|
Iskandarnameh
The ''Iskandarnameh'' (or ''Iskandarnamah'', ''Iskandarnama'' ; "Book of Alexander"), not to be confused with the Iskandarnameh of Nizami,' is the oldest Persian recension of the ''Alexander Romance'' tradition, anonymous and dated to some time between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, although recently its compilation has been placed in the eleventh century by Evangelos Venetis, during the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni in the court of the Ghaznavid Empire. This may have been followed by two stages of recompilation which helped to propagate the mode of rulership of Mahmud. Alexander is described as a Muslim king and prophet and is identified with the conqueror named Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Quran. This identification is also witnessed in the Arabic recensions of the Alexander romance, such as the Qissat al-Iskandar and the Qissat Dhulqarnayn. As such, he is double-horned and builds the famous Gates of Alexander against Gog and Magog. The composition of the ''Iskandarnameh'' was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iskandarnameh (Nizami)
The ''Iskandarnameh'' (''Book of Alexander'') is a poetic production in the '' Alexander Romance'' tradition authored by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (d. 1209) that describes Alexander the Great as an idealized hero, sage, and king. More uniquely, he is also a seeker of knowledge who debates with great philosophers Greek and Indian philosophers, one of them being Plato. The poem is the fourth part of the Khamsa of Nizami, a posthumous collection of five of Nizami's major works. It consists of two main and independent parts: the ''Sharaf-nama'' (Book of Glory) followed by the Iqbal-nama (Book of Fortune) (though the names are reversed in some copies). Both are written in rhymed couplets. In India, the two sections are known as the ''Eskandar-(''or ''Sekandar-) nāma-ye barrī'' and ''baḥrī'' respectively. It was likely completed by 1194. Narrative Summary The Sharaf-nama discusses the birth of Alexander, his succession to the throne of Rum (Greece), his wars against ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gates Of Alexander
The Gates of Alexander were a legendary barrier supposedly built by Alexander the Great in the Caucasus to keep the uncivilized barbarians of the north (typically associated with Gog and Magog in medieval Christian and Islamic writings) from invading the land to the south. The gates were a popular subject in medieval travel literature, starting with the '' Alexander Romance'' in a version from perhaps the 7th century AD. The wall, also known as the Caspian Gates, has been identified with two locations: the Pass of Derbent, Russia, or with the Pass of Dariel, a gorge forming a pass between Russia and Georgia with the Caspian Sea to the east. Tradition also connects it to the Great Wall of Gorgan (Red Snake) on its south-eastern shore. These fortifications were historically part of the defence lines built by the Sassanid Persians, while the Great Wall of Gorgan may have been built by the Parthians. A similar narration about such a wall is mentioned in '' al-Kahf'' ("''The Cav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander The Great In Legend
There are many legendary accounts surrounding the life of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, with a relatively large number deriving from his own lifetime, probably encouraged by Alexander himself. Ancient Prophesied conqueror King Philip II of Macedon, Philip had a dream in which he took a wax seal and sealed up the womb of his wife. The seal bore the image of a lion. The seer Aristander interpreted this to mean that Olympias was pregnant, since men do not seal up what is empty, and that she would bring forth a son who would be bold and lion-like. (Ephorus FGrH 70 217) After Philip took Potidaea in 356 BC, he received word that his horse had just won at the Olympic games, and that Parmenion had defeated the Illyrians. Then he got word of the birth of Alexander. The seers told him that a son whose birth coincided with three victories would always be victorious. When the young Alexander tamed the steed Bucephalus, his father noted that Macedonia would not be large enough fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
11th-century Literature
The 11th century is the period from 1001 ( MI) through 1100 ( MC) in accordance with the Julian calendar, and the 1st century of the 2nd millennium. In the history of Europe, this period is considered the early part of the High Middle Ages. There was, after a brief ascendancy, a sudden decline of Byzantine power and a rise of Norman domination over much of Europe, along with the prominent role in Europe of notably influential popes. Christendom experienced a formal schism in this century which had been developing over previous centuries between the Latin West and Byzantine East, causing a split in its two largest denominations to this day: Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. In Song dynasty China and the classical Islamic world, this century marked the high point for both classical Chinese civilization, science and technology, and classical Islamic science, philosophy, technology and literature. Rival political factions at the Song dynasty court created st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the Capital city, capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the List of largest cities of Iran, most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, and has the Largest metropolitan areas of the Middle East, second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East, after Cairo. It is ranked 24th in the world by metropolitan area population. In the Classical antiquity, Classical era, part of the territory of present-day Tehran was occupied by Ray, Iran, Rhages, a prominent Medes, Median city destroyed in the medieval Muslim conquest of Persia, Arab, Oghuz Turks, Turkic, and Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia, Mongol invasions. Modern Ray is an urban area absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran. Tehran was first chosen as the capital of Iran by Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, Agha Mohammad Khan of the Qajar dyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdowsi
