Having verified Alexander's knowledge, the birds let the king ascend to the heavens, mounting ‘up to the summit of that mountain, without any companions to see something that would make any happy man weep’.¹⁵⁴ The terrible sight Alexander sees at the top of the mountain is the angel Sirāfīl (Isrāfīl),¹⁵⁵ waiting for God's order to blow his trumpet and start the Day of Resurrection.

Alexander's Encounter with the Angel Isrāfīl

In the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes (II, 41), after speaking with the birds, Alexander constructs a flying machine in order to explore the skies. Although in the Shāhnāma the same method of flying is used by Kay Kāvūs,¹⁵⁶ it is absent from Firdawsī's account of Alexander. Instead, after speaking with the birds, Alexander also ascends to the heavens when he climbs the mountain where the birds live. In the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes he comes across a ‘flying creature in the form of a man’, who reproaches him by saying ‘you have not yet secured the whole earth, and you are now exploring the heavens?’¹⁵⁷ In the Shāhnāma, this ‘flying creature’ is transformed into Isrāfīl, ‘the Angel of the Trumpet of Judgement Day’,¹⁵⁸ who reproaches Alexander ‘with a voice like thunder’: ‘Stop struggling, slave of greed!’¹⁵⁹ The angel also warns him to prepare himself for death.

While in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander does not attempt to justify himself or defend his deeds when faced by the flying creature's reproaches, in the Shāhnāma he says to Isrāfīl: ‘I will never know another fate than this incessant wandering around the world.’¹⁶⁰

Alexander in the Topaz Palace

Another time that Alexander receives an oracle about his death is when he is on a mountain whose crest is of lapis lazuli, in a palace built of topaz (yāqūt-i zard, ‘yellow ruby’). The palace is filled with crystal chandeliers and in the middle there is a fountain of saltwater, next to which there is a throne. On the throne stretches a wretched corpse whose head is like that of a boar. When Alexander sets foot within the palace, hoping to take something from it, he finds himself rooted to the spot; his whole body begins to tremble and he starts to waste away. A cry comes from the saltwater: ‘O king, still filled with longing and desire, don't play the fool much longer! You have seen many things that no man ever saw, but now it's time to draw rein. Your life has shortened now, the royal throne is without its king.’¹⁶¹

This scene is probably based on a similar passage in the Greek version (Pseudo-Callisthenes, III, 28), in which Alexander comes to the harbour of Lyssos. On top of a high mountain there is a circular temple ringed by a hundred columns of sapphire. In the Greek Romance, there is also a precious stone that lights up the whole place. However, instead of a saltwater fountain, it is a bird that warns Alexander in ‘a human voice, in Greek’ to return to his own palace and not strive to climb the paths of heaven.¹⁶²

Alexander and the Talking Tree

As we have seen from these last three encounters with fabulous beings possessed of oracular wisdom, oracles were important to the historical Alexander.¹⁶³ In the Greek Alexander Romance, the most extended encounter with an oracle occurs in the course of Alexander's adventures in India, when the wise men of Prasiake (Porus's kingdom) invite him to visit two talking trees.¹⁶⁴ Firdawsī's narration of the story is very close to the Greek version. In the Shāhnāma, the talking tree is found at the end of the world (karān-i jahān). Instead of two trees, there is one tree that has two separate trunks, one female and the other male. At night the female trunk speaks and, when the daylight comes, the male speaks. When Alexander approaches the talking tree, he sees that the soil is covered with the pelts of wild animals. The guide (and interpreter) explains that the tree has many worshippers, and that when they come to worship, they feed on the flesh of wild animals. The interpreter tells Alexander that the tree says: ‘However much Alexander wanders in the world, he has already seen his share of blessings; when he has reigned for fourteen years, he must quit the royal throne.’ At midnight the female trunk says: ‘Do not puff yourself up with greed; why torment your soul in this way? Greed makes you wander the wide world, harass mankind and kill kings.’ Alexander asks: ‘Will this fateful day come in Greece, will my mother see me alive again, before someone covers my face in death?’ The female trunk tells him: ‘Few days remain … neither your mother nor your family in Rūm will see your face again. Death will come soon and you will die in a strange land.’¹⁶⁵

After all these passages full of warnings and reproaches, Alexander finally dies in Babylon. Alexander's last days in the Shāhnāma take a very similar form to the Greek Romance. Firdawsī's version even contains such interesting details as Alexander's order to position his bed where all the army will be able to march past and see him (see also Pseudo-Callisthenes, III, 32).¹⁶⁶

Conclusion: Firdawsī's Sources and his Portrayal of Alexander

Firdawsī's poem clearly supports the case for the existence of a Middle Persian intermediary. Firdawsī's account of Alexander is not only the first version of the Romance in New Persian, but also the work in which most of the Syriac sources, Persian legends and independent stories concerning Alexander the Great are reflected. It follows the Khudāynāmag tradition, including Alexander in the Kayānid cycle. In addition, its Christian references juxtaposed with Persian elements indicate that the authors of the Khudāynāmag used Syriac sources, as Boyce and Tafaḍḍulī affirm.¹⁶⁷ It also indicates that the motifs of Gog and Magog and the Water of Life were also added to the Romance at an early stage (probably at the end of the Sasanian period) from Syriac sources.¹⁶⁸ Hence, the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī is the closest version to what the Middle Persian Vorlage of the Alexander Romance might be. It is probable that Abū Manṣūr¹⁶⁹ combined in his prose Shāhnāma all the material that was in circulation, particularly in Greater Khurāsān, the land of the Parthians.

As Meisami points out, Firdawsī was working with an older model of history writing in which an authentic bloodline conferred virtue on kings.¹⁷⁰ However, Firdawsī's account of Alexander has two different characteristics. The first parts of the story concern the legitimacy of Alexander's kingship, putting emphasis on his Persian lineage and his deeds following Dārā's advice. However, after Alexander's ascent to the throne of Persia, Firdawsī is no longer concerned with whether the king is legitimate, but rather with what his life shows about royal legitimacy. This part of the legend presents Alexander as the son of the demon Āz (greed), and it deals mostly with reproaches of Alexander's greed and warnings of his death. This makes Firdawsī's Shāhnāma a source of metaphors and exemplary anecdotes that became the stock-in-trade of later authors who composed works in the ‘Mirrors for Princes’ genre. We will look at this in the following two chapters, which are devoted to the portrayal of Alexander in the Iskandarnāma of Niẓāmī.