1. The term “Islamicate” was introduced by Marshall G. S. Hodgson to account for “the distinction between those traditions associated relatively closely with the act of islam and its spiritual implications, and those traditions that were associated with Islam more indirectly, through forming a part of the overall civilization in which Muslims were leaders.” In elaborating this distinction, Hodgson added, “'Islamicate’ would refer not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-Muslims.” See Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in A World Civilization, vol. 1: The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quotes respectively in 1:95, 59.

2. The terms Furs, ‘Ajam, and Majūs were used interchangeably in Arabic and Persian historical works to refer to the people residing in the Iranian plateau. For general definition of these terms see El, s.v. ‘“Adjam” (F. Gabrieli); ibid., s.v. “al-Furs” (Ch. Pellat); ibid., s.v. “Madjus” (M. Morony).

3. Zoroastrianism and Mazdaism are used interchangeably in this article. Mazdean (Mazdayasnian) and Mazdaism are both derived from the name of the supreme god, Mazda (wise) or Ahura Mazda (wise lord). According to Mary Boyce, “It is noteworthy that the word chosen before all others to define a believer is ‘Mazdayasna,’ a worshiper of Mazda. This occurs eight times in the longer version of the creed (preserved as Yfasna] 12), and only four times it is further qualified by ‘Zarathushtri,’ that is, a follower of Zoroaster. Plainly it was by exalting Ahura Mazda as God, and devoting to him, ultimately, all worship, that the Zoroastrian distinguished himself from adherents of the pagan faith.” See Boyce, Mary, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routhedge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 36–37Google Scholar. On the etymology of Mazdayasna see Bailey, H. W., Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books: Ratanbai Katrak Lectures (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1943, repr. 1971), 177–78Google Scholar.

4. On the endeavors of the Orientalists see Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad, “Orientalism's Genesis Amnesia,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 16, no. 1 (1996): 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On those of the Khushnumists see Russell, James R., “On Mysticism and Esotericism among the Zoroastrians,” Iranian Studies 26, nos. 1–2 (Winter/Spring 1993): 73–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is an intertextual link between Dasatiri and Babi and Baha'i texts. Inquiry into the nature of this linkage is significant for a full understanding of the 19th century Persianate cultural and intellectual history.

5. My usage of narrative “emplotment” is informed by Hayden White: “Providing the ‘meaning’ of a story by identifying the kind of story that has been told is called explanation by emplotment. If, in the course of narrating his story, the historian provides it with the plot structure of a Tragedy, he has ‘explained’ it in one way; if he has structured it as a Comedy, he has ‘explained’ it in another way. Emplotment is the way by which a sequence of events fashioned into a story is gradually revealed to be a story of a particular kind” (Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973], 7). On Iran's “reverse progress” see Kirmani, Mirza Aqa Khan, Maktūb-i Shāhzādah Kamāl al-Dawlah bih Shāhzādah Jalāl al-Dawlah: sih maktūb, ed. Chubinah, Bahrain ([Paris]: Mard-i imruz, 1981), 166Google Scholar; idem, Āyinah-yi Sikandarī ([Tehran]: n.p., 1324/1908), 523.

6. By “schizophrenic” I have in mind not the clinical definition but a person's simultaneous identification with cultural discourses that are independent of one another.

7. See Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad, “Refashioning Iran: Language and Culture during the Constitutional Revolution,” Iranian Studies 23, nos. 1–4 (1990): 77–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For structural differences of “annal,” “chronicle,” and “history” see White, Hayden, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” in idem, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1987), 1–25Google Scholar. As White explains: “In order to qualify as historical, an event must be susceptible to at least two narrations of its occurrence. Unless at least two versions of the same set of events can be imagined, there is no reason for the historian to take upon himself the authority of giving the true account of what really happened. The authority of the historical narrative is the authority of reality itself; the historical account endows this reality with form and thereby makes it desirable by the imposition upon its processes of the formal coherency that only stories posses.”