, image = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran 3 (cropped).jpg , image_size = , caption = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus by Abolhassan Sadighi , birth_date = 940 , birth_place = Tus, Samanid Empire , death_date = 1019 or 1025 (87 years old) , death_place = Tus, Ghaznavid Empire , occupation = Poet , notable_works = '' Shahnameh'' , genre = Persian poetry, national epic , language = Early Modern Persian , movement = , period = Samanids and Ghaznavids , influences = , influenced = Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi ( fa, ; 940 – 1019/1025 CE), also Firdawsi or Ferdowsi (), was a Persian poet and the author of '' Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single poet, and the greatest epic of Persian-speaking countries. Ferdowsi is celebrated as one of the most influential figures of Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature. Name Except for his kunya ( – ) and his laqab ( – ''Fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shahnameh
The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 "distichs" or couplets (two-line verses), the ''Shahnameh'' is one of the world's longest epic poems. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic. The work is of central importance in Persian culture and Persian language, regarded as a literary masterpiece, and definitive of the ethno-national cultural identity of Iran. It is also important to the contemporary adherents of Zoroastrianism, in that it traces the hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gog And Magog
Gog and Magog (; he, גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג, ''Gōg ū-Māgōg'') appear in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran as individuals, tribes, or lands. In Ezekiel 38, Gog is an individual and Magog is his land; in Genesis 10, Magog is a man and eponymous ancestor of a nation, but no Gog is mentioned; by the time of Jewish tradition had long since changed Ezekiel's "Gog ''from'' Magog" into "Gog ''and'' Magog". The Gog prophecy is meant to be fulfilled at the approach of what is called the "end of days", but not necessarily the end of the world. Jewish eschatology viewed Gog and Magog as enemies to be defeated by the Messiah, which would usher in the age of the Messiah. Christianity's interpretation is more starkly apocalyptic, making Gog and Magog, here indicating nations rather than individuals, allies of Satan against God at the end of the millennium, as described in the Book of Revelation. A legend was attached to Gog and Magog by the time of the Roman period, that the Gat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qissat Dhulqarnayn
The Qiṣṣat Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn (''Qissat Dhulqarnayn'', "Story of Dhulqarnayn") is a Hispano-Arabic legend of Alexander the Great preserved in two fourteenth-century manuscripts in Madrid and likely dates as a ninth-century Arabic translation of the Syriac Alexander Legend produced in Al-Andalus. In this respect, it is similar to the '' Hadīth Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn'' and is an example of the literary genre of Qisas al-Anbiya (Stories of the Prophets). It is to be distinguished from another text also known as the ''Qissat Dhulqarnayn'' found in the book of prophets by al-Tha'labi (d. 1036) as well as the '' Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar'', a text dating to the late eighth or early ninth century representing the earliest translation of the Alexander Romance into Arabic. The Qissat depicts the travels of Alexander whom it identifies with the figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn ("The Two Horned One") in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran, referred to as Dhulqarnayn in the text (in Arabic-language Alexande ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persian Language
Persian (), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible standard language, standard varieties, namely Iranian Persian (officially known as ''Persian''), Dari, Dari Persian (officially known as ''Dari'' since 1964) and Tajik language, Tajiki Persian (officially known as ''Tajik'' since 1999).Siddikzoda, S. "Tajik Language: Farsi or not Farsi?" in ''Media Insight Central Asia #27'', August 2002. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate society, Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Ira ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qissat Al-Iskandar
The ''Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar'' (fully the ''Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar wa-mā fīhā min al-amr al-ʿadjīb'', or "The story of Alexander and the wonderful things it contains") is the earliest narrative of Alexander the Great in the tradition of the '' Alexander Romance'' genre in the Arabic language. It was composed by ‘Umara ibn Zayd (also spelled Omâre Ebn-Zeyd) (767-815) between the late 8th to the early 9th century as a recension on the Syriac Alexander Legend. It is not to be confused with the '' Qissat Dhulqarnayn'' or the '' Sirat al-Iskandar''. The text offers a chain of transmission going back to the earliest days of Islam, claiming to rely on transmitters including Ka'b al-Ahbar, Ibn Abbas, Hasan al-Basri, Ibn Ishaq and others. Synopsis In the Qissat al-Iskandar, Alexander the Great is depicted as a civilizing hero and monotheist that travels across the world, builds the Wall against Gog and Magog, searches for the Water of Life (Fountain of Youth), and encount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ), which consist of verses (pl.: , sing.: , cons.: ). In addition to its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic language. Muslims believe that the Quran was orally revealed by God to the final prophet, Muhammad, through the archangel Gabriel incrementally over a period of some 23 years, beginning in the month of Ramadan, when Muhammad was 40; and concluding in 632, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as Muhammad's most important miracle; a proof of his prophethood; and the culmination of a series of divine messages starting with those revealed to Adam, including the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel. The word ''Quran'' occurs some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Walters_44616_(cropped).jpg "Click for more on -> Gog And Magog")
