CHAPTER 4

Alexander in the Iskandarnāma of Niẓāmī Ganjavī (1141–1209)

 You should know this: that monarchy and prophecy

Are like two precious stones set in a single ring.

Firdawsī (d. 1020)¹

Almost two centuries after Firdawsī (940–1019 or 1025), on the other side of the Persian world in the trans-Caucasian city of Ganja on the border of Byzantium (in modern-day Azerbaijan), another Persian poet chose to recast the life of Alexander the Great as his last work.² Niẓāmī Ganjavī is known primarily for his five long narrative poems,³ known collectively as the Khamsa (Quintet) or Panj Ganj (Five Treasures), which were composed in the late twelfth century AD. They were widely imitated for centuries by poets writing in Persian as well as in Urdu and Ottoman Turkish.⁴ In particular, his Iskandarnāma became an inspiration for poets in every corner of the Persian world, including Amīr Khusraw of Delhi in India (1253–1325) with his Ā'īna-yi Iskandarī (Alexander's Mirror),⁵ and Jāmī (1414–92) with his Khiradnāma-ye Iskandarī (The Alexandrian Book of Wisdom).⁶

This chapter will look at Niẓāmī's version of the Alexander Romance, exploring its sources, content and characteristics in order to demonstrate how the Iskandarnāma served as a mirror for princes. We will start with a summary and general description of Niẓāmī's Iskandarnāma,⁷ which contains many pre-Islamic stories concerning Alexander, particularly from the Sasanian period. In this regard, it is an important component of the overall intention of this chapter to show how pre-Islamic Persian stories about Alexander persisted and were elaborated during the Islamic period.

Literary and Historical Contexts of Alexander's Personality in Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma

As the first poetic treatment of Alexander's tale in Persian, Niẓāmī's Iskandarnāma is a heroic romance based on the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes tradition. It also contains political and ethical advice for rulers,⁸ to whom it was evidently dedicated, explicating the ideal of perfect kingship in the first part of the work (the Sharafnāma), and correlating that with the concept of the Perfect Man (insān-i kāmil) as the true vicegerent of God (khalīfat Allāh) in the second part (the Iqbālnāma). Thus, Niẓāmī's version of the tale is in fact a multilayered work of practical ethical wisdom, incorporating major elements of the Perso-Islamic tradition of advice literature⁹ – particularly that ascribed to Sasanians, which had the most significant bearing on the subsequent development of Perso-Islamic mirrors for princes.¹⁰

To substantiate precisely how the Iskandarnāma fits within the literary genre of Persian mirrors for princes,¹¹ the influence of four essential works on Niẓāmī's Iskandarnāma – all written during the Saljūq period – should first be underlined here:¹²

(1)The earliest known Persian mirror, the Qābūsnāma (1083), was written by the Ziyarid ruler Kay Kāvūs b. Iskandar b. Qābūs for his son.¹³

(2)The Siyar al-mulūk (also known as the Sīyāsatnāma) was commissioned by the Saljūq Sultan Malikshāh and written by his powerful vazīr Niẓām-al-Mulk¹⁴ (d. 1092), and was designed to instruct the sultan in statecraft and governance.¹⁵

(3)Abū Ḥāmid Ghazālī's (d. 1111) Naṣīḥat al-mulūk (1109) was possibly written for the Saljūq Sultan Sanjar (1118–57) or for Muḥammad b. Malikshāh, or for both.¹⁶

(4)The Sindbādnāma or the Seven Sages of Ẓahīrī Samarqandī is a book of counsel contained within a frame story, and was written some time after 1157.¹⁷

These books all combine moral counsel with a variety of other materials – pious sayings, exemplary anecdotes and practical advice – to form a condensed exposition of all that an upright nobleman of the twelfth century AD could wish to present to a Muslim ruler. In all of them, Alexander is a fertile source of exempla and is frequently mentioned in various anecdotes.¹⁸ By highlighting their common statements concerning concepts such as kingship, religion, justice and counselling, we can see that these manuals of practical advice form antecedent expressions of some of the ideas contained in the Iskandarnāma of Niẓāmī.

Given the lack of a good critical English translation of the Iskandarnāma, the most important verses and passages will be translated into English here below,¹⁹ with notes on their significance for the subsequent development of the Alexander Romance in Persian Literature. Regarding earlier translations of the Iskandarnāma into Western languages, the following merit mention here:

(1)There is a literal, but barely readable, translation of the Sharafnāma (the first part of the Iskandarnāma) into English prose, with copious extracts from Indian commentators, by H. Wilberforce Clarke.²⁰

(2)There are complete translations of both parts of the Iskandarnāma into Russian verse²¹ and prose.²²

(3)J. Christoph Bürgel also published a poetic translation of the Iskandarnāma into German,²³ with some omissions in both the prologues and epilogues of both books.

Although this book on occasion draws on the first and third versions above in the translation of selected passages from the Iskandarnāma in this and the following chapter, it undertakes an independent interpretation of this text.

Alexander's Personality in Niẓāmī's Iskandarnāma

The Sharafnāma comprises about 6,800 couplets and the Iqbālnāma about 3,680 couplets, making the Iskandarnāma the longest poem in Niẓāmī's Khamsa, constituting about 10,500 couplets penned in the mutaqārib metre.²⁴ The Iskandarnāma is considered to be Niẓāmī's final and most mature poetic work. The Sharafnāma can be ascribed to the years between 1196 and 1200, and the Iqbālnāma to the years between 1200 and the poet's death in 1209.²⁵ The Sharafnāma (The Book of Honour)²⁶ recounts Alexander's adventures during his conquest of Asia, from the Persian Empire to India and China. Niẓāmī states that he chose this title because he considered it ‘the most honourable, and the best’ of his works:

And thus, by the mighty points of these witty quills,

This book has honour [sharaf] over all other books.

That royal Khusrawian wine that in this book's cup was poured,

Has made it the ‘Book of Honour’ [Sharafnāma] of kings.²⁷

In the second part, the Iqbālnāma (The Book of Fortune) or Khiradnāma-yi Iskandarī (The Book of Alexandrian Wisdom), Alexander is represented as a sage and prophet who assembles a great library and is surrounded by the greatest philosophers of the ancient world. Through their guidance and instruction, he is transformed from a king into a sage, effectively becoming the ‘Perfect Man’. The dual aspects of kingship – temporal and spiritual – can thus be found in the portrayal of Alexander in both books of the Iskandarnāma.

In general, Niẓāmī develops three different aspects of Alexander's legendary personality in the Iskandarnāma: as a world conqueror or Kosmokrátor (κοσμοκράτωρ), as a sage or king constantly surrounded by philosophers and finally as a prophet in the Islamic tradition. Two distinct but interrelated structural patterns provide complementary ways of organising events in the poem (in both its narratives and tales) and of unifying its tripartite form: the first is the linear pattern of Alexander's life through time, the second is his spiritual progress towards the realisation of wisdom and the third is the process of the evolution of his character from a state of temporal kingship to one of spiritual kingship.²⁸

Niẓāmī expounds his methodology as well as his reasons for choosing Alexander as his main subject at the beginning of the Sharafnāma. After a dream he found himself ‘ablaze and inspired’:

It thus became necessary for me to make this my task,

To compose such a lovely book as this.²⁹

He gives three key reasons for choosing Alexander as his principal theme. Firstly, Niẓāmī claims to have had an inspirational encounter with the enigmatic immortal prophet-saint Khiḍr³⁰ after 40 days' seclusion:

‘I've heard you plan to write a book of kings,’ he said,

‘With verse that runs as smooth as a stream.

Do not repeat what the ancient sage [Firdawsī] said,

For it is wrong to pierce a single pearl twice.

Except when a passage is reached where thought

Demands you repeat what's been said before.

You're of the avant-garde, fresh in this business of verse:

You must not mimic any bygone master's works!

You are a miner of jewels in the Alexandrian mine;

Alexander himself shall come to you to shop for jewels.’³¹

The main thing that Khiḍr insists on here is poetic originality. We may speculate that Niẓāmī himself was probably worried that he would be considered an imitator, especially because an earlier poet, Firdawsī, had already set Alexander's story to verse.³² Indeed, many modern scholars fault him for this.³³ This is Niẓāmī's second reason, as he himself notes on various occasions:

That great poet of yesteryear, the sage of Ṭūs [Firdawsī],

Who'd painted the countenance of belles-lettres in bridal hues,

Who in his book [Shāhnāma] had pierced so many pearls of verse,

Yet left unsaid many things that need be said.

If he had writ down all he'd heard from the ancients,

Indeed this romance [of Alexander] would have become long.

He left unsaid whatever was not pleasing to him;

And just that which demanded telling wrote down.

For his friends some of the banquet's leftovers he saved,

Ill-suited as it is to consume sweet desserts in private.

Though Niẓāmī here has strung many a pearl on the thread of verse,

Those tales' pearls that pens of yore have writ he's left unstrung.

He took those pearls he found in the treasury unpierced,

And so appraising pearls obtained his balance weighing his verses' worth.³⁴

Niẓāmī wanted to complete what Firdawsī left unsaid.³⁵ He claimed to write something new, which would differ from the work of the older poet:

He [Niẓāmī] made the Sharafnāma famed far and wide,

And so made a tale grown old, fresh and new!³⁶

In this regard, Khiḍr's instructions to Niẓāmī on how to recount the legend of Alexander are very significant. Khiḍr enables Niẓāmī to create a new story. However, Khiḍr's appearance is not just significant for the poet personally: he plays a prominent role in the Islamic legend of Alexander insofar as he figures as Alexander's guide in the expedition into the darkness in the episode of the Fountain of Life. Thus, Niẓāmī's Iskandarnāma is not simply a repetitive reproduction of Alexander's tale, but a complete poetic recreation and inspired reconsideration of the old material under the eternal prophet's guidance.

Finally, Niẓāmī affirms that he also chose this subject because:

Since none of the good and great deride this tale,

By design, I've set my hand to tell this romance.

There is no tale more pleasing, more right or apposite

That enjoys the approval of those who're upright.

Other legends you may seek and study, but from the start,

You'll find that all the various nations disagree on their wrong and right.

But of such a tale as this no perplexity may be raised,

Writ down as it was by so many quills sharp of wit.³⁷

On another occasion, he insists on the importance of Alexander's legend:

Helpless in that place where I was dazed and dazzled,

I cast my lot and found Alexander's name among the great and grand.

Every mirror that I burnished bright in thought of him,

Alexander's imaginal form I found reflected therein.

Do not regard that ruler with a perfunctory, thoughtless gaze,

for he was both a swordsman and one who wore the crown.³⁸

In general, in the Iskandarnāma, under the protective shade of Khiḍr's inspiration, Niẓāmī tries to tell tales of Alexander that are fresh and original. In this process he combines three aspects of the Macedonian king as an exemplar of the ideal king: conqueror (vilāyat-sitān), philosopher (ḥakīm) and prophet (payghambar):

One company calls him holder of the insignia of the royal crown,

A conqueror of kingdoms, or rather, one who secured frontiers.

Another company, due to the minister he had at court [Aristotle],³⁹

Have writ him down as having the philosopher's mandate.

Another group regard his spotless character and cultivation of religion

And so accept him among the prophets.⁴⁰

He then declares:

I shall plant a tree bearing many abundant fruits,

From all these grains of truth these sages have sown.

First I will knock on the door of royalty and kingship;

I will discourse on the conquest of lands far and wide.

Next will I speak of wisdom and philosophy;

I'll make ancient histories seem like a fresh statement.

Then shall I pound my fist on the door of Prophethood –

For God Himself has called him a prophet.

I have made three pearls, in each a mine full of treasures;

Many pains and cares have I taken to create each pearl.

For each door I've knocked upon, and for each pearl of verse,

All the limits of the earth I'll fill with treasure.⁴¹

From these verses it is clear that Niẓāmī's conception of Alexander's kingship thus incorporates the dual function of prophet and king, echoing both the ancient Iranian ideal of kingship and the Islamic Sufi concept of the king as a Perfect Man.⁴² Indeed, it would seem that it was by following the lead of Fārābī's works on political philosophy⁴³ that Niẓāmī incorporated not only the qualities of a philosopher but also ultimately those of a prophet into Alexander's personality. In this respect, in the Iskandarnāma Niẓāmī puts flesh on the figure of Alexander as the ideal ruler who then became, in later centuries, a symbol of the perfect king.⁴⁴

Niẓāmī also penned these interesting verses on the chronology of his account of Alexander in the Iskandarnāma:

I spoke in such a way [in my verse] concerning what I regarded as wondrous

Such that all hearts would take it on faith and be convinced.

Yet I did not feel compelled to set in verse

Accounts that seemed far-fetched or irrational.

I garnered a grain of truth from each idle pearl.⁴⁵

I ornamented my poem like an idol temple.

I thus laid down that temple's foundations from the start

So its walls, raised up, would remain upright and straight.

Criticise me not about the events' antecedence or subsequence

For no historian you'll find who's flawless in chronology.⁴⁶

Sources of Niẓāmī's Iskandarnāma

Niẓāmī also draws attention to the fact that composing the Iskandarnāma was an onerous task because of the great diversity and wide variety of sources on Alexander available to him:

As I planned to tell this tale [of Alexander], my speech came out

Simple and straightforward, yet the way tortuous and meandering.

The works of that king who'd trekked to the corners of the globe

I could never find written down in a single book or tract.

