Shāhnāmah-yi Firdawsī: taṣḥīḥ-i intiqādī va sharḥ-i yikāyik-i abyāt (Daftar-i Shishom) Persian 2015

The book Shahnameh of Ferdowsi (Volume Five): A Critical Edition and Verse-by-Verse Commentary, written by Mehri Behfar and published by Nashr-e Farhang-e Nashr-e Now, presents a newly established critical edition of the Shahnameh based on the most authoritative available manuscripts. These include the British Museum manuscript, the Florence manuscript, the Saint Joseph manuscript recently discovered in Beirut, and, for the first time in a critical study of this scope, the recension attributed to Hamdallah Mostowfi.

A central component of this volume is its detailed, verse-by-verse commentary. The work explains figurative, idiomatic, and metaphorical expressions, provides etymological analyses of the vocabulary, and examines themes, events, characters, and their functions within the epic. It also compares these elements with parallel materials in both contemporaneous and later texts.

Additional features of the volume include references to the early seventh-century Arabic translation of the Shahnameh by Fath ibn Ali Bandari Isfahani, the English verse translation by Arthur George Warner and Edmond Warner, comprehensive lexical indexes (including Old Persian, Avestan, Parthian Pahlavi, Sasanian Pahlavi, and other linguistic strata), lists of Arabic, non-Arabic, and non-Iranian terms, indexes of personal names and places, a verse concordance, and a full bibliography.

This volume continues the series’ rigorous scholarly approach, offering readers a comprehensive and meticulously documented resource for the study of the Shahnameh.