Comparative Linguistic Stylistics in Rostam’s Combat with Ashkbous in Shahnamaeh and Amroas’s Combat with Imam Ali in Ali Nameh

Ali Nameh is the first religious epic in Persian literature traced back to fifth A.H. The composer of this versified story is a Shia poet alias to Rabi’e who has composed the descriptions of Imam Ali’s combats, especially his combats in Jamal and Sefein, versus Shahnameh. Applying a descriptive-analytical method and library references, the present paper aims to determine the influence level of this less known religious epic from the stylistic elements of Shahnameh linguistically. This is a comparative study; therefore, at first, we have chosen two stories from Shahnameh, “Rostam’s combat with Ashkbous” and “Amroas’s combat with Imam Ali” and Ali Nameh composed by Rabi’e. The stories were compared and contrasted phonologically, morphologically and syntactically in order to figure out their common and distinct features linguistically. The findings reveal that although Ali Nameh has been composed against Shahnameh 70 years after that, it is highly affected by Shahnameh in term of linguistic styles. In fact, Ali Nameh includes a majority of phonological, morphological and syntactic features of Shahnameh and its Khorasani style. The high level of influence from Shahnameh proves that Shahnameh has always been considered as an indicator and stylist work which has inspired other epic poets.