The discourses I found were full of precious treasures,

A myriad pearls strewn about in every text.⁴⁷

He emphasises how carefully he selected the tales and topoi from his sources:

From each and every book I adopted different material

And decked them out in the ornament of verse.⁴⁸

Regarding those same sources, he adds:

Not only the recent, modern histories did I peruse:

I studied Jewish, Christian, and Pahlavi sources too.

I selected naught but the crème de la crème from those sources;

I took only the kernel from the husk of each and every text.⁴⁹

These verses are as important as they are ambiguous. On one hand, they do not refer to any specific source by name. On the other, the poet affirms that besides contemporary histories, he consulted a great range of texts. The main question here is which sources is he referring to in this statement? In order to answer this question, we have to consider the region where Niẓāmī lived. It is important to take into account the fact that he lived almost his entire life in his home town of Ganja, located in the Caucasus on the border of Byzantium. This crossroads town was home to diverse peoples, and was a cultural beehive where many languages were spoken and various religions were practised. This is why, in the episodes set in the Caucasus, the Iskandarnāma features a great deal of local colour.

Given his geographical location, it is likely that the poet would have been familiar with Byzantine sources, as well as those of Armenian and Georgian provenance or language. We may well also speculate that it is probable that Niẓāmī's ‘Jewish and Christian’ sources were the Armenian and Georgian legends about Alexander that were in circulation in the Caucasus. Stories and legends about Alexander the Great were probably very popular in Niẓāmī's home town.⁵⁰ The Caspian Gates, as well as Darband (in Persian) and Bāb al-abwāb (in Arabic),⁵¹ are often identified with the Gates of Alexander.⁵² Its 30 north-facing towers, which used to stretch for 40 kilometres between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, effectively blocked the passage across the Caucasus. Alexander actually marched through Darband⁵³ in pursuit of Bessus, a manoeuvre described by Arrian (Anabasis 3.20), although he probably did not stop to fortify it.⁵⁴ In this respect, it may be pointed out that Dar-band, which means ‘pass’ in Persian, is often identified with the wall of Gog and Magog. We will revisit this point later on in this chapter.

It was also believed that the legendary ‘City of Women’ (Harūm in the Shāhnāma and Barda‘ in the Iskandarnāma) was located in the Caucasus, which is actually found in modern Azerbaijan.⁵⁵ Niẓāmī even replaced Queen Candace of al-Andalus with Queen Nūshāba of Barda‘,⁵⁶ perhaps because the latter name was more familiar to his audience, and perhaps because, according to François de Blois, she ‘belongs to that area, as does the Armenian princess who is the heroine of Khusraw u Shīrīn’.⁵⁷ In conclusion, it is highly probable that many episodes in the Iskandarnāma were well known and popular among the Caucasian people, and that Niẓāmī made ample use of such local materials in his poem.

Besides the Jewish and Christian (or, as Niẓāmī says, ‘Naṣrānī/Nestorian’) sources, Niẓāmī refers to ‘Pahlavi’ works. This is ambiguous. It is not clear whether he is referring to Persian sources relating to the pre-Islamic era or indeed to Pahlavi texts themselves. Through our analysis of the Iskandarnāma below we will venture to identify Niẓāmī's possible pre-Islamic Persian sources. From the determined and confident tone used by Niẓāmī in the following verses, there can be no doubt, at least in the poet's own mind, of the historical reliability of these sources:

I selected naught but the crème de la crème from those sources;

I took only the pith from the husk of each and every text.

My discourse from the tongues of many treasures of speech was knit;

I created a unified whole from all these motley tongues.

Whosoever's acquainted with these different tongues

Will hold his own from finding fault with my tale.

I crumpled and pleated my speech like curly locks

From those historical scenarios I found factual and true.⁵⁸

However, he admits that there is one fault in his work, though one that encapsulates the very essence of the poetic art:

But if it's ‘truth’ and ‘facts’ you'd seek,

It's wrong to look for the plain truth in embellished verse.⁵⁹

In another passage, he clarifies this assertion by adding:

My labour's to make gracious, beauteous speech –

This poetry of mine's an art of lies and deviance –.⁶⁰

However, he states:

But yet, indeed, whatever seemed incredible in the tale

Or unreliable, I dismissed at once from my verse.

I gazed within myself to assess what should be said,

Apprising what the readers would think delectable.

If one concentrates on wonders overmuch

The reins of speech run to extravagance.

Tales that don't dazzle, related without marvel,

Make the antique fable seem nothing novel.

So speak your speech with care and moderation

So it carries the weight of faith and corroboration.⁶¹

Therefore, in an attempt to balance historical fact and poetic fiction, he declares:

But should I reduce the poetic ornaments and frills,

The whole romance would come to but one meagre verse.

Thus all the deeds of that errant king who traversed the earth

I have wrapped up in toto within a single vellum roll.⁶²

Near the beginning of his poem, Niẓāmī in this respect furnishes us with a precis of the history of Alexander on a single sheet (Fihrist-i tārīkh-i Iskandar dar yik varaq), where he gives us a list of the key exploits, feats and accomplishments attributed to the Macedonian king by legend or history. Before examining each chapter of the Iskandarnāma in detail, it will be helpful to look at the following translation of the key verses of this important passage.

Precis of the History of Alexander

Alexander, who journeyed to the farthest reaches of the earth, in the business

Of travel was adept; the wares of all his voyages were well prepared.

He journeyed and beheld all four corners of the world

For no kingdom without four directions can be bought.

In whatever kingdom's capital he set his foot,

He upheld the rites of the great kings.

He never paid homage to any other rite or ritual

Except the custom and religion of Zoroaster, votary of fire.

He was the first person to establish the use of jewellery;

The first to mint golden coins in the land of Rūm [Anatolia].

At his command the agile goldsmith

Embossed sheets of silver with golden leaves.

He commanded that translations of texts of Persian philosophy

Be made so that they were attired in Grecian robes.

He directed drumbeats to mark the watches of dusk and dawn,

And thus gave time its substance by his court's watches.

It was he who invented the mirror by which he led men –

Which brought that brilliant gem forth from darkness.

He freed the world of the revolt of Zanzibar;

He snatched both crown and throne from Darius.

He cleansed the earth of both the fury of India

And Russia's irascibility and made it like a bridal palace.

His judgements were as bright and clear as a Chinese mirror;

He set up his kingdom in the canton of Cyrus's throne.⁶³

When at first the book of his life turned its leaf to twenty

The kettledrum of kingliness with mighty strokes was struck.

In the second place, when he came to twenty-seven years of age

He broke camp and set out on the way of prophecy.

The very day he adopted the rite of prophecy,

The calendar of Alexander recorded its first date.

As he became learned in God's religion, like a gracious kingdom

His conquests came to stretch to the ends of the earth.

He adduced abundant proofs to substantiate the true Faith;

He constructed numerous edifices over the earth's face.

He laid down foundations of several capital cities

With the rotation of each cycle of the compass of time.

In every land and clime he founded cities

From the lands of India all the way to Anatolia [Rūm].

It was he who gave Samarqand its fabled loveliness –

Not Samarqand alone, but many such cities.

The founding of cities like Herat was his deed.

How fabulous it is to establish cities such as these!

It was in Darband that he built his first great wall;

He set its foundation down with wisdom and reason.

Go beyond Bulgaria, whose founding was his doing:

Its original foundation was the pit of his cave [bungār].

He constructed walls to fend off Gog

By coupling mountains together as a barrier.

Above and beyond this, he established many institutions –

The sum and size of which exceed all mention.

When that well-framed man made his will and pleasure

To divide and share out the face and frame of the earth,

Across the world's face he drew a line like a cross –

Long before either cross or Christian ever was!

Like an atlas of maps composed of four directions

He set up geometry's scores, figures and calculations.

Tent-like he divided up the earth's surface into four parts;

His reign struck the drum of the nine heavens in five watches.

One peg of his reign was hammered into the North Pole;

Another peg struck deep to traverse the south.

One rope of the tent he pulled eastward hither;

Another tent-rope was stretched westward thither.

Who else like him has reigned and held court

In the atelier of the earth's length and breadth?

When he betook himself to voyage about the earth

He undertook to compute its length by yardstick tape.

He surveyed the earth by mile, furlong, waystation – gauged

All bounds and left not one spot of the earth uncalibrated.

He had cartographers and topographers measure its bounds;

A myriad of inspectors were charged with checking and fixing standards.

By log-lines the earth's coordinates were marked up,

The distances between each waystation plotted out.

Wheresoever on the earth he planted his royal tent

He'd count and calibrate each stage and station of the way.

Then, when a voyage by sea became his lot in life,

He calculated water's ways and surveyed the waves!

Once upon the water, he'd lash two ships together –

Between the two he strung a rope for measurement:

Ship one, anchored on the seafloor, stood firm in place,

And ship two tugged forward to the log-line's end.

And so it went – the second ship now moored itself,

And ship one weighed anchor, and took up her lead.

He compassed waves with ships’ ropes as micrometres

Who's ever seen any ropewalker enact such wild play?

Alexander the Oceanographer well knew these stages and degrees:

He marked out the sea's width and breadth from shore to shore.

He turned the world's grief and woe to joy and cheer

By fixing standards and coordinates through geometry.

With wise deliberation he made the earth's crooked calculations straight,

Assessed aright how far each road, how long each highway stretched.

He showed us where the earth's ‘inhabited quarter’ was.

Who else amongst us obtained the domain that he attained?

He brought weal and welfare to all and sundry

In every land and clime through which he drove his steed.

Upon both hill and dale, he lent help and succour to all,

He was – alas! – succourless at the advent of death.

What's said above must suffice to recount the history

Of that king endowed with crown and diadem.

More or less than this is mere captious giddiness:

To say aught else just makes the pen gnaw and fret.

I took the path of verse to pen this romance;

Albeit in verse deviance is always found.

… Now Alexander, the sovereign of the seven climes, has gone.

Once Alexander passed away, no man of worth was left.

The key deeds that Niẓāmī attributes to Alexander in the above passage may be enumerated as follows:

(1)Alexander was the first man to establish the use of jewellery.

(2)He was the first king to mint golden coins in the land of Rūm (Anatolia), and the first to emboss sheets of silver with golden leaves.

(3)He ordered the translation of Persian philosophical texts into Greek.

(4)He directed drumbeats to mark the watches of dusk and dawn, and thus was the first to measure time.

(5)He invented the mirror from dark iron.

(6)He battled against Darius, the natives of Zanzibar, the Russians and the Indians.

(7)At the age of 20 he became a king, and at 27 he became a prophet.

(8)The Alexandrian calendar begins with his becoming a prophet.

(9)He established many cities from western Anatolia to southern India, including Samarqand, Herat and Darband. He is presented as the founding father of Bulgaria and Tbilisi, and the builder of the wall against Gog.

(10)Through geometrical methods he divided the earth into four quarters by drawing a cross. He also discovered that only a quarter of the earth was inhabited. While travelling around the world, he measured its length and breadth by various methods of mathematical calculation. He also measured distances at sea.

Most of these accomplishments, feats and inventions that Niẓāmī attributes to Alexander will now be discussed and analysed.

Alexander's Mirror

One motif crucial to comprehending the prophetic aspect of Alexander and his progress towards the realisation of spiritual kingship is the ‘invention of the mirror’ that is attributed to him. Alexander's mirror has two meanings. In Platonic terms, it symbolises the mirror of the Unseen World in which reality is reflected, being analogous to the Cup of Kay Khusraw or the Goblet of Jamshīd (jām-i jam), a topos upon which Niẓāmī elaborates in some detail in the Sharafnāma. In Sufi mystical terms, the mirror symbolises theophany (tajallī) in the mystic's polished heart, where the Divine is reflected.⁶⁴ Plato instructs us: ‘Looking at God we should be using the best mirror of mortal things for the virtue of the soul, and thus we should best see and know ourselves.’⁶⁵

As we will see, Alexander's first step in his inner journey in the Sharafnāma towards the attainment of spiritual kingship is to obtain self-knowledge. Once he becomes aware of the qualities of his soul, he is able to enter the Land of Darkness for 40 days, where he remains like a Sufi in chilla-nishīnī (a 40-day seclusion); he does this not to achieve immortality, but to realise self-knowledge in order to be ready for the final step of his inner journey towards becoming a prophet. Stoneman rightly points out: ‘Niẓāmī's account of Alexander's life (among other things) is a reflection of a divine unchanging truth, not of the ephemera of the visible world. The world is in fact God's mirror, a projection of the active intellect, sometimes perceived as an angel.’⁶⁶

Therefore, the fact that Alexander possesses this magic mirror signifies his possession of gnosis and the power of insight into the Unseen World and the Divine, which is a characteristic of the prophets – as indeed he is. At the same time it signifies his possession of a polished heart, and also that he is able to polish the hearts of others – his erstwhile subjects and followers – by summoning them to monotheism. Understanding the philosophical and mystical significance of the motif of Alexander's mirror is essential if we are to comprehend the spiritual formation of his personality.

Four Stray Motifs: Jewellery, Coinage, Alexander's Calendar and the Visit to Jerusalem

Turning back now to the historical dimension of the tale, before plunging into the actual text of the Sharafnāma, it will be useful to briefly examine the historical veracity – or lack thereof – of four motifs mentioned in the above precis that are absent from the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī but present in Niẓāmī's version of the Alexander Romance. We will therefore now investigate the nature of the possible texts and sources from which Niẓāmī obtained his information.