9. Concerning the practice of synchronization, it is important to recall Franz Rosenthal's cautionary note: “The majority of historians who dealt with pre-Islamic dynasties, it would seem, refrained from any attempt to interconnect the history of various nations according to some scheme of synchronization. Some of them, however, such as Tabarî and, more systematically, al-Dînawarî, tried to establish a chronological relationship between the pre-Islamic nations they dealt with. It stands to reason that such attempts at synchronization might very well have been the result of an inner-Muslim development. Nothing was more natural for them than to acquire, through inquiries with Persians, Christians, or Jews, sufficient information to construct a chronological relationship of the Persian kings with the first man of Jewish and Christian mythology, etc.” See Rosenthal, Franz, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), 92–93Google Scholar.

10. For a Zoroastrian view of Kayumars see Avistā: nāmah-yi mīnuvī-yi āyīn-i Zartusht, ed. Jalil Doostkhah (Tehran: Murvarid, 1343 Sh.1964), 259. On Kayumars, Mashi, and Mashyanah see also Dadagi, Farnbagh, Bundahish (Creation), ed. Bahar, Mihrdad (Tehran: Tus, 1369 Sh./1990), 40–41Google Scholar, 52–53, 66, 69–70, 80–83, 139, 146, 155. See also “Bundahish or the Original Creation,” in West, E. W., ed., Pahlavi Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), 18–19Google Scholar, 52–57. For further discussion of the Mazdean view of Kayumars see M. Schwartz, “The Old Eastern Iranian World View According to Avesta,” in Ily Gershevitch, ed., The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 2: The Median and Achaemenian Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 640–63, esp. 646–47; Ehsan Yarshater, “Iranian National History,” in idem, ed., The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3 (I): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 416–20; Corbin, Henry, Spirtual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi'ite Iran, trans. Pearson, Nancy, Bollingen Series 41, no. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 46–50Google Scholar. For different renderings of the names of the first couple see Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, 179–80.

11. For differing accounts of Kayumars in Islamicate historical sources see Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Tarīkh-pardāzī va Īrān-ārāyī: bāzsāzī-yi huvīyat-i Īrāni dar guzārish-i tārikh,” Iran Nameh 12, no. 4 (Fall 1994), 583–628, esp. 593–94, 620–23.

12. Tabari, The History of al-Tabari (Ta'rīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk), vol. 1: General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood, trans, and Rosenthal, annot. Franz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 318Google Scholar.

13. For such characterizations see Shboul, Ahmad M. H., al-Mas'ūdi & His World: A Muslim Humanist and His Interest in Non-Muslims (London: Ithaca Press, 1979), 108–109Google Scholar; Khalidi, Tarif, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 78–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Ahmad b. Abi Ya'qub b. Wadih, Td'rikh, 2 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-nashr, 1960), 1:158–59; English translation cited in Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 115–16; for Persian translation see Tārīkh-i Ya'qubī, trans. Muhammad Ibrahim Ayati (Tehran: Markaz-i intisharat-i ‘ilmi va farhangi, 1362 Sh./1983), 193–94.

15. Tabari, History 1:326, 319. For Tabari's earlier references to Kayumars see ibid., 185–86, 318.

16. Ibid., 319.

17. On “colligation” see Walsh, W. H., An Introduction to Philosophy of History (London and New York: Hutchinson's University Library, 1951), 59–64Google Scholar; Mink, Louis O., “The Autonomy of Historical Understanding,” History and Theory 1 (1966): 24–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Walsh used the term “colligation,” originally coined by Whewell, in order to describe “the procedure of explaining an event by tracing its intrinsic relations to other events and locating it in its historical context” (cited in Mink, “Autonomy,” 32).

18. Tabari, History 1:318–19.

19. “Bundahish or the Original Creation,” in Pahlavi Texts, 53; Bundahish, 155.

