A Study on THE Effect of Shahnameh on Bazel Mashadi′s Heydary Attack

Bazel Mashadi′s Heydary Attack is one of the earliest and most famous Attack epics written in the twelfth century. Bazel exploits the style and format of Shahname in his masnavi, composed in twenty to thirty thousand verses. The poet, after chanting the praise of God, prophet and his successor (Vali), verses the history of Islam beginning from the prophet’s mission (Be’sat) to the order of killing Usman. However, the story of his death remains unfinished. After him, several people continue his work, but among these notes, just Fendereski's epopee is joined to Bazel's masnavi, by the poet Najaf in 1135 AH. Najaf, by composing some more verses, blends the two into a single set. This work, like other epics following Shahnameh, is highly influenced by Ferdowsi’s style and language; sometimes, even, this effect on some stories of Heydary Attack appears to be on an imitation stage. In this paper, the authors try, by a comparative analysis of the two epics, to show how Bazel uses Shahnameh as a model.
Bazel Mashadi′s Heydary Attack is one of the earliest and most famous Attack epics written in the twelfth century. Bazel exploits the style and format of Shahname in his masnavi, composed in twenty to thirty thousand verses. The poet, after chanting the praise of God, prophet and his successor (Vali), verses the history of Islam beginning from the prophet’s mission (Be’sat) to the order of killing Usman. However, the story of his death remains unfinished. After him, several people continue his work, but among these notes, just Fendereski's epopee is joined to Bazel's masnavi, by the poet Najaf in 1135 AH. Najaf, by composing some more verses, blends the two into a single set. This work, like other epics following Shahnameh, is highly influenced by Ferdowsi’s style and language; sometimes, even, this effect on some stories of Heydary Attack appears to be on an imitation stage.
The authors intend to compare different parts of the two works and show that whether the author of Heydary Attack is affected by Shahnameh, and if yes, how and in what parts of his work.
The comparison of different sections of the two books shows that Shahnameh has influenced Bazel Mashadi′s Heydary Attack in the following parts: 1. Story: Sometimes, Bazel takes advantage of a complete story, some of the scenes and events of the story or heroes’ dialogues of Shahnameh.
2. Compound structures: Ferdowsi uses a variety of additional, attributed and verbal compounds in Shahnameh. The beauty, well-combination and innovation of Ferdowsi's epic poetic compounds lead the next epic poets like Bazel to copy them in their works.
3. Verse: Sometimes Bazel Mashadi imitates a poetic style of Shahnameh. Even, one can say that he is unconsciously influenced by Ferdowsi′s epic poems due to lots of times he reads it, and as a result, his versification becomes like Ferdowsi’s.
4. Praising God: It seems that Bazel, in his praise of God, in some cases, is also influenced by Ferdowsi′s God praising; sometimes, he repeats some words of Shahnameh, and sometimes, he gets the essence of Ferdowsi′s way of praising God.
5. Rhyme pattern: In respect to the use of words, especially rhyme words of verses, Bazel even adopts Ferdowsi’s rhyme patterns or applies those patterns in his poesy. Sometimes, such rhymes are accompanied by row lyrics employed in Shahnameh.
6. Type of narration: Ferdowsi gets the prose stories from other people, such as the peasants of the feudal class, some writings well-known as Daftare Bastan ‘the ancient pamphlet’ and others whom he called ‘sage’ and ‘honest’ individuals, besides Magh, Azadsarv, Bahram, Shadan Borzin and Old Shahoo as specific persons mentioned by Ferdowsi. Bazel, too, versified the prose book Me’raj Alnabovvah & Madarej Alfotovvah written by Farahie into Heidari Attack, besides the narrative of the stories from the point of view of the wise and the honest.
7. Image: Ferdowsi creates various descriptions and images in accordance with themes and scenes. In this regard, ‘exaggeration’ is one of the images that Ferdowsi benefits professionally and abundantly. These exaggerations and hyperboles have influenced Bazel Mashadi and other epic poets after Ferdowsi, and they use such images with no change in their books. Simile and epanados??? are other Ferdowsi′s images imitated in Heydary Attack.
8. Proverb: One can find proverbs in Bazel’s book similar to Shahnameh’s proverbs in terms of content and vocabulary, most probably gotten from Shahnameh.
9. Allegory: Bazel uses Shahnameh’s allegories; however, sometimes he expandes the concise allegories of Shahnameh into details.
10. Slandering women: Sometimes Shahnameh’s heroes insult women through stories. This theme is seen in Heydary Attack too. For example, in the dialogue of Amr and Sufyan, Amr says men are truthful, while women are cunning and deceitful.
11. Sunrise and sunset: Ferdowsi in Shahnameh describes very beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Bazel and other epic poets following Ferdowsi, also, pay attention to these descriptions and use them in their writings.
12. Destiny: Ferdowsi attributes various traits to time and fate including instability, whims, unkindness and ignorance. The same attributes can also be seen in Bazel′s Heydary Attack.
In the present study, some aspects of Shahname’s influence on Bazel′s Heydary Attack were examined. However, considering the size of the two books and broad area of investigation, the authors believe that more research is needed in regard to the influence of Shahname on Persian literature in general and on religious and oral literature in particular.