A Review and Textual Criticism of the Epic Book of Salarnameh

Salarnameh is an epic book based on the style of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, in which the history of Iran has been depicted from the beginning until the reign of Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar. The book consists of two parts: the first part from the beginning of Iranian history to the end of the Yazdgerd Sassanid’s kingdom was written by the intellectual and libertarian Kermani poet ‘Mirza Aqa Khan’ under the title of the Ancient Letter. Shortly after the creation of this work and the death of Mirza Aqa Khan, Mullah Ahmad Hafez Aghili Kermani continued the work until the time of Mozaffar al-Din Shah and changed the name of the book into Salarnameh. The author of this paper reviewed the textual content of three versions of this book (currently only available in three versions). In view of the poet's new look at past events and expressing it in the epic style, based on Ferdowsi, he introduced a comprehensive framework of Iranian history from the earliest to the Qajar era, with the language of poetry. The Aqa Khan’s poetic language is far from literary and explicit but monotonous; however, Mullah Ahmad Hafez has tried to use the elements of rhetoric, especially simile and equivocalness in the text. Compared to the ancient language, poetry is not uniform. From the historical point of view, the Aqa Khan's ideas have been discussed since the earliest times of Iran as a true history, and the ambiguity that was observed at that time due to the lack of historical documents has been influenced by the books of descendants, but in the later periods of history, especially the Medes, the Achaemenids, the Parthians, Seljuks, and Sassanids, with archaeological discoveries and the translation of the old lines, a perfect date for poetry was provided.