20. Biruni, Abu Rayhan, The Chronology of Ancient Nations: An English Version of the Arabic Text of the Athâr-ul-Bâkiya of Albîrûnî, or “Vestiges of the Past,” Collected and Reduced to Writing by the Author in A.H. 390–1, A.D. 1000, trans. Sachau, C. Edward (London: W. H. Allen and Co., 1879; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva GMBH, 1969), 107Google Scholar.

21. Biruni, Chronology, 108. For Arabic text see al-Āār al-bāqīyah ‘an-il-qurūn al-khālīyah, ed C. Edward Sachau (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1923), 99–100.

22. Tabari, History 1:325–27. Tabari dismissed a report by Hisham al-Kalbi, who had argued that “the first king to rule the earth was Ōshanj b. Eber b. Shelah b. Arpachshad b. Shem b. Noah.” According to Tabari, “Hishaām's statement deserves no consideration, because among the experts in Persian genealogy, King Hoshank is more famous than al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf is among Muslims.” After explaining the importance of relying on other people's view of their “forefathers, pedigrees, and accomplishments,” Tabari favorably reported, “Some Persian genealogist(s) assume(s) that this King Ōshahanj Pēshdād is Mahalalel, that his father, Frawāk, is Mahalalel's father Kenan, that Siyāmak is Kenan's father Enosh, that Mashi is Enosh's father Seth, and that Jayūmart is Adam. If this is so, there can be no doubt that ēshanj was a man in the time of Adam… . If the genealogists’ statement concerning this king just mentioned by us is as indicated, it is not impossible to say that he became ruler two hundred years after Adam's death” (History 1:326–27).

23. Tabari, History 1:369. The same opinion was reported by Biruni: “The Persians, and the great mass of the Magians, deny the Deluge altogether; they believe that the rule [of the world] has remained with them without any interruption ever since Gayomarth Gilshâh, who was, according to them, the first man. In denying the Deluge, the Indians, Chinese, and the various nations of the east, concur with them. Some, however, of the Persians admit the fact of the Deluge, but they describe it in a different way from what is described in the books of the prophets. They say, a partial deluge occurred in Syria and the west at the time of Tahmûrath, but it did not extend over the whole of the then civilized world, and only few nations drowned in it, it did not extend beyond the peak of Ḥulwân, and did not reach the empires of the east” (Chronology, 27–28). For the Arabic original see al-Āār al-bāqīyah, 23–24.

24. Tabari, History 1:369. The quote is from Qur'an 37:75–77.

25. ‘Izz al-Din Ibn Athir, al-Kāmil fī al-ta'rīkh; idem, Tārīkh-i kāmil, trans. Muhammad Husayn Rawhani (Tehran: Asatir, 1370 Sh./1991), respectively 15, 78–79 and 51.

26. Tabari, History 1:186, 318.

27. Biruni, Chronology, 28. For the Arabic original see al-Āsār al-bāqīyah, 24.

28. Explaining Mas'udi's synchronization of Persian and biblical history, Shboul wrote: “Persian scholars in the eighth and ninth centuries attempted to link the Furs [Persians] with Isaac, son of Abraham, and thus find a way of attacking the Arabs, especially the Southerns (Qaḥṭānīs) who could not claim such ties with the Patriarch.” See Shboul, al-Mas'ūdī & His World, 109.

29. For examples of Kayumars as a Syriac name see Mir Kh^wand, Tārīkh-i rażat alṣafā, ed. Parviz, ‘Abbas (Tehran: Markazi, 1338 Sh./1959), 1:493Google Scholar; trans Shea, David as History of the Early Kings of Persia from Kaiomars the First of the Peshdadian Dynasty, to the Conquest of Iran by Alexander the Great (London: John Murray and Parbury, Allen, & Co., 1882), 51Google Scholar. See also Kh^wand Mir, Ḥabīb al-siyar fi akhbār afrād al-bashar, ed. Huma'i, Jalal al-Din (Tehran: Khayyam, 1333 Sh./1954), 175Google Scholar.