As far as jewellery is concerned, it is true that the conquests of Alexander the Great (between 333 and 322) transformed the economy of the Greek world. With his conquests, and later during the Hellenistic period of his domination in the Middle East, gold became more plentiful in Greece, and the artistic designs, motifs and techniques of Persian court artists were widely imitated there.⁶⁷ Thus, Niẓāmī's claim that Alexander introduced jewellery to Greece may perhaps relate to the fact that many types of jewellery became popular in the Hellenistic period, and Greek goldwork was considered to be the best.⁶⁸

Regarding the issue of minting coins, Philip II was the first Greek ruler to issue gold coins uninterruptedly due to the wealth of gold mines in the Pangaeum district.⁶⁹ However, Niẓāmī's statement may reflect the fact that prior to the Macedonian conquest, silver, which abounded in Greece, was the only currency used for commercial transactions. It was only after Alexander's conquests, which raised the Greek economy (in both its Asian and European provinces) to a higher level, that one finds the minting and circulation of gold coins as well as silver, and also a mixture of the two.⁷⁰

On the subject of Alexander's calendar, al-Bīrūnī affirms in his Chronology that it was established in the year that Alexander entered Jerusalem, at the age of 27. Thus the Jewish calendar was replaced with Alexander's calendar.⁷¹ In the passage in question, al-Bīrūnī writes:

This era is based upon Greek years. It is in use among most nations. When Alexander had left Greece at the age of twenty-six, he prepared to fight with Darius, the king of the Persians, and marching upon his capital, he went down to Jerusalem, which was inhabited by the Jews. Then he ordered the Jews to give up the era of Moses and David, and to use his era instead, and to adopt that very year, the twenty-seventh of his life, as the epoch of this era.⁷²

As we can see, Niẓāmī's statement about the origin of Alexander's calendar more or less coincides with al-Bīrūnī's. However, the historical accuracy of both accounts is doubtful because we know that Alexander was 27 years of age in AD 329, at which point he was in Central Asia and nothing obviously prophetic seems to have happened. His supposed visit to Jerusalem, if it happened, would have been in AD 332, when he was 24 years old.⁷³

This visit to Jerusalem is certainly not among Alexander's deeds as narrated in the Pseudo-Callisthenes. However, this episode was included in the Latin Historia de Preliis and in various vernacular Alexander traditions based upon it.⁷⁴ The connection between Alexander's entrance to Jerusalem and his prophethood must have had its origin in the Jewish tradition, since one can already find a prophetical aspect of Alexander's personality in the Book of Daniel (7.8; 8.3–26). Likewise, the story of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem features in the Talmud.⁷⁵ However, the best-known version of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem is in a narrative by Josephus.⁷⁶ It thus seems likely that, as Niẓāmī himself stated, the Jewish religious tradition influenced his work.

* * *

Some of the other points relevant to the history, legend and romance of Alexander will now be discussed in order to illustrate precisely how Niẓāmī presented them in his poem. In order to present a structured analysis of the Sharafnāma, its contents are divided here into four different categories:

(1)Information already mentioned by Firdawsī or other sources with some variants (e.g. Alexander's Persian campaigns and Dārā's murder by his own officers)

(2)Information on Alexander's lineage, tutors, conquests and battles.

(3)The Caucasian episodes (e.g. Alexander in Azerbaijan, Abkhaz, Mount Alburz and Darband)

(4)Marginal stories (e.g. the invention of the mirror, and the competition between the Rūmī and Chinese painters)

Although it is not possible to cover each and every tale and detail of Niẓāmī's version of the Alexander legend in this volume, a fairly comprehensive overview of the poem's view of the conqueror is presented below.

Episodes Common to the Sharafnāma, Firdawsī's Shāhnāma and Other Sources

As Niẓāmī himself admitted in the prologue of the Sharafnāma, though he wanted to compose a new version of the Alexander legend, sometimes there was no choice but to repeat what had been said before him.⁷⁷ His poem thus echoes and shares certain material with certain passages in the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī, which Niẓāmī tried to complete and ‘correct’. He added some other variants to the Alexander legend that had been left unsung by Firdawsī.

It should be taken into account that at the time Niẓāmī was writing his version, Alexander's image had become highly Islamised in the Muslim historical imagination. This Islamised depiction of Alexander first appears in the Sharafnāma. Niẓāmī's Alexander destroys fire temples and liberates people from Persian oppression. He is no longer portrayed as a descendent of Darius, nor is he linked to great Persian heroes such as Isfandīyār. This change of view is not unique to Niẓāmī but can be seen in works by other authors, such as Bal‘amī's History.⁷⁸ Indeed, Niẓāmī and Bal‘amī⁷⁹ coincide on most points of the Alexander legend, and both add supplementary material to their sources, some of which is not found elsewhere.

In order not to repeat the discussion of episodes treated in previous chapters, we will here look at summaries of passages common to the Sharafnāma, the Pseudo-Callisthenes and Firdawsī. Niẓāmī's account of the Persian campaigns is the only part of his work that coincides with Firdawsī's Shāhnāma. More interestingly, these common episodes are also the only parts that are found in the Greek Romance. The various common motifs can be enumerated in Table 4.1.

While these motifs will be examined in the present chapter wherever they appear in the narrative, the emphasis will be on the differences and novelties that Niẓāmī introduced in his work. As we shall see, each episode represents an increasingly more advanced stage in Alexander's progress towards perfect kingship. At the heart of Alexander's progress from temporal to sacred kingship lies an inner journey symbolised by his relinquishing of worldly achievements. We will now focus on two aspects of the narrative of the Sharafnāma: firstly, highlighting the development of the tale in the Persian tradition and its sources, and secondly analysing Alexander's progression towards enlightenment.

Table 4.1 Sixteen Motifs of the Alexander Romance found both in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma and Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma

Alexander's Birth and Early Years in Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma

The key elements that Niẓāmī includes in his work on Alexander's life must be compared with other sources in order to determine the poet's sources. The question of the identity of Alexander's father, and whether he was divine or human, was an important component of the Alexander legend in the sources from antiquity.⁸⁰

Alexander's Ancestry and Birth

Niẓāmī opens his narrative with this theme, providing different narratives or variant readings regarding Alexander's ancestry: the Roman variant (Alexander as an exposed child), the Persian variant (Alexander as a descendent of Darius) and the Greek variant (Alexander as Philip's son). Commencing with the Greek variant, Niẓāmī begins his story by introducing Alexander's father as Philip of Macedonia, whom he calls Fīlikūs.⁸¹ He declares that the rulers of Greece, Anatolia (Rūm) and Russia (Rūs) followed Fīlikūs's command. Niẓāmī describes him as ‘the world's best king’ and a ‘descendant of the grandson of Esau, the son of Isaac’.⁸²

Such a biblical ancestry for Philip of Macedonia can also be found in the History of Bal‘amī (the vazīr of the Samanids).⁸³ Al-Bīrūnī also mentions this version of Alexander's ancestry as being agreed on by ‘the most celebrated genealogists’, adding definitively: ‘that Alexander was the son of Philip is a fact too evident to be concealed’.⁸⁴ Al-Mas‘ūdī mentioned this variant too.⁸⁵ This Old Testament genealogy of Philip is probably based on the identification of Edom/Edumea as Rome in the Jewish tradition,⁸⁶ which made Philip (of Rūm) a descendant of Esau.⁸⁷

After presenting the Greek variant of Alexander's ancestry from Philip, Niẓāmī continues:

How many claims and counterclaims on Alexander's birth

Exist, to each of which I've lent my ear to find the truth.⁸⁸

He then provides two other variants of Alexander's ancestry. Firstly, he cites a Roman variant:

As has been related by the wise sages of that land,

There was once the wife of a pious man in Greece⁸⁹

Who found herself distressed in pangs of childbirth

Outcast from hearth, home, husband – in dire straits.

When the time to give birth approached, the strain

And labour's woe overmastered her with pain,

She crept off into a corner, gave birth and died.

She fret to death in the distress of childbirth and cried:

‘Who shall nurse and nurture you, I know not;

What beast or brute will devour you, who knows’…⁹⁰

Philip then finds the abandoned child on his way back from a hunting expedition:

One day while hunting game, King Philip surveyed

The plain and saw a dead woman lying there

Before his feet, a living baby boy's head rose up

From his mother's deathbed; in want of her breast

And milk the infant bit his thumb in grief.

Philip ordered his men to take the lady's corpse;

They gave to her last rites as she deserved.

The servants of the king took the child from

The dust of the way and bore him away –

All were left to marvel at the game of that day.

So Philip took, reared and raised the boy,

And in the end anointed him his heir.⁹¹

Niẓāmī next explains the Persian variant, though he adds that he does not believe it. Considering Niẓāmī's reference to ‘the dihqān who adore the fire’, one may speculate that this version is based on his ‘Pahlavi’ source, a Zoroastrian version preserved by the noble dihqāns (landowners of noble Sasanian families)⁹² mentioned in the verses:

The dihqān who adore the fire relate the legend

Of Alexander a different way: they say he was kith

And kin of Darius through ties of blood. Yet when

I perused all these tales and yarns, then regarded

What Firdawsī, the holy master, had to say, those two

Romances appeared like chimera, flights of fancy

Or foolish fictions made of dream and moonshine.⁹³

Lastly, Niẓāmī returns to the Roman variant, which he believes to be the ‘true history’ of Alexander's birth:

In every tongue what's right and true of this legend

Of Alexander is this – that he was of Philip's kin.

Since other tales are incredible and lack veracity,

No poet can pledge his word to them.

That hoary-headed elder relates a tale

He'd read in the history of the kings of yore

That in the revels of King Philip there was

A stainless young bride of alluring loveliness,

Promising in appearance, exalted in eminence,

Whose fetching glances, shot from her eyebrow's

Bow, felled men – her tresses all like lassos.

… One night the king took her in love's embrace –

A date palm then arose from his royal seed,

A pearl of great price from his spring rains

Made the ocean oyster engender majesty.

When all nine months of her pregnancy were up

The infant sought his way from out the womb.⁹⁴

Alexander's Horoscope

Niẓāmī relates in detail the astronomical information⁹⁵ of the horoscope for the moment of Alexander's birth. He tells us that King Philip ordered his astrologers to determine the infant's star sign, which might reveal his child's future. Deciphering the mysteries of the heavenly constellations, the astronomers examined what the stars held in their balance,⁹⁶ finding that:

The ascendant star Leo ruled the day

And blinded with envy every enemy's eye.

The sun in Aries gained lustre and glory,

Attesting a man of practice, not theory.

As Mercury hastened towards Gemini,

The moon and Venus consorted in Taurus;

By Jupiter, Sagittarius was embellished,

Saturn caroused in Libra's Balance

While Mars in Capricorn took his place

Just like a lackey employed in chores.

Such a horoscope so radiant with fortune

Outloud I'd say: ‘Preserve him from the Evil Eye!’⁹⁷

According to these verses, Leo, the sign of power, was in the ascendant at the moment of Alexander's birth, while the sun was located in Aries, the sign of wisdom and its practice. Plutarch (Alex. 3.3) indicates that Alexander was born in the Greek month Hecatombaeon (July/August).⁹⁸ We can also find similar details (on measuring the courses of the heavenly bodies when Alexander's mother went into labour) in the Pseudo-Callisthenes (I, 12).⁹⁹ However, according to the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Jupiter was in the ascendant when Alexander was born, ‘turning into horned Ammon between Aquarius and Pisces’.¹⁰⁰ Niẓāmī also mentions the constellations of other signs of the horoscope indicating Alexander's future fortune and prosperity, concluding that:

The constellations of heaven's seven stars proclaim:

The world had given him the key to fortune and fame.¹⁰¹

The horoscope given by Niẓāmī is quite different from the Greek account with which it has been compared. The passage on the conqueror's horoscope in the Syriac Pseudo-Callisthenes (I, 12) is quite different too, attesting that Alexander was born ‘over Aquarius and Pisces of Egypt’. Comparing this horoscope in the Sharafnāma with certain horoscopes found in the Zoroastrian Bundahishn (such as the fifth and sixth chapters in which the birth of Gayomarth is discussed), it seems evident that Niẓāmī's method was based on Sasanian genethlialogy (natal astrology), which was itself ‘essentially an imitation of the Hellenistic, onto which were grafted some Indian features’.¹⁰² Alexander's horoscope was typical of that of a great man, with all the planets aligned in the best astrological positions.¹⁰³

One source that may have been accessible to Niẓāmī is the Kitāb al-mawālīd al-kabīr (Book of Great Births) by Māshā'allāh ibn Atharī (d. c.815), a Jew who may well have been Persian; this book is known only from its Latin translation.¹⁰⁴ It is possible that Niẓāmī based his version of Alexander's horoscope on this book. In general, as S. Ḥ. Naṣr points out, Niẓāmī had an impressive knowledge of traditional astronomy and astrology, such that his erudite references to the principles of astronomy throughout his Quintet are unique among the poets of the Persian language.¹⁰⁵

Alexander's Education

The next piece of biographical information that Niẓāmī provides concerns Alexander's education. It is interesting that Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma is the only source in the Persian tradition where a so-called Naqūmājus is mentioned as Alexander's tutor. According to Niẓāmī, he was Aristotle's father, while Aristotle was Alexander's classmate.¹⁰⁶ Nicomachus (Nικóμαχος; fl. c.375 BC) was indeed the father of Aristotle. However, he was the physician in Philip's court and not Alexander's tutor. According to Plutarch (Alex. 5.5), the man who assumed the character and title of tutor of Alexander was a certain Lysimachus. These two names (Nicomachus and Lysimachus) may have been conflated in their Arabic transcriptions in the sources.¹⁰⁷

According to the Sharafnāma, Naqūmājus/Nicomachus asks Alexander to accept his son (Aristotle) as his minister and counsellor when he becomes king. Nicomachus gives Alexander ‘geometrical letters’ (hindisī ḥarf), that is, a talismanic ring (circle) based on the occult sciences¹⁰⁸ in which the name of the conquered and the conqueror magically appear.¹⁰⁹ Thus, even before each battle, Alexander already knows whether he will win or lose. Nevertheless, despite this foreknowledge, Alexander is always conscious of the power of Fate over his successes and failures, as Niẓāmī affirms:

He'd gain news about his triumph and success

Through what he wrote upon that magic diagram,

And thus with wisdom and intelligence he lived.

