What will you think if someone talks to you about the second volume of Shahnameh? You might thinking he is lying or joking? But this is what happened in the history of Iran. It may be difficult to believe that a descendent of Hurr Ibn Yazid (a famous character in the Karbala event), who himself and his ancestors were rulers or treasurers of Qazvin, with the help and diplomacy of Kias, a descendent of Hamedan Jews, was able to convince the most brutal enemy in the history of Iran to revive the concepts “culture”, “identity” and “geographic borders of Iranshahr”, after years of passivity and negligence of the country’s organizational and bureaucratic system.
This article is addressing those who have recently made false claims of mentioning the name “Iran” as a fake name and an invention of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Although the name of Iran was removed from all administrative correspondence and official documents after Arab invasion, Iranian poets and historians have taken great pain in preserving the Iranian identity and keeping the Persian language alive. It is not precisely clear who first tried to restore the name “Iran” in officials documents and governments orders, but in the meantime, the names of two people shine the most. Hamdollah Mostofi and Khawje Rashid al-Din Tabib.
Hamdollah Mostofi, one of the most significant figures who played an active role in the movement to revive the name, identity and the historic and geographic borders of the “land of Iran” during Mongol era, and by writing the epic poems in “Zafarnameh”, he continued writing the history of Iran from the point where Ferdowsi ended in his Shahnameh, upto the end of the Mongol rule (i.e., the period of sultan Abu Saeed Bahador, the last Mongol ruler). Although the language and the intellectual weight of Zafarnameh, in terms of literary value, will never compare to the greatness of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, but with view to the deep concerns and patriotic spirit that surged in Hamdollah Mostofi, it can firmly be said that his poems were the second volume of Shahnameh, although considering that the corrected text of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh has been recorded in the margins of this book by his efforts.
Before him, many writers and intellectuals had tried to keep Iran’s identity alive. And many people wrote epic and historical poems in the style of the Shahnameh and recorded parts of Iran’s history in literary and poetic language. But Hamdollah’s efforts are at a different scale. Because he is the only one who was able to help revive the name and identity of Iran in various dimensions and different ways during the Mongol era. In this field, even Khwaja Rashiduddin Hamedani, who had a position higher than him in terms of status, cannot reach him.
Hamdollah Mostofi was a steward and a close friend of Khwaja Rashid al-Din Hamedani and among the influential courtiers of Ghazan Khan, Sultan Muhammad Khodabande (Öljaitü), and Sultan Abu Saeed Bahador, 3 rulers who opened a new page in the history of Iran by accepting the religion of Islam and the culture and traditions of Iran.
Mostofi reflected very well in his three works, Nuzhat al-Qulub, Zafarnameh, and Selected History, that Iran’s name, memory, and culture were alive in the hearts, minds, and souls of the Iranian people during the most turbulent historical period of the Iranian land. Because, if his efforts had any signs of falsification or distortion, many opponents and critics during his lifetime could attack him and call his narrations and works fake. As a result, his joint efforts with rashid ed Din, became the source of beneficial administrative and national documents, upto the point where even warring countries referred to the Mughal patriarchs as “Khan of Iran” or “Shah of Iran” in their official messages or historical documents. The name Iran has become the mainstay of official documents and correspondence until today.
Hamdollah did three excellent historic services during his lifetime.
Nuzhat al-Qulub is the most important written work of Hamdollah Mostofi, which clearly and transparently defined the geographical boundaries of “the land of Iran” taken from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and according to Molk-e Kian (Kian dynasty in Shahnameh) and the borders of the Sassanid kingdom.
In this book, there is a detailed chapter called “Land of Iran,” which names the states of Iran one by one and explains them in detail. As said by Mostowfi, the primary purpose and motivation of writing this book was to describe in detail the accurate boundarieso of the land of Uthghur in Iran. In this part of “Nuzhat al-Qulub” the first country that is discussed is “Arab Iraq,” and he explains the reason for his choice as follows: “Arab Iraq is called the heart of Iranshahr and since the heart is the king of the body, therefore its name is mentioned first. In this part of the book, he mentions the names of cities such as Baghdad, Kufa, Babylon, Mada’in, Basra, Tikrit, Khanaqin, etc.
In the same way, Mostofi repeatedly emphasized the Iranian identity of different cities and wrote: The kingdom of Fars was the home of the kings of Iran, and it is known that even though they ruled over the whole of Iran, they called themselves “Kings of Fars.”
Another great work of Mostofi was compiling and correcting the Shahnameh based on the scattered copies of his time. The updated version of this Shahnameh is written in the margin of Mostofi’s Zafarnameh, and it seems that it is based on Kabir Ilkhani’s Shahnameh. The Shahnameh of Kabir Ilkhani, also known as the Shahnameh of Abu Sa’idi, is located in the historical area of Rab’-e Rashidi in Tabriz, which was one of the endowments of Khawje Rashiduddin Hamedani, and was considered the most prominent university for the education of sciences, techniques, and fine arts in its time, along with several other books, including Jami al-Tawarikh in calligraphy. It is well written and decorated with stunning pictures.
The shahnameh was the flagship of the royal library until the reign of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, when it was taken way from Iran due to incompetence of the Qajar’s court and the cunningness of an English business by the name of Demot, and pages were separated from the books one by one. If this had not happened they would probably from Shiraz, they would probably be considered among the most expensive historical illustrated books in the world today.
Another great work of Hamdollah Mostofi, which is mentioned in this article’s introduction, was writing the book named “Zafarnameh” in the style of Shahnameh. In fact, with this work, he continued writing the history that Ferdowsi wrote. He continued the history of Iran from where Shahnameh ended, in 3 sections: the history of Arabs, history of Ajam (Iranians) and the history of the Mongols, until his own time. Of course, “Selected History” can be mentioned as another of his works, which again refers to the pre-Islamic history of Iran and explains the history of the mythological and historical kings of Iran one by one.
As mentioned before, in the movement to revive the name and boundaries of Iran’s historical-geographic gap in the literature and historical books of the Mongol era, before Mostowfi, other people such as Ata Malik Juvayni, Khajeh Rashiduddin Hamedani, Hakim Zaji and the authors of poems such as Shahnameh Genghizi (Shamsuddin Kashani) ), Shahneshah Nameh (Ahmad Tabrizi) and Ghazan Nameh Manzoom (Nuri Ajhdari) had made a worthwhile effort.
For example, the invention of the phrase “Land of Iran” instead of “Iranshahr” by Qazi Beyzawi, the author of Nazim al-Tawarikh, and the term “Mamluks of Iran” by Shamsuddin Kashani, the author of Shahnameh of Genghis, are other examples. The two comprehensive books of al-Tawarikh and the biography of Khawje Rashid al-Din Hamedani also played an essential role in promoting Iranism and the Iranshahri concept. But we can firmly say that in terms of variety, comprehensiveness and multi-dimensional work none can compare with Hamdollah Mostofi.