30. For political life in Islamdom in “the Earlier Middle period” see Hodgson, Venture of Islam 2:12–61.

31. Ghazzali, Naṣīḥat al-mulūk, ed. Huma'i, Jalal al-Din (Tehran: Babak, 1361 Sh./1982), 81Google Scholar, 89; idem, Ghazali's Book of Counsel for Kings, trans. F. R. C. Bagley (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 45, 48.

32. In pre-Islamic Persian statecraft, state and religion were viewed as twins. Tansar, an arch-cleric at the court of Ardashir, wrote: “Religion and state were born of one womb, joined together and never to be sundered. Virtue and corruption, health and sickness are of the same nature for both.” See The Letter of Tansar, trans. M. Boyce (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1968), 33–34. For a detailed study of the relationship of state and religion in the pre-Islamic period see Gignoux, Ph., “Church-State Relations in the Sasanian Period” in. Mikasa, H. I. H. Prince Takahidto, ed., Monarchies and Socio-Religious Traditions in the Ancient Near East (Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz, 1984), 72–80Google Scholar.

33. Ghazzali, Counsel for Kings, 53.

34. Ibid., 46–47. In one of the manuscripts mentioned by Jalal al-Din Huma'i, the list of tyrannical kings also includes the last Sasanid king, “Yazdigird-i bizihkār” (Yazdigird the Sinner). Outlining the political wisdom that guided the action of kings, Ghazali explained: “They would not tolerate any [infraction] small or great, because they knew beyond all doubt that where injustice and oppression are present, the people have no foothold; the cities and localities go to ruin, the inhabitants flee and move to other territories, the cultivated lands are abandoned, the kingdom falls into decay, the revenues diminish, the treasury becomes empty, and happiness fades among the people. The subjects do not love the unjust king, but always pray that evil may befall him” (Counsel for Kings, 56).

35. Ibid., 56.

36. For an illustration of the “circle of justice” see Tabib, Rashid al-Din Fazl Allah, Savāniḥ al-ajkār-i Rashīdī, ed. Danishpazhuh, Muhmmad Taqi (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1358 Sh./1979), 113Google Scholar.

37. Humphreys, R. Stephen, “Qur'anic Myth and Narrative Structure in Early Islamic Historiography,” in Clover, F. M. and Humphreys, R. S., eds., Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 278Google Scholar.

38. Bayzavi, ‘Abd Allah, Niẓām al-tavārīkh, ed. Karimi, Bahman Mira (Tehran: ‘Ilmi, 1313 Sh./1934), 9Google Scholar.

39. ”… mulk az mulūk-i Furs bikullī munqaṭi’ shud va Musalmānān rā musallam gasht” (Bayzavi, Niẓām al-tavārīkh, 42).

40. Qazvini, Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Tārīkh-i guzīdah, ed. Nava'i, ‘Abd al-Husayn (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1362 Sh./1983)Google Scholar.

41. Mir Kh^wand, Rawżat al-ṣafā, 806.

42. Idem, History of the Early Kings of Persia, 51.

43. Ibid. In the above quotation I have altered Shea's “carpet of equality and benevolence” to “carpet of justice” (bisāṭ-i ma ‘dilat). For the Persian original see Mir Kh^wand, Rawżat al-ṣafā, 494.

44. For a valuable study of the concept of justice ('adl) see A. K. Lambton, “Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of Kingship,” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 91–119. See also Khadduri, Majid, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

45. In addition Ghazzali cited Qur'an 4:59: “Believers, obey God and obey the Apostle and those in authority amongst you.”

46. Discussing administrative theories and mirrors for princes, Ann Lambton wrote, “Although the concept of the Sultan [ruler] in the mirrors owes much to the Sasanian theory, the purpose of the Sultan's government is still the formal establishment of the religion of Islam and conditions in which his subjects can fulfil their destiny” (Lambton, A. K. S., Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government [London: Variorum Reprints, 1980], 417Google Scholar).