From every art he gleaned some lore fit for use.

Although his will was omniscient in expertise,

He also kept on hand the counsel of the wise.

He followed the commands of the erudite: in this

Way Fortune favoured him through his own mindfulness.¹¹⁰

Of Banquets and Battles (bazm u razm): Alexander as a Warrior

A major part of the Sharafnāma deals with the battles through which Alexander tries to liberate the people of various lands, or else guide them on the path of the primordial religion of Abraham (dīn-i ḥanīfī).¹¹¹ Before each battle there are episodes in which letters are exchanged between Alexander and the enemy king. The exchange of letters between the kings before and during the battle is a characteristic of the Alexander Romance tradition from its very beginning.¹¹² However, Niẓāmī only includes two letters: Darius sends a letter to Alexander, to which he responds.¹¹³ In the Sharafnāma, Darius's letter contains material from a pre-Islamic Persian tradition, which indicates that it is based on Niẓāmī's ‘Pahlavi’ source: Darius swears on the ‘bright fire’, on the texts of the ‘Zand and Avestā’ and ‘Zoroaster’;¹¹⁴ he also compares himself to the great heroes and kings of the Persian tradition (Isfandīyār and Bahman).¹¹⁵ Alexander's response similarly contains material that indicates that it was derived from the Persian tradition, such as where he warns Darius that if he compares himself to Isfandīyār, Alexander will be like Rustam.¹¹⁶

During every battle and normally after them as well, there are episodes of feasts and symposia. The main point of these banquets is to remind the conqueror – and, by extension, the reader – of the moral lessons to be gleaned from the practice of warfare and conduct on the field of battle. In this respect, the Sharafnāma can be seen to have been composed quite deliberately as a mirror for princes.

Overall, Alexander waged three great wars. The first was against the Zangīs (black people, known as Zanj in Arabic, who were the African population of the western part of the Indian Ocean);¹¹⁷ the second was against the Persians; and the third was against the Russians (altogether there were seven battles waged against the Russians). After his conquest of Persia, Alexander conducted some other minor battles or wars, especially in the Caucasus (such as in Azerbaijan, Abkhaz and Armenia). The important passages that memorialise these wars will now be discussed.

The Battle against the Africans

According to Niẓāmī, because the fame of Alexander's justice reached everywhere, people wanted him to liberate them from the tyranny of their kings. Niẓāmī emphasises that Alexander owed his fame to the wise counsel of Aristotle, who was his ‘court minister’ (dastūr-i dargāh) and confidante in all matters. Following Aristotle's wise counsel, within only a few years, Alexander's conquests extended over all the boundaries of the world.¹¹⁸

In the passage on the relationship between Alexander and Aristotle, Niẓāmī insists on the indispensability of a good counsellor (vazīr) for the aspiring prince. He states that the greatest kings owed their fame to their vazīrs,¹¹⁹ citing a series of illustrious advisors who served their princes with sound advice, and referencing authors of courtly mirrors. In this respect, it should be remembered that Aristotle's letters to Alexander the Great on matters of kingly conduct were well known in their Arabic versions and would have been familiar to the poet.¹²⁰ Other great vazīrs known to Niẓāmī include Buzurgmihr, minister of the Sasanian king Khusraw I Anūshīrvān the Just (r. 531–79), to whom was attributed a work preserved in Arabic known as the Ādāb Buzurjmihr (The Ethics of Buzurgmihr);¹²¹ and Niẓām al-Mulk, minister to the Saljūq king Malikshāh, Niẓāmī's predecessor by some hundred years and author of the Siyar al-mulūk (Rules for Kings). Justifications for counselling rulers are abundant in the Persian mirrors for princes: Niẓām al-Mulk devoted one of the chapters of the Siyar al-mulūk to the importance of ‘consulting with wise and experienced men’,¹²² while Ghazālī recommended that a good king constantly study the books of counsel (pandnāma) given to the kings who preceded him, referring to anecdotes about Khusraw I Anūshīrvān and his minister.¹²³ This episode of the Sharafnāma explores the relationship between counselling and kingship, and specifically the role of the vazīr as the source of that wisdom, which leads to both justice and harmony.

According to the Sharafnāma, Alexander's first battle takes place when the Egyptians accuse the people of Zang of tyranny, and Aristotle advises the king to help:

Perchance the king may gain strength should he lend

To this affair of the Egyptians a helping hand,

Thus Egypt and all its surrounding lands to him would

Become subject, his name as champion become

Renowned and all his foes in dust cast down,

All his friends triumph, his foes be overthrown.¹²⁴

Among the sources to which Niẓāmī might have had access, Bal‘amī is the only author to mention Alexander's battle against the people of Zang (Zangistān).¹²⁵ In the Greek Alexander Romance, there is an episode devoted to Alexander's voyage to Africa and traversal of Libya (Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 30) before be hastens towards Egypt (Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 34), but there is no account of any war against the African people. Niẓāmī offers much more detailed information about the African campaign: he relates that ‘Alexander, following the counsel of his guide (dastūrī rahnamūn) took the battle standard from Macedonia … He ordered his troops to leave the banks of the River Nile and march towards the desert.’¹²⁶ Niẓāmī then describes the battle with the African army in a single verse as follows:

On the right flank the Abyssinians fought; on left

The men of Barbary and at the battle's heart

The wild African army [the Zangī] raged, a demon horde.¹²⁷

The episode of the war against Zangistān in the Sharafnāma contains more than 430 verses in which Niẓāmī develops the story with details of individual battles and heroic acts. Just as in the Alexander Romance, each battle usually starts with an exchange of letters between the two leaders; in Niẓāmī's version, one also finds episodes in which Alexander sends a message to the other king before a battle and receives an answer back.¹²⁸ Normally, victory is not easy and Alexander must personally exert himself on the battlefield to ensure success.¹²⁹ At the end of one of the battles against the Africans, Niẓāmī provides some interesting information on how Alexander ordered that the Abyssinians be branded because they helped the people of Zang in a battle in which the Zang army suffered defeat, which is why (according to Niẓāmī) the Abyssinians were slaves.¹³⁰

After the battle against the people of Zang, Alexander rested in a camp near the battlefield for about a week.¹³¹ Niẓāmī also relates how Alexander built bridges over the Nile in order to transport the treasure he obtained as tribute from the people of Zang.¹³² The Sharafnāma is one of the few sources in Persian¹³³ that mentions the foundation of the city of Alexandria. The poet mentions how Alexander ‘came to Egypt and cherished the Egyptians, building a city there according to his own rule and custom (ā'īn-i kh^wud)’. He then went down to the sea and rested a while, and ‘everywhere he planted his standard, some edifice or structure was built’. Niẓāmī continues: ‘Many a city was built there according to the Greek style [bih rasm-i rūm]’. which thus made much of the barren land of Egypt prosperous:

The first city he built was by the ocean's side,

Raised up as lovely and delightful as spring,

It was as spacious and luminous as paradise

With bustling markets and fields with farms.

When Alexander finished work on that city

The name they gave to it was Alexandria.¹³⁴

According to the Pseudo-Callisthenes (I, 35), after founding Alexandria, Alexander leads his army on to Syria; in the Sharafnāma, however, Alexander returns to Greece. Comparing this episode in Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma with the Greek Alexander Romance suggests that Niẓāmī replaced Alexander's battle against the Tyrians found in the Pseudo-Callisthenes with the battle against the Zang. This seems a reasonable supposition, since this episode in the Pseudo-Callisthenes is interpolated between the episodes of Alexander in Egypt and his Persian campaigns.¹³⁵ This motif was most likely inserted into the Alexander literature before the eighth century AD through Arabic channels, since a letter in the work known as Rasā'il (Epistolary Romance)¹³⁶ deals with ‘fighting the Zanj’. Thus it appears possible, if not probable, that Niẓāmī based his account of the battle against the people of Zang on these Rasā'il or on a common Hellenistic source.

Persian Campaigns: Alexander's Battle with Darius and Conquest of Persia

According to Niẓāmī, Alexander's second battle was against the Persians. Most of his account of the Persian conquest coincides with that of Firdawsī's Shāhnāma, with some minor divergences. Following his successful campaign against the people of Zang, in the Sharafnāma Alexander distributes the treasures he obtained from the war:

The countless treasures from the African campaign

In plunder that he gained, he sent away at once

Without taking weight or measure of their worth

To other lands. With those treasures Providence

Favoured him, all other treasuries he enriched.¹³⁷

Niẓāmī records how as a matter of kingly courtesy and royal largesse, Alexander sent booty from his campaign to the Persian king Dārā (Darius), who treated his gifts contemptuously: ‘Darius took fright at this largesse, for the barb of envy just pricked him sharper’, the poet relates. Although Darius accepted these gifts from Alexander, he failed to acknowledge them with due thanks. Darius's lack of appreciation was expressed in ‘an improper answer [nih bar jā-yi kh^wud]’ sent to Alexander, thus opening ‘the door of his secret rancour’. Although he kept his feelings hidden, this offhand acknowledgement of his gifts sorely distressed Alexander. Niẓāmī identifies Darius's ingratitude and lack of courtesy as what soured their relationship and filled the young conqueror with spite and malice towards him.¹³⁸ Partly because of Darius's ingratitude and lack of appreciation for his gifts, Alexander decided to stop paying tribute to the Persian king:

He now refused all gifts and boons to Darius

And he recanted his tribute of former times.

For being as he was in the glow of youth

And filled with lust for conquest of lands

To buckle off the Persian armour, his men

He turned, and girt his loins to subdue Iran.¹³⁹

The Symbolic Gifts of Darius and Alexander

A crucial episode establishes both protagonists’ character. This is a scene in which Niẓāmī narrates several interesting episodes concerning the exchange of symbolic gifts between Alexander and Darius. The gifts mentioned in the Greek Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 36) are a whip, a ball and a chest of gold, while in the Syriac version¹⁴⁰ the episode is more elaborate, and adds some sesame and mustard seeds to these gifts. The motif of symbolic gifts is altogether absent from the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī. In the Sharafnāma, the gifts mentioned are a ball, a polo mallet and some sesame seeds. Niẓāmī elaborates the episode as follows:

Despite all his excuses, Alexander knew that the messenger

Brought with him a coarse, rude message from King Dārā.

‘Bring on the message,’ he cried with contempt.

The messenger unclasped his lips to express his purpose

And brought forth the wares he had in his case:

He laid them out, one by one, before the king.

When he'd laid each and every item before Alexander,

He opened his lips to relay the message of Darius.

First he spoke of polo mallet and ball, saying

‘You're just a child – so learn to play with these aright;

But if war be your wish, you'll naively fill your heart with woe’;

– A myriad sesame seeds he then cast before the king –

‘We'll urge against you an army more plentiful than these.’

Alexander the wise, discerning judge of the world's ways,

Saw augury of great victory in those symbols manifest –

And voiced this maxim: ‘Whoever flees away

With this same mallet may be caught and snared. –

The king bestowed this polo mallet upon me perchance

That I may wrest his kingdom away from him!

– As for this ball, since masters of geometry reckon

The earth itself has a ball's form and shape, it seems

Quite clearly the king has offered up this globe to me:

I'll win this sport! I'll carry off the ball from the field of war!’

Once that mindful man duly honoured these two favours

Bestowed on him, he turned to meditate on the sesame.

He strewed its seeds upon the palace courtyard stones

And saw how birds pounced at once upon them

And instantly cleared the yard of every grain.

‘What clear guidance is betokened by this portent!’ he exclaimed,

‘For just as sesame seeds compressed make oil,

When Darius drives an army as vast as a myriad sesame seeds

At me, just like those birds my troops shall devour them.’

He rewarded the messenger with a handful of wild rue seeds,

And said: ‘The king's army may be a battalion of sesame seeds,

Yet know my troops are as abundant as the wild rue.’¹⁴¹

As can be seen from these verses, the ‘whip’ in the Greek and Syriac versions has in the Sharafnāma been transformed into a polo mallet (chawgān). The Greek version has Darius affirm in a letter, ‘Alexander still needs to play. Therefore, the whip and the ball are to show that he still ought to be at play’ (Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 36). The transformation of the ‘whip’ into a chawgān in the Persian tradition¹⁴² seems to have a more genuinely historical ring to it, and also makes more sense in terms of being an appropriate gift to express Darius's contempt for Alexander's youth.

The motif of the sesame and mustard seeds was not originally in the Greek Romance, although it was added to later Greek narratives.¹⁴³ In the Syriac version, there is a similar episode in which Alexander takes a handful of the sesame seeds and puts them into his mouth, saying: ‘they are numerous, but they have no taste.’¹⁴⁴ In response, Alexander sends Darius a bushel of mustard seeds as a symbol of his Greek and Macedonian troops. Darius, in turn, put the mustard seeds into his mouth and reportedly says: ‘they are small, but pungent’.¹⁴⁵ Although the interpretations vary slightly, the same passage and motif can also be found in the histories of Ṭabarī and¹⁴⁶ Bal‘amī¹⁴⁷ and in the anonymous Nihāya.¹⁴⁸

Omens, Oracles and Auguries

In order to have an augury of the future and determine whether he will be victorious in his battle with the Persian king, Alexander resorts to divination through the observation of two fighting mountain partridges. He interprets the outcome of their struggle as a sign of success in his impending conflict with Dārā:

One partridge he betokened with his own name,

– That bird's success made an omen of good outcome.

