Cultural Heritage Office of Tous in Khorasan Razavi Province has organized a special program on the occasion of National Ferdowsi Day (May 15), a day that commemorates the celebrated Persian poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi, at the poet’s tomb in Tous.
As part of the program, the Baysonghor Shahnameh, one of the most important and famous illustrated manuscripts of Shahnameh (book of kings) by Ferdowsi, is to go on display for the first time, YJC reported on its Persian website.
Work on this manuscript started in 1426 on the order of Baysonghor Mirza (1397-1433), grandson of the Central Asian leader Timur (1336-1405), and was completed four years later. The book which has been kept at in Tehran’s Golestan Palace is regarded as a masterpiece of Persian miniature.
Value of the manuscript is not only because of its text, as it is one of the most complete manuscripts of Shahnameh, but also due to the art used in creating the work. Written in nastaliq script, it has 346 pages and 21 miniatures of the Herat School and is one of the most important works of this school. Herat School is a 15th-century style of miniature painting that flourished in Herat, western Afghanistan.
The book was submitted by Iran for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2007 and was accepted the same year.
Aesthetic, Literary Values
“The Shahnameh represents the quintessence of aesthetic and literary values of elite rulers of the Timurid who dominated Central and Western Asia in the 15th Century,” Unesco.org wrote about the manuscript.
Born in 940, Ferdowsi was an influential Persian poet whose contributions to literature and identity went unappreciated for centuries after his death in 1020. It was not until the early 20th century that the role of his epic Shahnameh in literature was understood by academia.
Shahnameh, the world’s longest epic poem written by a single poet, is composed of 60,000 verses. It tells mainly the mythical and, to some extent, the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century.
An important feature of the work is that although during the period of its creation, Arabic was the main language of science and literature, Ferdowsi used only Persian and therefore helped to revive and maintain the language.
Among the programs set for the day is a 3-D light and color show on the building of Ferdowsi’s Tomb in Tous.
The building is a tomb complex composed of white marble base and a decorative cuboid edifice erected in honor of the poet in 1934. The four surrounding facets of the cuboid are etched with poems from Shahnameh.
Ferdowsi was originally buried in the garden of his home since his burial in the city was forbidden. However, having realized the value of his contributions, a mausoleum for the eminent poet was built in 1934, where he now rests.
Naqali, traditional Iranian story-telling style, reciting the poems of Shahnameh, and performing traditional songs are other programs planned for the National Ferdowsi Day.