47. On Azar Kayvan and his disciples see Modi, Shams-ul-Ulama Jivanji Jamshedji, “A Parsee High Priest (Dastur Azar Kaiwan, 1529–1614 A.D.) with his Zoroastrian Disciples in Patna, in the 16th and 17th Century A.C.,” The Journal of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute 16 (1930): 1–85Google Scholar; Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Āḏar Kayvān” (Henry Corbin). The disciples of Azar Kayvan included Zoroastrians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. Fath Allah Shirazi (d. 997/1588), a close advisor of Emperor Akbar, was among his most influential students. See Alvi, M. A. and Rahman, A., Fathullah Shirazi: A Sixteenth Century Indian Scientist (New Delhi: National Insitute of Sciences of India, 1968), 2, 29–30Google Scholar. Abu al-Fazl ‘Allami was reported to be a “total believer” in Azar Kayvan. See Isfandyar, Kaykhusraw, Dabistān-i maẕāhib, ed. Malik, Rahim Rizazadah (Tehran: Tahuri, 1362 Sh./1983), 300–301Google Scholar.

48. The publication of Dasātīr generated intense academic controversies. As H. Corbin remarked, “This book, after having been praised to the skies at the time of its discovery—by the Orientalist William Jones, among others, as a document of ancient Persia and a complement of the Avesta—was then just as quickly relegated to oblivion as a cheap apocryphal trick. The truth of the matter is that this book deserved neither that original excess of honor nor its subsequent indignity and neglect” (Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Āḏar Kayvān“). For the controversy on Dasātīr see also Modi, “A Parsee High Priest,” 1–85; Bharuch, Sheriaji Dadabhai, The Dasatir, Being a Paper Prepared for the Tenth Intenternational Congress of Orientalists in Geneva in 1894 A.C. (Bombay: s.n., 1907)Google Scholar; Davud, Ibrahim Pur, Farhang-i Īrān-i bāstān (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1355 Sh./1976)Google Scholar, s.v. “Dasātīr“; Browne, Edward G., A Literary History of Persian from the Earliest Times until Firdawsi (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902), 44–59Google Scholar. For a hyper-objectivist view of Dasātīr see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Dasātīr” (Fath Allah Mojtaba'i). For the first printed edition of Dasātīr see Firuz, Mulla, ed., The Desatir or Sacred Writings of the Ancient Persian Prophets, 2 vols. (Bombay: The Courier Press, 1818)Google Scholar.

49. See Malik's, Rizazadah “scholarly edition.” For an English translation see The Dabistan or School of Manners, trans. Shea, David and Troye, Anthony, vol. 3 (Paris, 1843Google Scholar); reprinted as Oriental Literature or the Dabistan (Lahore: Khalil & Co., 1973). On Dabistān see Askari, S. H., “Dabistan-i Mazahib and Diwan-i-Mubad,” in Mujtabai, Fathullah, ed., Indo-Iranian Studies: Presented for the Golden Jubilee of the Pahlavi Dynasty of Iran (New Delhi: Indo-Iran Society, 1977), 85–110Google Scholar; Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Dabestān-i Maḏāheb” (Fath Allah Mojtaba'i).

50. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān-i chahār chaman: chaman-i avval va duvvum va chaman-i sivvum, nāqiṣ al-ākhir, ed. Manikji Suhrabji and Siyavakhsh Hurmuzdyar Irani (Bombay, 1223 Yazdigirdi).

51. Ā'īn-i Hūshang, ed. Manikji Limji Hushang Hatarya Darvish Fani (Tehran: Mirza Bahram Nasrabadi, 1296/1878).