The name of Darius he gave the other bird.

Intent as to how befell their lots, he gazed:

Both bold birds scratched and pecked their opponent;

The king took judgement from their bitter contest.

The partridge whose feathers and pinions won

The match was the bird of Alexander in the end.

The monarch, seeing the day was won by that

Brave bird, understood at once his army's fate:

That strutting partridge happily flew away

From the bird he'd thrashed in victory;

Aloft he soared to perch upon a mountain ridge;

An eagle then pounced on him and split his head.¹⁴⁹

Taking this as an omen, Alexander understands that he will defeat the Persians. However, he realises that despite this victory, he is still subject to mortality, and his life will not be long-lasting. Nevertheless, this omen is not enough to give Alexander full assurance of his victory, so he visits a sacred mountain that is considered to be an oracle. Niẓāmī describes the oracle as being built ‘atop a granite mountain, [and] its temple had a lofty vaulted turret of heavenly grandeur’. Pilgrims came to the oracle and ‘with their own voices asked about the outcome of mysterious events of their own lives’. From the echo that came back from the mountain they then performed a divination and so discerned their future fortune.¹⁵⁰

The answer Alexander receives from the mountain oracle is again definitive: that he will conquer the world and defeat the Persian King Dārā.¹⁵¹ Oracles and omens are an important component of the Alexander Romance throughout its transmission (such as Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 30, 32). Alexander's visit to Delphi (Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 1) may also be cited in this context. In the Greek Romance, other episodes following the foundation of Alexandria feature Alexander resorting to oracles and omens to divine the outcome of conflicts with his enemies, such as, for example, his contemplation of an eagle upon a mountain (Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 33), although this account is different from the episode above in the Sharafnāma. In the Syriac Pseudo-Callisthenes (I, 45) Alexander goes to the temple of Apollo, where he interprets an augury from an oracle there. It is unclear whether these episodes in the Sharafnāma are Niẓāmī's own inventions; they do not seem to appear in any other source for the Romance in any language or literature.

Alexander's Battle with Darius

Niẓāmī affirms that the Persian army was composed of ‘nine hundred thousand fighting horsemen, skilful of stirrup’.¹⁵² Darius reaches Armenia and catches Alexander off guard, who was unaware of his approach.¹⁵³ When Alexander receives the news, he prepares an army of 300,000 men of Rūm, Egypt, Afrang¹⁵⁴ and Russia (Rūs).¹⁵⁵ According to Niẓāmī, Darius is destined to be defeated because he is an oppressor:

The iniquity of Darius was a cosmic curse. The glad news

Of Alexander's march made the world renewed.

All Iran lay upon the rack and suffered sorely

From Darius's evil ways and lack of equity.

Since for their king the Persians held no esteem,

With love they made Alexander welcome.¹⁵⁶

Most of the classical Islamic sources mention the tyranny of Darius, including Bal‘amī¹⁵⁷ and the Letter of Tansar,¹⁵⁸ among others. Both kings asked for advice from their counsellors. While Alexander's courtiers urged him to attack Darius, the Persian counsellors kept silent.

Interestingly, in Niẓāmī's account of Darius's final war, there is a man named Farīburz who counsels him against fighting Alexander, alluding to an old prophecy. Farīburz’ grandfather had told him that before Kay Khusraw went off to his death by disappearing into the cave (upon Mount Alburz), after which he was seen no more, the king used his magic goblet to look into the future, and uttered this prediction:

In the heavens I see a star constellated that will soon appear in the heavens of our empire and descend from zenith to nadir. There shall come an arrogant ruffian out of Greece who will set all Iran's fire temples alight. He will conquer the entire land of Iran and then reign on the throne of the Kayānid kings. Although he may seize the entire world, what he gains will not last, and one day he will be cast down.

At the end of the passage, Farīburz then moralises:

It's wrong if Iran from him should stagnate

Like some poor wretch who loses life for treasure's sake.

I counsel you to dupe him and try to take him in

So that one Greek kingdom might sate and surfeit him.

… One may rule the earth by law and reason [nāmūs]¹⁵⁹

And thence raise high the standard of good custom.¹⁶⁰

Such omens of impending catastrophe issued by the ancient kings of Persia can also be found in the Greek Romance, such as when a statue of King Xerxes suddenly falls through the ceiling of Darius's court (see Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 15). However, no one's counsel could dissuade the Persian king from calling off his battle against Alexander. While Firdawsī's Shāhnāma¹⁶¹ cites three battles between Alexander and the Persians, according to Niẓāmī there was only one – just as in the Pseudo-Callisthenes's account. He describes how, after the customary exchange of letters, the two armies meet in ‘the land of Jazīra,¹⁶² which is Mosul [Mūṣul],¹⁶³ a delightful place of rest and sweet relaxation’. As Richard Stoneman points out: ‘indeed, it is not incorrect to say that the battle took place in al-Jazīra, which is Arbela. This indicates that Niẓāmī's source contained more reliable historical information than Firdawsī,’¹⁶⁴ who mentioned the banks of the Euphrates¹⁶⁵ as the first battlefield. Bal‘amī also mentions the land of Jazīra (Mūṣul) as the first battlefield.¹⁶⁶ It is thus possible that Bal‘amī and Niẓāmī had a common source.

Niẓāmī describes the contest between the two armies as a battle that makes mountains tremble, before concluding dryly:

Now would you seek for sign of both those kings

Upon that ground are strewn about the bones!¹⁶⁷

Contrary to most of the sources,¹⁶⁸ in which Darius is usually portrayed as cravenly fleeing from the battlefield, in the Sharafnāma he appears as a brave warrior:

Commanding his legions from the centre, Darius

Raged on like a dreadful black lion on the loose.

He wielded his sword about his head and cut

And cast his foes headlong before his feet.

He passed nobody by and left nobody alive –

In that mad frenzy so much Greek blood he shed

A thousand scarlet Greek corpses lay there dead.¹⁶⁹

At one point, Alexander becomes injured and is about to lose the war. Niẓāmī describes how ‘he took fright at his fearless foe, and reckoning his enemy's courageousness, decided to turn his reins and flee his foes, to save himself from their spears.’ At this juncture, the poet tells us that battle-hardened Persian troops cut off the Greek army's advance, so that it seems that all is lost:

The Greeks were trounced and crushed by Persian troops.

Persians made Greeks captive by Death's good auspices.¹⁷⁰

However, Alexander knows that he will defeat the Persians thanks to the numerological diagram given to him by Nicomachus:

Once more he pinned his hopes on Providence

And pressed on there and held his ground and place.

He knew his luck was great; against the enemy

He would prevail – thus had said the augury.

He knew by fate the upper hand was his

And so he reinforced his arms and forces

To overwhelm Darius in the balance.¹⁷¹

Darius's Betrayal by His Generals

At this desperate moment, two of Darius's generals (sarhang) propose to Alexander that they will kill their king in return for financial recompense that would reward their ‘golden work with gold’.¹⁷² Although Alexander does not believe that ‘the unjust officers would commit such a crime against their own lord’, he agrees to make a compact with them: ‘anyone will gladly obtain the jewel by which he may defeat his enemy.’ Such iniquity appears to be justified. Niẓāmī has Alexander cite a well-known Persian proverb to assuage his moral misgivings: ‘In that path where justice seemed obtained only by means of injustice, an ancient adage sprang to his mind’:

No marvel it is that the hare of every clime

Is only caught by dogs of that same domain!¹⁷³

Darius is slain by his two generals. Alexander reaches him just at the moment of his death and listens to his last words. The passage in which Darius is slain by his own generals appears in the Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 20), as well as in the Shāhnāma and most Arabic histories.¹⁷⁴ The difference between the accounts is that neither in the Greek version nor in the Shāhnāma is there any mention of a deal being negotiated for Darius's murder between Alexander and the rebel generals. In fact, in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, when ‘the traitors heard that Alexander was coming, they fled, leaving Darius dying’.¹⁷⁵ In the Sharafnāma, having arranged the deal with the generals, Alexander regrets it and punishes the traitors:

Alexander gave them all the gold he'd promised them

From his treasury just as he had first of all agreed.

But when he put before them the coin in cash

He gainsaid his pledge; he broke his oath

And commanded they be treated with contempt,

And had both of them strung up on the gallows.¹⁷⁶

At Darius's Deathbed: Alexander the Great and Darius's Last Will

Niẓāmī also relates an elaborate and poignant dramatic dialogue between the two kings, in which Alexander appears to hear his last words before the Persian monarch dies from the mortal wounds inflicted by his two generals. This narrative is apparently based on a passage that originally appeared in the Greek Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 20–1) and the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī. However, Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma describes Darius's will in less detail than the Shāhnāma. In the former, Darius begs Alexander to grant him three wishes:

Since you asked about my will, to make my last wish

At this time when over me tears should be shed:

There are three things I secretly desire to have from you

By your good fortune – now king of my realm –

The first regards the slaying of innocent men: I ask

That you be just and fair in all your judgements.

Second, I ask you: let not the Persian throne

And Iran's crown that now you wear, fall into disrepute;

Make your heart devoid of spite and malice;

Do not eliminate my offspring from the earth.

And third and last, I entreat you take care of all

My servants, my wives treat well, don't violate them,

And take my daughter Rawshanak, nurtured by me

With human tenderness in hand to share your bed

And be your wife. Kingdoms are made for the flexible.¹⁷⁷

Several of the ancient sources concur on Darius's will and last words, and coincide with the account given by Niẓāmī in the Sharafnāma.¹⁷⁸

The Destruction of Zoroastrianism by Alexander

However, according to Niẓāmī, despite Alexander's promise not to hurt the Persians, his first deed as King of Persia is to destroy the fire temples and wipe out the Zoroastrian religion.¹⁷⁹ Niẓāmī relates the episode according to ‘the narrator of former tales who spoke of earlier epochs’. He states:

When a fire was set in the Zoroastrian faith [dīn-i dihgān], so that its flame was snuffed out and the fire's votaries themselves set ablaze, Alexander commanded that the Persians cease to obey the precepts of their fire-worshipping faith [ātash-parastī]. They should instead regenerate their ancient faith [dīn-i dīrīna-yi kh^wud naw kunnad], and adopt the faith of their king [Alexander]. He ordered the Magians to throw all their goods and wherewithal into the fire, and instructed the Iranians to hinder the activities of the [votaries of] the fire temple.¹⁸⁰

This passage is largely based on a Zoroastrian tradition frequently mentioned in Middle Persian texts,¹⁸¹ in which Alexander is presented as responsible for two important calamities: the destruction of Ērānšahr (the Land of the Aryan Iranians) and the burning and/or stealing of the Avesta and its commentary.¹⁸² These Middle Persian texts say that he slew many Zoroastrian priests (herbads and mobads) and quenched the sacred fires of many Zoroastrian temples.¹⁸³ However, since Niẓāmī writes from a Muslim point of view, the destruction of Zoroastrianism and its scriptures and institutions is presented as an admirable act in the Sharafnāma. Niẓāmī also reports two interesting customs in the Zoroastrian tradition. Being long and convoluted, the verse passages concerning these customs have been translated into prose below:

During that age [of the Kayānid kings], according to custom taught [by their religious tradition], in all the fire temples of the day treasures were secured and stored to which no one had access. Men of wealth who had no heirs would donate their money [upon their death], dedicating their goods to the keepers of these temples. This tradition created discontent and desolation in every direction, and filled the fire temple houses with useless treasures. When Alexander laid waste to those temples, the treasures, thus released, flowed out like a sea. He tore down every temple he passed, dug up its treasures and carried them away.

 Another misfortune [āfāt] was that the [priests among the] fire worshippers would take a different bride to wed each year. At the royal festivals of Nawrūz and Saddah, during which the religious practices of the fire temple were revived and reanimated, every virgin bride who had never seen a husband would hasten out of their houses into the street [to visit the priests at the fire temple]. From the hearths of the Zoroastrians and through the conjuring cant of the Zend-Avesta, smoke thus rose up into the highest firmament. Everything those virgins did was alluring and captivating, charming at times by voice, enchanting sometimes with the flesh … For a whole day, from every mountainside and palace seraglio they flocked and filled the streets to play around and do as they pleased. Every girl caroused and made merry in her own way, from which arose much wickedness and trouble.¹⁸⁴

Thus, according to Niẓāmī's source, Alexander destroyed the fire temples because he wanted to obtain the treasure hidden in the shrines. From a Muslim point of view, perhaps Niẓāmī perceived the second custom regarding the freedom of women among the Zoroastrians to stand in contrast to the religion of Alexander's ancestor (Abraham).¹⁸⁵ This view is attested by the following verses of this passage, in which Alexander ordered ‘that darling chaste girls should display their face only to their mother or husband’.¹⁸⁶ As far as historical factuality is concerned, no attribution of any such act to Alexander appears in any extant Middle Persian,¹⁸⁷ Persian or Arabic source.¹⁸⁸

According to the Sharafnāma, following his successful campaign against and defeat of Darius, Alexander leaves the area of Mosul in Iraq and heads towards Babylon, where he battles with and subdues the sorcerers who are followers of Hārūt, the great Magician of Babylon. He then quenches the sacred fire and destroys ‘the sorcery-book of Zand’.¹⁸⁹ Alexander also ‘offered religious guidance to the Babylonians by proffering them the faith of his ancestor [Abraham], wiping clean the soot and smoke of fire [worship] from their hearts’.¹⁹⁰ Then he marches towards Adharābādigān (Azerbaijan, Niẓāmī's homeland), where he also destroys and extinguishes ‘that fire of ancient times’.