52. According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Ādhar Kayvān and his disciples were deeply influenced by the teachings of Suhrawardi and considered themselves to be ishrāqis. The Dabistān al-madhāhib in fact mentions several figures of this school by name as being ishrāqīs” (S. H. Nasr, “The Spread of the Illuminationist School of Suhrawardī,” The Islamic Quarterly 14, no. 3: 116).

53. On the religious policies of Akbar see Makhanlal Roy Choudhury, The Din-i-Ilahi or, The Religion of Akbar (Patna, India: Patna University, 1952); Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Akbar and Religion (Delhi: Idarah-yi adabiyat-i Dihli, 1989); B. P. Ambashthya, Contributions on Akbar and the Parsees (Patna, India: Janaki Prakashan, 1976); Alavi, Azra, Socio-Religious Outlook of Abul Fazl (Delhi: Idarah-yi adabiyat-i Dihli, 1983)Google Scholar.

54. According to Suhrawardi, “There were among the ancient Persians a community of men who were guides towards the Truth and were guided by Him in the Right Path, ancient sages unlike those who are called the Magi. It is their high and illuminated wisdom, to which the spiritual experience of Plato and his predecessors are also witness, and which we have brought to life in our book called Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq” (cited in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī Maqtūl,” in M. M. Sharif, ed., A History of Muslim Philosophy [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1963], 375–78, n. 11). For a systematic study of Suhrawardi's illuminationist philosophy see Ziai, Hossein, Knowledge and Illumination: A Study of Suhrawardī's Ḥikmat al-lshrāq (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

55. Defining “Zoroastrian Ishraqi,” Henry Corbin wrote: “It is dominated by Ešrāqī doctrine and terminology and is the Zoroastrian response to the great project of Šayḵ al-Ešrāq Šehāb-al-dīn Yaḥyā Sohravardī (d. 587/1191), which was the revival in Islamic Iran of the philosophy of Light taught by reputed sages of ancient Persia” (Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Āḏar Kayvān“). For a discussion of the Illuminationist aspect of this school see Muhammad Mu'in, “Ḥikmat-i ishrāq va farhang-i Īrān,” in Mu'in, Mahdukht, ed. Majmū'ah-yi maqālāt-i duktur Muḥammad Mu'īn (Tehran: Intisharat-i Mu'in, 1364 Sh./1985), 1:379–458Google Scholar, esp. 444–46.

56. The author of Dabistān argued that the views of Ishraqis were the same as those of Kayvanis (Dabistān, 314).

57. See note 44.

58. On Dasatiri terms see Mulla Firuz, “Farhang-i lughāt-i kitāb-i mustaṭāb-i Dasātir,” in The Desatir 2:1–81; Ahmad, Nazir, Naqd-i burhān-i qāṭi’ (New Delhi: Ghalib Institute, 1985), 211—44Google Scholar; Farhang-i Īrān-i bāstān (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1355 Sh./1976), s.v. “Dasātīr” (Purdavud, Ibrahim); Burhān-i qāṭi', ed. Mu'in, Muhammad (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1361 Sh./1982)Google Scholar, s.v. “Daādtīr” (Ibrahim Purdavud).

59. This imaginary historical narrative was made possible with the Islamicate reconfiguration of Kayumars. In Mir Kh^wand's account, instead of being the first man, Kayumars was elected to establish order among humankind: “Before he undertook to discharge the functions and duties of royalty, all kinds of violence and oppression were practiced openly among mankind, and the greatest disorder found their way into all transactions of the human race throughout the whole of the habitable world” (History ofthe Early Kings ofPersia, 47–48). To establish security, prosperity, and justice, wise men and nobles, “after duly resorting to divine and human councils,” elected Kayumars as the first sovereign and “he was seated on the imperial throne” (ibid., 48–49).