In an interesting passage here, Niẓāmī narrates a story in which a Zoroastrian sorceress named Azarhumāyūn, of the lineage of Sām, turns into a dragon to protect her fire temple. Alexander's minister, Balīnās (Apollonius of Tyana),¹⁹¹ a ‘master of sorcery’, knows the remedy against this enchantment; he thus confounds all her tricks and overcomes her deception and trickery.¹⁹² When her dragon form is dissolved and Balīnās sees the beautiful sorceress, he falls in love with her. He stops Alexander's soldiers from killing her and protects her. Then Balīnās presents the sorceress to Alexander, who gives her to him as his wife. Niẓāmī says that from her ‘Balīnās learned all kinds of sorceries, and because of her today he bears the name of “Balīnās, the Magician”.’¹⁹³

Alexander Marries Rawshanak, Visits Mecca and Establishes Tbilisi

Alexander then marches towards Isfahan, where he formally marries Rawshanak, Darius's daughter.¹⁹⁴ Finally, he is crowned in Iṣṭakhr (Persepolis).¹⁹⁵ However, in contrast to the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī, Niẓāmī has Alexander send Rawshanak, accompanied by Aristotle, back to Rūm, where she gives birth to a son named Iskandarūs.¹⁹⁶ Then he marches west, to Arabia.¹⁹⁷ He visits Yemen and Mecca, where he performs a religious ceremony in the Ka‘ba, the account of which is similar to the Shāhnāma, although Niẓāmī's passage in the Sharafnāma is far more elaborate:

His face shining with joy, he marched then

Towards the Ka‘ba with all due rites performed.

He set his foot upon the navel of the earth

– How many a knot indeed that navel unravels! –

Like the circling compass of Heaven's Wheel

He stepped to its centre on devotion's feet,

Circumambulating that shrine that all adore

He grasped the door ring of the holy house:

First he kissed with reverence the Ka‘ba's gate,

Recollecting God-the-Protector with all his heart.

He laid his head on that holy portal to pray

And to the poor gave copious alms from his treasury.

His coins flowed out like treasures manifold!

How plentiful were the camels that he sacrificed!

When in the House of the Righteous he'd made his place

And showed his devotion to God with both heart and hand

The Ka‘ba was filled with treasure and jewels galore;

Its roof and door adorned with musk and ambergris.¹⁹⁸

This motif is probably a literary imitation and parallel of Alexander's entrance to Jerusalem recounted by Muslim authors. If Alexander goes to Jerusalem, according to the Jewish tradition, there is no reason that he should not go to Mecca, according to the Islamic tradition. However, Niẓāmī does not use the word ḥajj (pilgrimage); neither does he attribute any pilgrimage to Alexander, nor any performance of the rituals at Mecca that traditionally form part of the Muslim ḥajj.¹⁹⁹ This is important, since the Arabic sources do use the word ḥajj.²⁰⁰ For instance, Dīnawarī in his Akhbār al-ṭiwāl says that Alexander performs the ḥajj to the House of God.²⁰¹ It is more likely that what Niẓāmī had in mind was a visit to the ancient shrine erected at Mecca by Abraham.²⁰² Indeed, in the Sharafnāma, Alexander is portrayed as Abraham's descendant. Niẓāmī refers to Alexander's religion as being ḥanīfī (which, according to the Qur'ān, is a kind of monotheism characteristic of Abraham).²⁰³

After his visit to Mecca, Alexander marches towards Iraq and then Azerbaijan, where he is informed that the people of nearby Armenia still follow Zoroastrianism. He then leads his army from Babylon to Armenia,²⁰⁴ where he destroys the fire temples.²⁰⁵ Thence he makes ‘an assault against Abkhaz’, where the ruler, a Kurdish man named Dawālī, offers him his land and his loyalty.

Alexander then founds the city of Tiflīs (Tbilisi, in modern-day Georgia) there, an event that Niẓāmī quotes from ‘the old dihqān’.²⁰⁶ Traditionally, the founding of Tbilisi is attributed to King Vaxtang Gorgasali (r. 447–522).²⁰⁷ Brosset dates the city's origin to AD 455 or 458, when the capital of Georgia was transferred there from nearby Mtskheta (Ptolemy, Geography, 5.10: Mɛστλῆτα=Mɛσχῆτα).²⁰⁸ According to a medieval (ninth- to fourteenth-century) collection of Georgian historical texts known as Kartlis Tskhovreba, a Sasanian force was sent against Varaz-Bak'ar (c.379–93) by the King of Georgia (Xuasrovanis, descended from the Sassanians),²⁰⁹ who built Tiflis ‘between the Gates of the Caucasus [between Darial and Darband] to serve as a bulwark against Mtskheta’.²¹⁰ Hence, it is likely that the designation of Alexander as Tbilisi's founding father was simply a way to emphasise the city's antiquity. According to the Georgian historical tradition, Alexander installs the first sovereign of Georgia at Tiflis after subjugating the country,²¹¹ but there is no mention of him founding the city.

The Further Adventures of Alexander: Journeys to China, Russia, India and the Land of Darkness

Alexander at the Court of Queen Nūshāba (Candace)

The following passages in the Sharafnāma narrate the episode of Queen Nūshāba at some length. Queen Nūshāba replaces the Pseudo-Callisthenes's Queen Candace,²¹² and Firdawsī's Queen Qaidāfa.²¹³ Niẓāmī locates Nūshāba's kingdom in Barda‘ (Partaw in Caucasian Albania), a city that was in Niẓāmī's neighbourhood. Khāqānī of Shirvān (c.1127; d. 1186–1199),²¹⁴ a contemporary poet who lived near Niẓāmī's home town, devoted many verses of his Dīvān to the story of Queen Candace.²¹⁵ Khāqānī's verses indicate that the story of Queen Candace was popular in Azerbaijan, where both poets lived. The fact that Khāqānī named the queen Qaidāfa (Candace) demonstrates that Niẓāmī's naming her Nūshāba was deliberate, perhaps reflecting a choice to present a more familiar name to his audience.²¹⁶

The tale consists of two parts. Firstly, Alexander goes in disguise to Nūshāba's court, but she recognises him because she had his portrait painted. Secondly, there is a banquet in honour of the queen. Niẓāmī dedicates more than 50 verses to the description of Nūshāba's country, palace and court:

A thousand virgin girls were at her service and, besides damsels skilful in riding, there were thirty thousand swordsmen in her army. However, no men had access to her court, except those who were close to her. Her counsellors were all women who had no husband … Her throne was made of crystal [bulūr] embedded with so many precious stones that they shone at night like the moon. Besides worshipping God, they had no other occupation except drinking, eating and sleeping. She spent the night worshipping, and the day drinking accompanied by music and the songs of minstrels.²¹⁷

Upon hearing the tale of this fabulous queen and her court, Alexander becomes eager to visit Nūshāba's country. Along with a small entourage, Alexander camps near the borders of her kingdom. When Nūshāba learns of this, every day she sends him a different kind of food made from the local produce of her land. Her charming and hospitable behaviour naturally only increase Alexander's desire to visit her, although – typical military strategist that he is – he also wants to obtain news of the secrets of her kingdom's administration in order, in Niẓāmī's words, to ‘discover whether the tale was true or false’.²¹⁸

To this end, he travels in disguise to her court, impersonating his own ambassador. When Nūshāba is informed that the ‘King of Rūm’ (shah-e rūm) is in her country, she sits on her throne with a ‘ball of amber’ (ma‘anbar turanjī) in her hand.²¹⁹ When she receives Alexander, he neither removes his sword nor kneels before her, as is the customary protocol among messengers. Nūshāba, who has a painting of Alexander, immediately sees through his disguise. However, she does not show that she has recognised him until Alexander has delivered his ‘king's’ message to her in a bold and arrogant manner. She then reveals to him that she knows who he is. When Alexander brazenly continues to deny his identity, she becomes insistent and speaks sharply to the conqueror, commanding her courtiers to bring forth the piece of silk on which Alexander's image has been painted. Alexander turns pale and becomes frightened when he sees his own image, being forced now to disclose his true identity. At this moment, Queen Nūshāba relents and softens towards him, speaking gently to him.

The first part of the Nūshāba episode has crucial importance for Alexander's progress towards perfect kingship. The parallel episode in the Shāhnāma (which concerns Qaidāfa, Queen of al-Andalus) is very close to the Greek version (Pseudo-Callisthenes, III, 18–23). However, Niẓāmī's treatment of the story differs both in the attention and importance accorded to the queen (Nūshāba) and in the alteration of some details. The ethical significance of this episode is indicated in Nūshāba's speech, where she accuses Alexander of immaturity and arrogance.²²⁰ Niẓāmī has her show ‘him first his own image so that he might recognise and appreciate hers’.²²¹

Without self-knowledge, one cannot perceive the Divine. Here, the queen character represents the divine immanence: the Lady Beloved as theophanic receptacle.²²² Thus, Nūshāba becomes a mirror in which Alexander may contemplate and apprehend the qualities of his own soul, which are first symbolised by his painted image. As he finally accepts Nūshāba's superiority, Niẓāmī presents her queenly wisdom as incarnating divine guidance for Alexander in his quest for moral perfection and self-knowledge.

Alexander in Darband

At this juncture, Niẓāmī tells us that Alexander has assembled such a vast amount of treasure that it becomes difficult for him to continue his expeditions. Thus, after burying his treasure in the ground following Apollonius's advice, Alexander marches towards the Alburz Mountains, passing through Shirvān to Darband:²²³

When Alexander drove his troops towards the Alburz Mountains, in every place and province he set up an administrator. Through mountain passes difficult of access he pushed his army's supplies – he charged like a lion through Shirvān. The purpose of his forced march was to press on and reach the road to Darband.²²⁴

In Darband there is a fortress said to be full of treasure, against which Alexander's army battles for 40 days to open, but to no avail, for ‘they could not knock down even one clod from its ramparts’.²²⁵ Wearying of the fruitless siege, Alexander summons a new meeting (majlis) of his generals and head officers. One of his men informs him that in a certain cave there is a pious devotee who might know how to conquer the fortress. The ascetic supplicates in such a way that the mountain is shattered and the fortress collapses.²²⁶

While Alexander is in Darband, the Khazar folk (Khazrānyān), who ‘dwelled in the vicinity of that mountainous fortress, accused the people of Qipchak [Qafchāq] of tyranny at the king's court’, and entreated Alexander to build a gate against them.²²⁷ Thus the king summons the Khazars together to close the mountain passes against the people of Qipchak:

They erected a barrier on that narrow pass, making use of granite, steel and tin. Master builders in stone, adept in the precepts of their trade, versed in the fortification of fortresses, were summoned. He called up a multitude of men and set them to the task of closing the mountain pass [from the Qipchak people].²²⁸

Darband (literally ‘pass’) – also known as the ‘Caspian Gate’ and as Bāb al-abwāb (the ‘Supreme Gate’ or ‘Gate of Gates’)²²⁹ in Arabic – is erroneously identified by some historians as the Gate of Alexander.²³⁰ The Darband fortress was certainly the most prominent Sasanian defensive construction in the Caucasus.²³¹ The anonymous author of the twelfth-century Mujmal al-tavārīkh was aware of this fact and stressed: ‘He who built the Bāb al-Abwāb [Gate of Gates] was Khusraw I, Anūshīrvān … to protect [his kingdom] from the Turks. Of course, those who do not know the history well attributed that gate to Alexander.’²³² The Syriac traditions also locate Alexander's Gate in the Caucasus Mountains.²³³

The Sharafnāma mentions two different gates or barriers, and according to Niẓāmī, Alexander's gate in Darband is not related to the wall he built against Gog and Magog. The passage on the construction of the Wall of Gog (Magog is not mentioned by the poet) comes in an episode in the Iqbālnāma (the second part of the Iskandarnāma), which will be discussed in the next chapter.²³⁴ Thus, although Niẓāmī was indeed aware of the fact that Darband (the Caspian Gate) was not the same as the Wall of Gog and Magog, there was evidently some confusion in his sources.²³⁵

Historically speaking, while Alexander did indeed pass through the Caspian Gates, these gates – as described by Arrian (Anabasis 3.19.2) – are to be identified with a defile in the Alburz Mountains in the vicinity of Rhagai (Ray).²³⁶ There is also, incidentally, an ‘Iron Gate’ on the route from Termez to Shahrisabz in Uzbekistan, through which he probably passed.²³⁷

Niẓāmī's mistake might have stemmed from the fact that the same name (Darband) was applied to two locations in the Caucasus: the ‘Pass of Derbend’ between the Caucasus Mountains and the western shore of the Caspian Sea, and the ‘Dariel Pass’ (from the Parthian Dar i Alān, Gate of the Alāns), which runs north–south through the Caucasus Mountains from Tbilisi to Ordzhonikidze. In classical Greek geography, the location of the Caspian Gates was fixed at the Dariel Pass.²³⁸ This is the tradition followed by the Alexander Romance of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, so the movements of Alexander following the death of Darius are attached to mountains of the Caucasus region rather than to those of the Hindu Kush.²³⁹

This in fact corresponds exactly to the situation outlined in the Sharafnāma, which no doubt reflects Niẓāmī's source. He rightly locates this episode in the Alburz Mountains, between the episode of Queen Nūshāba of Barda‘ (Partaw in Caucasian Albania), and Sarīr (in Dāghistān, ancient Albania). Thus, the word Darband in this episode most probably refers to the Dariel Pass (also known as the Gate of Alān). However, it is interesting that Niẓāmī clearly distinguishes it from the Wall of Gog and Magog.

The Competition between the Byzantine and Chinese Painters

Following in the virtual footsteps of Kay Khusraw, but in a contrary direction,²⁴⁰ Alexander is then depicted by Niẓāmī as marching towards Ray and Khurāsān, where he destroys many fire temples and founds the city of Herat.²⁴¹ He passes through Balkh, Ghazna and Ghūr on the way to India. Niẓāmī describes Alexander's march to Tibet and then to China.²⁴² His account differs from that of the Shāhnāma insofar as Niẓāmī says the Chinese Emperor goes to Alexander in disguise (as an ambassador), while the other sources say Alexander goes to the Emperor in disguise. This episode permits Niẓāmī to tell some lovely stories about Chinese painting and the prophet Mānī.²⁴³ It is worth mentioning that the Persian word Chīn is applied to Chinese or eastern Turkistan, while Māchīn refers to Great China. Therefore, in Persian literature, if and when Alexander is depicted as a traveller to Chīn (Turkestan), this theme is probably simply an echo of his expedition to Central Asia. This explains why the building of such cities as Samarqand, Balkh and Merv is also included in this episode.

This passage permits Niẓāmī to insert into the narrative two beautiful tales that appear to be unconnected to the Alexander Romance in its original form.²⁴⁴ He had a philosophical purpose in doing so. The two tales narrate a competition between Chinese and Byzantine painters on the one hand, and the tale of Mānī, the painter prophet, on the other. Both tales concern the role of imagination in Sufi gnosis, and the mystical theme that spiritual ‘contemplation’ and ‘reflection’ of certain images leads to knowledge of the heart.²⁴⁵ Niẓāmī's source for the first tale is Ghazālī's (1058–1111) allegory in Iḥyā ‘ulūm al-Dīn (Revitalisation of the Religious Sciences).²⁴⁶ Here follows the tale according to Niẓāmī.

During Alexander's banquet with the Emperor of China (Khāqān-i Chīn), the rulers praise the most famous experts of their respective lands. Alexander proclaims that Byzantine (rūm) painters are the best in the world, while the Emperor insists that Chinese painters are better. An altercation arises. Finally, they decide to build a dome, where the two halves of the interior are separated by a curtain down the middle, and on either side Chinese and Byzantine painters respectively paint their half of the dome. When the curtain is removed and their images are revealed, they turn out to be identical in every respect. They are mirror images of each other (ki īn mīpaḍīruft u ān mīnimūd). Alexander is unable to judge which group of painters – Chinese or Byzantine – is the more expert. The mage Balīnās, Alexander's wise minister, then interposes a veil once again between the two paintings in such a way that while the delineations of the Byzantine painting do not lose their lustre and colour, obscurity (zang) falls upon the polished surface of the Chinese painting. The secret of the two groups of artists is then revealed: while the Byzantine painters were actually engaged in painting, the Chinese were polishing their half of the dome into a mirror.²⁴⁷

According to Ghazālī, the story is an allegory of the difference between the theoretical knowledge of philosophers (Byzantine painters) and the intuitive wisdom of Sufi mystics (Chinese painters). While philosophers try to explain the divine mysteries technically, intuitive mystics perceive the same cosmic truth and vision immediately through the ‘reflection’ of divine inspiration, ‘because they can contemplate the Divine mysteries in the polished mirror of their purified hearts’.²⁴⁸

The polished heart as a mirror of the Unseen world is one of the characteristics of the awlīya (friends of God, Sufi saints). This motif becomes a very important aspect of the Alexander Romance and the conqueror's spiritual personality in the second part of the Iskandarnāma, since it is a crucial stage in his process of attaining divine kingship.²⁴⁹ This motif is particularly significant in Niẓāmī's poetry as well; indeed, in another poem he boasts of being so adept in the ‘licit magic’ of poetry that he himself has become a veritable ‘Mirror of the Invisible Realm’.²⁵⁰

Alexander's Russian Campaigns

We can now turn to examine Niẓāmī's account of Alexander's campaign against the Russians. The poet relates that ‘after Alexander's visit to China, he was keen to come back to his homeland … even though his dominions spanned innumerable lands’.²⁵¹ At this juncture, the ruler of Abkhaz comes to Alexander and complains to him about the tyranny of the Russians:

Those quarrelsome Russian tribes, the Alān and Gark

Ambushed and attacked us hard like a barrage of hail!

They've overthrown all Barda‘’s kingdom and carried

Off by pillage many cities full of wealth with them!

They've borne away in rapine Nūshāba, our queen.

Upon the stones of war her flagon lies broken!²⁵²

In order to release Queen Nūshāba and help the people of Abkhaz defend themselves against Russian attack, Alexander marches from the Jayḥūn River – the Turkish name for the Amū Daryā (its Arabic name) and the Oxus (its Greek name) – towards Khwārazm until he reaches the Steppe of Qipchak (dasht-i Qafchāq). Here he engages the Russians in seven battles. For each battle, Niẓāmī narrates the heroic acts of soldiers from both armies. However, perhaps the most interesting point²⁵³ here is Niẓāmī's description of the people of Rūs:

(1)They are said to comprise seven tribes, five of which he names: the Burṭās, Alāns, Khazars, Isū and Args.

(2)They are renowned for their endurance and tolerance of difficult conditions.

(3)Alexander describes them as renowned rogues and expert bandits: ‘Only when engaging in thieving, treachery and highway robbery do they display manliness or are [they] battle-hardy.’²⁵⁴

(4)They fight naked and without any weapons.

Niẓāmī also mentions a hatred that prevails between the Russians and the Turks, an enmity that Alexander uses to his own advantage:

Although the Turks are not allied with Greeks by kinship ties, yet their rage and rancour towards the Russians is far greater than that towards the Greeks. On this strong battle footing, by the sharp darts of the Turks one may cast blisters on the feet of the Russians as they fly! Many a toxin there is that destroys the body, the cure of which is another kind of poison.²⁵⁵

Niẓāmī describes the seven battles in detail; he even names the heroes of each army (such as Zarīvand of Māzandarān, an Alān named Faranja and a Russian named Ṭarṭūs, who claims that in the Russian language he is called ‘Rustam of Russia’).²⁵⁶ Niẓāmī affirms that the people of Burṭās wear helmets or hats of fox fur, adding that the fox fur of that land was very well known. He also tells us that they wear a fox-fur garment called a purṭās.²⁵⁷

The Giant Russian Ghoul

Among the accounts of these battles, the appearance of a giant ghoul in the Russian army during the sixth battle is worth mentioning. Niẓāmī describes him as follows:

Like the Leviathan arising from the depths of the sea, one warrior came forth clad in an old hide. In the maelstrom of action he was huge as a mountain on feet and in bulk his might far greater than five hundred horsemen. As he flexed his gnarled, gritty fists to maul his foes, he made hard diamond seem soft as dough. He attacked like a bloodthirsty devil flying out of the mouth of hell. Although his legs were shackled by a chain, his stature and strength were immense. His sole weapon was an iron mace curved at the top, with which he could sweep up and cast down a mountain.²⁵⁸

Astonished at the sight of this wild giant, Alexander asks after his origins. One of his men, who knows the area quite well, describes the ghoul as follows:

Near the Land of Darkness lies a mountain, the way to which is narrow as the breadth of a hair. On that mountain live men of this immense bodily frame, their flesh of earthly origin but their strength like iron. No one really knows their true origin, their homeland or where was their first haunt and habitat. All have ruddy faces and blue eyes, and when enraged they fear not even lions. One of them can fight a whole battalion, so strong and sure-footed are they in battle. Whether these ghouls be male or female matters not: the day one goes to war with them one summons up the end of the world. Fighting fit, in every contest they come out on top, their religion is the art of combat. No one has ever seen one of these ghouls dead: only alive and even these one rarely sees. Each ghoul owns a herd of sheep, by which they make their living. Their strength in trade lies in marten pelts and wool; they value no other goods than these. None of them stores up any wealth, for the only thing they recognise and cherish as riches is the black sable, which can be found nowhere else but in that land. From each ghoul's brow springs a horn like that of the rhinoceros. And if the horn were not part of their bodily form, what difference would there be between their form and the ugly Russians’ shape? When one of them is overcome by the desire to sleep, like the vagrant eagle he retreats to a tree where, driving his horn into its trunk, the ghoul falls asleep like a demon in devilish arrest.²⁵⁹

The man also explains that if the Russians manage to capture one of these wild people while asleep, they convey him or her with caution to Russia to use in battle. It may be useful in this context to compare Niẓāmī's account of Alexander's campaign against the Russians with that of the Shāhnāma, where after the passage on Hārūm, the Land of Women (called Beroe in the Pseudo-Callisthenes), Alexander reaches a land of warriors with fair hair and ruddy faces.²⁶⁰ In contrast to Niẓāmī's account of the Russian battle, the Russians all surrender to Alexander, so there is no war at all. This description coincides with information given by Viking traders, which is available in the works of Arab geographers and travellers who wrote about northern lands and peoples.²⁶¹ In particular, comparison shows that Niẓāmī's ‘Russian episode’ in the Sharafnāma resembles the Risāla of Ibn Faḍlān,²⁶² probably because there were no other (or very few) sources on the Russians and their customs in the Islamic tradition. Regarding the giant ghoul in the sixth battle against the Russians, we find a parallel description in the Risāla of Ibn Faḍlān, who also mentions the fur trade and the use of sable pelts by this people.²⁶³

Alexander in Love: The Tale of the Chinese Slave Girl

In the seventh battle, Alexander falls in love with a warlike woman who is a Chinese slave. Niẓāmī dedicates a whole episode to their love affair.²⁶⁴ In a long, beautiful passage – quite unusual and remarkable in Persian epic poetry for its celebration of the domination and superior erotic power of female martial prowess over the male's, as well as for its detailed descriptions of Alexander's lovemaking with her – Niẓāmī describes her as an epiphany of the Eternal Feminine, to whom even a world conqueror succumbs.²⁶⁵ Niẓāmī thus claims that neither heroic actions nor clever statecraft are sufficient to make the perfect king. Rather, the true ruler needs the informing power of love to display valour and dispense justice. It is only through love that he reaches self-knowledge, which is, after all, the explicit goal of the quest undertaken by the protagonist in his journey towards spiritual kingship.

* * *

Alexander finally defeats the Russians and releases Queen Nūshāba. He is very impressed by the fur trade that flourishes in that land.²⁶⁶ Historically speaking, we know that Alexander never fought against the people of Rūs (including the Khazars, the Alāns and so on), so it is unclear how this episode came to be interpolated in Niẓāmī's Alexander Romance. In some sources prior to Niẓāmī, Alexander's expeditions in the Caucasus are often mentioned in relation to the wall he built against the so-called ‘Unclean Nations’,²⁶⁷ who are normally identified with the pagan tribes of the Khazars, Huns and Turks.²⁶⁸ This motif emerged in the Jewish Hellenistic circles in Alexandria at the beginning of the Christian era.²⁶⁹

Flavius Josephus (d. c.100) linked the biblical Gog and Magog with the Hellenistic Alexander tradition in his Jewish War (Bellum Judaicum, VII: 7, 4).²⁷⁰ St Jerome (d. 420) mentions Hun invasions across the Caucasus, as well as the barrier with which Alexander fends them off (Epistula 77, 6–8).²⁷¹ However, a fusion of the motif of Alexander's barrier with the uncouth pagan ‘Unclean Nations’ of the Caucasus Mountains appears in the Syriac Alexander legend (possibly composed in 629–30, after the victory of Emperor Heraclius over the Sasanian king Khusraw II Parvīz).²⁷²

Christian of Stavelot's commentary on Matthew (Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam) identifies the Khazars as those whom Alexander confined, and one of the seven tribes²⁷³ mentioned by Niẓāmī. In general, in the Persian and Arabic traditions there is much local lore and ethnohistorical information that amalgamates the Khazars, Alāns and other northern people with the Rūs folk.²⁷⁴ In conclusion, notwithstanding its nonexistence in Alexander's actual biography and the historical inaccuracy of Niẓāmī's account of this episode, it is clear that it is a motif found in several early Christian sources relating to the Alexander legend.

In his Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān (Chronicle of Ṭabaristān), Ibn Isfandīyār makes mention of the Rūs attack on the Caspian Sea as taking place in AD 909.²⁷⁵ Khāqānī Shirvānī (c.1106–90), who lived in the vicinity of Niẓāmī and also spent all his life in the Caucasus, mentions the Rūs's attacks (including the Rūs, Khazars, Alāns and Sarīr) quite frequently in his Dīvān.²⁷⁶ Especially relevant in this respect is the Persian geographic work entitled the Ḥudūd al-‘ālam, which affirms the Rūs's attacks on a large village on the outskirts of Barda‘ (which is, interestingly enough, the city of Queen Nūshaba in the Sharafnāma).²⁷⁷ This mass of information has persuaded scholars of Niẓāmī that the Rūs wars related by the poet in the Sharafnāma reflect Russian attacks on Azerbaijan in the tenth century AD.²⁷⁸

In the Land of Darkness: Alexander's Quest for the Water of Life

We now come to the Water of Life, the last motif that the Sharafnāma shares with the Shāhnāma and the Pseudo-Callisthenes's Alexander Romance (II, 39–40). The quest for the Water of Life prepares Alexander for the transition from temporal to spiritual kingship, and as a didactic device, the tale functions to remind the reader of human mortality and the transience of worldly glory.²⁷⁹

Niẓāmī relates the story of a banquet in which every man is tasked with telling strange tales of his own land. An old man informs Alexander that in the Land of Darkness there is a fountain containing the Water of Life, which he describes in these verses:

In what is called the ‘Land of Darkness’ is found,

Behind the scenes, the purest, limpid aqua vitae.