60. There is no scholarly consensus over the authorship of Dabistān-i maẕāhib. Three individuals have been named as the author: Muhsin Fani Kashmiri (d. 1081/1670), Mir Zulfiqar ‘AH known as Mulla Mawbad (ca. 1026–81/1617–70), and Kaykhusraw Isfandyar (b. ca. 1028/1618). Attribution of the work to Muhsin Fani has been rejected by a number of scholars. S. H. Askari and Fath Allah Mujtaba'i have suggested Mulla Mawbad as the author. See Askari, “Dabistan-i Mazhib and Diwan-i Mubad,” 85–104; Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Dabestān-e Maḏāheb” (Fath Allah Mujtaba'i). See also Arzu, Siraj al-Din Khan, Mumir, ed. Khatoon, Rehana (Karachi: The Institute of Central and West Asian Studies, 1991), 18Google Scholar. In a well-reasoned assertion, Rahim Rizazadah Malik, the editor of the 1983 edition of Dabistān, argued that Kaykhusraw Isfandyar was the author, based on an essay by Kaykhusraw b. Kavus and internal textual evidence. See Dabistān-i maẕāhib 2:9–76.

61. Dabistān, 8 and 12. “The followers of the ancient faith call one revolution of the regent Saturn [Kayvān], a day; thirty such days, one month; twelve such months, one year; a million of such years, one fard; a million fard, one vard; a million vard, one mard; one million mard, one jād; three thousand jād, one vād; and two thousand vād, one zād” (ibid., 8). One Saturnian year is equal to 30 solar years.

It was argued that the Abadiyan, the original kings and prophets of Iran, ruled for 100 zād years. Jayan, the second dynasty, ruled for one aspār years. The third dynasty, the Sha'iyan, ruled for one shumār years. Yasa'iyan, the fourth dynasty, ruled confor nine salām years. According to this reckoning, salām= 100,000 years; 100 salām= 10,000,000=1 shumār; 100 shumār=1 aspār; 100 aspār=\ zād.

62. Dabistān, 13. After recounting the Jewish reckoning of 4,642 years from the creation of Adam to the hegira of Muhammad, Tabari wrote: “The Greek Christians assume that the Jewish claim in this respect is false. According to their view of the sequence in the Torah that they possess, the duration of the days of this world from the creation of Adam to the time of the hijrah of our Prophet Muhammad is properly stated as 5,992 years and some months. They have made a detailed count to support their claim by indicating the birth and death of each prophet and ruler from the age of Adam to the hijrah of the Messenger of God” (Tabari, History 1:184–85).

63. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 4. He further noted: “Inqilāb-i ṣun'ī bih ṣun'ī maḥāll nīst” (ibid., 319).

64. Ibid., 2.

65. “Biḥisāb-i aṣl-i falsafi afrād-i insānī rā bidāyatī zamānī nīst” (Shāristān, 6 and 10). The same is also argued in Dabistān: “Gūyand bidāyat-i vujūd-i insān ma'lūm nīst va ‘ilm-i basharī iḥāṭah-yi ān nakunad, chih afrād-i insānī rā āghāz-i zamānī nabuvad” (p. 9).

66. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 4–22.

67. Ibid., 6, 11–12, 22.

68. According to Dabistān, Mahabad's “achievements” were numerous: “He ordered persons to descend into deep waters and bring forth the shells, pearls, corals, etc. People were commanded to shear the fleece of sheep and other animals: by him also were invented the arts of spinning, weaving, cutting up, sewing, and clothing. He next organized cities, villages, and streets; erected palaces and colonnades; introduced trade and commerce; and divided mankind into four classes” (The Dabistan, 21).

69. “Nizā ‘-i ‘Arab va ‘Ajam dar sibqat-i Ādam va Kayūmar” (Shāristān, 13).

70. Ibid. 13–14.

71. Tabari, History, 348, 350.

72. Bahrain b. Farhad, Shāristān, 15, 89. The verse is from Qur'an 7:59. It continues: “He said: ‘Serve God, my people, for you have no god but Him. Beware the torment of a fateful day.'“

73. Abu Hanifah al-Dinawari, Kitāb al-ahbār aṭ-ṭiwāl, ed. Vladimir Guirgass (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1888), 9; trans. Sadiq Nash'at as Tarjumah-yi akhbār al-ṭiwāl (Tehran: Bunyad-i farhang-i Iran, 1346 Sh./1967), 6, cited in Browne, Literary History 1:113.