… The way is short from here to there: it's just

One tenth of the distance that you've come so far.²⁸⁰

The Greek Romance also locates the Water of Life ‘in the direction of the constellation of the Plough’ (Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 32), at ‘the end of the world’ in a region where the sun never shines (Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 39).²⁸¹ Mario Casari believes that this episode can be reconstructed as part of a collection of ancient themes concerning the exploration of the northern lands and seas of Eurasia.²⁸² However, it is most likely that Niẓāmī had a mystical purpose in presenting this episode rather than any desire to discuss geographical phenomena,²⁸³ insofar as the tale occurs at a crucial moment in Alexander's progress towards spiritual kingship, as mentioned above. As a mystical motif, the journey to the Land of Darkness to find the Water of Life symbolises the inner journey of man through the darkness of his ego to the ultimate realisation of divine knowledge and the acquisition of eternal wisdom (philosophia perennis).

As the tale in the Sharafnāma goes, on his way to the North Pole in search of the Water of Life, Alexander reaches a cave where he leaves most of his army and heavy equipment. Niẓāmī calls it a ‘Bun-ghār’ (basement-cave), which according to many sources is the etymological origin of the name of Bulgaria:²⁸⁴

Because the conqueror [Alexander] gave it the name

Of ‘Bunghār’, the land of ‘Bulgaria’ gained fame.

The men of rank and state who now reign there

Are all the royal sons and heirs of Alexander.²⁸⁵

Niẓāmī offers three versions of the legend of the Water of Life in the Sharafnāma. He indicates that the first version is derived from the Tārīkh-i Dihqān (Sasanian Tradition), which probably means his ‘Pahlavi’ source, at least in its general framework. This version also coincides with Firdawsī's version of the Water of Life episode.

The second version Niẓāmī traces back to ‘Rūmīyān-i kuhan’, perhaps meaning an ancient Byzantine/Greek source, in which Ilyās (the biblical Elijah)²⁸⁶ accompanies Khiḍr. Although Niẓāmī claims that this is a ‘Rūmī’ tradition, no extant Greek or Byzantine author ever mentions Khiḍr.²⁸⁷ What does Niẓāmī mean by referring to the ‘ancient Rūmīs’? Niẓāmī writes that Ilyās and Khiḍr find the fountain accidentally because the salted fish they had for dinner fell into the water and came back to life. This version makes no mention of Alexander at all or, at least, Niẓāmī says nothing of him here. It is thus possible that Niẓāmī is referring to a biblical tradition. Ilyās corresponds to the biblical Elijah, and Khiḍr may be connected to Ahasuerus, the wandering Jew²⁸⁸ (Aσουηρος in Greek, and Assuerus in Latin).²⁸⁹ Does Niẓāmī's reference to the ‘Rūmī’ origins of this version perhaps indicate that he had access to the Greek or Latin version of the Jewish Bible?

Finally, the third version comes from the Arabic tradition (Tārīkh-i tāzī), the Qur'ānic tale of the fish that accidentally fall into the fountain containing the Water of Life and come back to life.

However, Niẓāmī maintains that the first two versions are incorrect: ‘Both the Zoroastrian (majūsī) and the Byzantine historians missed the path [of the true narrative].’²⁹⁰ In the first version (the pre-Islamic Persian one), Niẓāmī writes that Alexander enters the Land of Darkness on the first night of the month of Urdībihisht (21 April).²⁹¹ Khiḍr, his guide, gives Alexander a magic stone,²⁹² which he says will start to shine when he comes close to the fountain. Khiḍr finds the fountain and bathes in it. The fountain then promptly disappears from sight. The Arabic tradition, according to Niẓāmī, relates the tale differently. After drinking from the Water of Life, Ilyās and Khiḍr desert Alexander and his army. Khiḍr goes to sea and Ilyās to the desert, while Alexander wanders lost and in vain for 40 days in the Land of Darkness. This version also contains the tale of the Valley of Diamonds found in the Pseudo-Callisthenes (II, 40).²⁹³ Alexander marches on for 40 days until at last he manages to leave the darkness. In none of these versions is Alexander able to find or partake of the Water of Life.

The episode of the Water of Life is one of the most studied motifs in the literature of Alexander Studies, and has also been frequently depicted in Persian miniature painting.²⁹⁴ It is furthermore a popular motif in various mythologies, from the Indian²⁹⁵ to the Babylonian (in which it appears as a ‘Plant of Life’).²⁹⁶ This passage in the Sharafnāma has been interpreted from different viewpoints – the mystical²⁹⁷ and the cosmographical,²⁹⁸ among others.

However, since he is a Muslim, the true version of the legend for Niẓāmī is (as he affirms) that of the Arabic tradition (Tārīkh-i tāzī), which is based on the Qur'ānic account of Moses and the Servant of God (Sūrah 18:60–82), who is identified by Qur'ānic commentators with the prophet Khiḍr in most of the canonical collections of commentaries. Friedländer was the first scholar to use the fish episode to demonstrate the connection between the Alexander stories and the Qur'ān (18:60–5).²⁹⁹ The earliest references to the fish episode are in the Greek β-recension and the Babylonian Talmud. The most important stage in the evolution of the Alexander Romance is the development of the commentaries on the Qur'ān (18:60–101). As Wheeler rightly demonstrates:

There is no evidence to make Q 18:60–82 dependent on a particular Jewish or Christian source … earlier scholarship does not make an adequate distinction between the information contained in the Quran and what is said by the Muslim exegetes about these verses … it is clear that, in time, the exegetes identified all of Q 18:60–101 with the Alexander stories. The exegetes’ source for the Alexander stories would have been Jacob of Serugh's sermon that contained the fish episode and Alexander's building the gate against Gog and Magog.³⁰⁰

With a more discerning look at the exegesis of such details as the fish and the journey to the ends of the earth, Wheeler shows how Muslim exegesis purposefully incorporated these extra-Qur'ānic materials. The Muslim exegetes seem to have used these details to conflate Moses in the Qur'ān (18:60–82) with the character of Dhū'l-Qarnayn in the Qur'ān (18:83–101), and to associate them with stories of Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh.³⁰¹ Sūrah 18 (Kahf, ‘The Cave’) in the Qur'ān relates legends that must have had their origin in Oriental Christian circles and biblical tradition (the Seven Sleepers, the Bicorn Dhū'l-Qarnayn, and Moses in the Fountain of Life).³⁰²

In the Romance tradition, however, Alexander replaces Moses. In order to understand why Alexander replaced Moses, it is important to explain the association of Moses with elements from Alexandrian literature. One possible connection between Moses and Alexander is that both are said to have been ‘horned’. The earliest known reference to Moses being horned is found in the Latin recension of the Bible.³⁰³ Alexander is also identified as the ‘Two-Horned One’ (dhū'l-qarnayn) in the Qur'ān. Another similarity between Alexander and Moses is that just as Alexander searches for and fails to obtain immortality, Moses is denied entry into Eden.³⁰⁴ In general, we can conclude that Niẓāmī's version of Alexander's search for the Water of Life was highly influenced by his studies of commentaries on the Qur'ān.

Finally, as Niẓāmī states, it seems that Alexander's search for the Water of Life was not vain after all, for it drove him to advance to the last and most difficult stage of his progress – that of becoming a prophet – thus effecting his transition from temporal to spiritual kingship. It is at this juncture that Niẓāmī brings the Sharafnāma to a close and starts the second part of his poetic epic on Alexander, the Iqbālnāma. This deals with two general traditions: that of the Qur'ān and that of the portrayal of Alexander in Islamic wisdom literature.

Conclusion

One of the key surprising³⁰⁵ discoveries made in this chapter is that the Sharafnāma includes a great variety of pre-Islamic Persian stories about Alexander from the Sasanian period. We thus find that for many, if not most, of the episodes of the Sharafnāma, Niẓāmī has drawn from the so-called ‘Nāma-yi Khusrawī (Book of Kings), the Daftar-i Khusruwān (Register of Kings), the guzāranda-yi darj-i Dihqān-navard (narrator of the scroll of the Dihqān), the Tārīkh-i Dihqān (History of the Dihqān), the guzāranda-yi dāstān-i Darī (narrator of the Persian tale), and the mūbad-i mūbadān (Great Zoroastrian priest), among others. Niẓāmī's source or sources are certainly different from those found in the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī, to whom he normally refers as ‘Dānā-yi Ṭūs’ (the Sage of Ṭūs). These sources may possibly be his ‘Pahlavi’ source and the Zoroastrian texts from which he extracted his information concerning the destruction of the fire temples and Zoroastrian books (the Zand and Avesta).

Āzarbāyjān/Azerbaijan (Āturpātakān, as the province appears to have been officially called throughout the Sasanian period) was an important religious centre during the Sasanian period, being the homeland and hearth of one of the empire's three most sacred fires.³⁰⁶ Because of this great fire temple, Azerbaijan must have had a powerful influence on the elaboration of Zoroastrian tales and the creation of Sasanian culture and religious lore. This may perhaps account for the great variety and novelty of Niẓāmī's information and tales, which were probably based on Zoroastrian tradition and non-religious Sasanian/Azerbaijani literature that had not yet vanished in Niẓāmī's day.

Since Niẓāmī normally provides three different versions of each tale (such as Alexander's ancestry and the Water of Life) throughout the Sharafnāma, his sources are likely to have been:

The Sasanian tradition, both religious (Zoroastrian) and non-religious (epic, folklore).

(1)The biblical tradition, referred to as ‘tārīkh-i Rūm’ (Byzantine/Greek history) or as his Jewish and Christian/Nestorian (naṣrānī) sources.

(2)The Islamic tradition (Arabic and Persian sources).

(3)In sum, our study of the Sharafnāma proposes a powerful cumulative argument that a great deal of material from Pahlavi sources that is now lost to us was available to Niẓāmī. It also demonstrates that Niẓāmī's account is much closer to the Greek Alexander Romance than to his predecessor Firdawsī, and also that it contains more reliable historical information. The question that arises here is: how and from where did Niẓāmī manage to gather such a great variety of information? The local culture of the Caucasus was shaped by the cultures of the nations that had political influence in the region: the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Persians.³⁰⁷ Therefore, there was a considerable amount of bilingualism and multilingualism among ethnic minorities of adjacent communities.³⁰⁸ It is highly likely that Niẓāmī, as a native of Ganja, was multilingual. Furthermore, certain information gleaned from his works proves his familiarity with Greek and Byzantine culture and literature.³⁰⁹

In transferring part of Alexander's exploits to the Caucasus, Niẓāmī combined local lore with a large and extensive Alexander Romance tradition in order to create a hero who encapsulated his own ideas of kingship. The Sharafnāma illustrates not only the great diversity of Niẓāmī's sources and his knowledge of the Alexander Romance tradition, but also his underlying preoccupation with the veracity of his sources. As he rightly points out:

In this consummate verse of mine, I've always tried

To follow minds with acumen – men wise and shrewd;

So not a single work of history I left unread,

Each word of theirs I perused. Those legends of Alexander –

Those clustered treasures in quartos dispersed

Are here collected in just one book of verse.

This wondrous treasure casket amazes all:

There's alchemy disguised behind these words.³¹⁰

Another important point revealed by this chapter is the diversity of Niẓāmī's sources. Many pieces of information found in the Sharafnāma do not seem to appear in any other extant sources (at least in neither Persian nor Arabic). One can mention in this respect (among many other examples), the depiction of Aristotle's father as Alexander's tutor, and Alexander's founding of Tbilisi and Bulgaria. Whether this diversity of source material was derived from local folklore and tales of Niẓāmī's homeland is unclear, and will probably remain so unless new manuscripts or unknown works are discovered that shed light on motifs that do not appear anywhere else.

As we have seen throughout this chapter, Niẓāmī's Sharafnāma functions practically as a mirror for princes, providing useful moral advice for princes and kings, and inculcating such vital qualities as justice, generosity and fairness. The poem also contains strong Sufi elements, emphasising inter alia the role of music as a means of achieving self-knowledge, and the importance of love and the practice of various disciplines to perfect and refine the soul. Although the Iskandarnāma can and should be treated within the framework of the mirror for princes genre, Niẓāmī's ideal of kingship transcends simple statecraft and political strategy – the art of governance by temporal ways and means – to affirm the possibility of becoming a king in the spiritual realm.³¹¹

Finally, of all the diverse traditions relating to the Alexander Romance in the Persianate world (including the Caucasus), it is perfectly clear that in his Iskandarnāma Niẓāmī created a harmonious and attractive tale combining Christian and Jewish traditions while drawing on his local knowledge of life on the border of the Byzantine world. All these characteristics served to make Niẓāmī's Book of Alexander the most imitated Alexander Romance in Persian poetry and an inspiration for all later Muslim poets who aspired to recast the life of Alexander in verse. Niẓāmī himself asserts that his Iskandarnāma is a source of immortality. Although Alexander did not manage to drink the Water of Life, Niẓāmī has ‘made him immortal by his own Water of Life [his verse]’.³¹²