74. Mir Kh^wand, Rawżat al-ṣafā, 517, 526; History of the Early Kings of Persia, 100, 118. The scriptural reference is to Qur'an 2:101–102: “And now that an apostle has come to them from God confirming their own Scripture, some of those to whom the Scriptures were given cast off the Book of God behind their backs, as though they know nothing, and accept what the devils tell of Solomon's kingdom. Not that Solomon was an unbeliever: it is the devils who are unbelievers.”

75. According to Firdawsi, “All demons, birds and peris were subject to his command. ‘I am,’ he declared, ‘endowed with the divine Farr and at the same time both king and priest. I shall stay the hand of the evil-doers from evil, and I shall guide the alsoul towards light.’ … All men were obedient to the king's command and the world was pervaded by the pleasant sounds of music. And so years went until the royal Farr was wrested from him. The reason for it was that the king, who had always paid homage to God, now became filled with vanity and turned away from Him in forgetfulness of the gratitude he owed Him. He summoned those of his followers who were held in highest esteem and in these words addressed his nobles of long experience, ‘I recognize no lord but myself… . It is because of me that you have minds and souls in your bodies. And know that you are aware that all this was accomplished by me, it is your duty to entitle me Creator of the World.’ … But as soon as he had made his speech the Farr departed from him and the world became full of discord.” See The Epic of Kings: Shah-Nama, the National Epic of Persia by Ferdawsi, trans. Reuben Levy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), 9–11. For the Persian text see: Firdawsi, Shāhnāmah, ed. Hamidiyan (Tehran: Qatrah, 1374 Sh./1995), 1:42–50.

76. Avesta, ed. Jalil Doostkhah (Tehran: Murvarid, 1343 Sh./1964), “Zamyad yasht” 30–36, 294–95. Recounting such a view, Tabari wrote: “Jam became ungrateful for the favor shown him by God. He gathered the jinn and humans and informed them that he was in complete charge (walī and mālik) of them and that it was he who by his power was keeping diseases, old age decay, and death away from them. Denying God's benefaction to him, he persisted in his perversity, and nobody attending him (dared to) answer him. Immediatly, he lost his splendor and might, and the angels whom God had commanded to administer his affairs withdrew from him. Bewarasb, who is called Ḍaḥḥāk, became aware of that. He hurried to Jam to chew him up, but Jam fled. Bēwarāsb got hold of him afterwards. He tore out his innards and swallowed them and sawed him apart with a saw” (History 1:350).

77. Avesta, 294–95. See also Shāhnāmah 1:42–50.

78. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 77.

79. According to Bahram b. Farhad, “Siyamak had a son named Taz who is the forefather of all Arabs who are also called Tazi” (ibid.). In similar fashion he also Persianized Alexander by depicting him as a son of Nahid and Darab b. Bahman (Darab I) and constituted him as a Persian sage-king whose epistle appeard in the Dasātīr. The Dasatiri account of Alexdander differs from the Zoroastrian view of him as a destroyer of their religous texts. See Shāristān, 564 and 572.

80. Kh^wand Mir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 44.

81. According to Rawżat al-ṣafā, Faraydun “reigned for five hundred years, and was styled ‘Mubid, or Priest.’ Many of the Jews make him the same as Nimrod; which is also asserted by Abul Fuwáris, a most distinguished writer. Many historians reject this opinion, and say that Nimrod was an oppressive tyrant, and one of the governors appointed by the sanguinary Zahák in the regions of the West. Abúzáid Balkhí, in the Suwar-al-aklím (forms of Climates), says, that the Almighty, by a divine revelation, confirmed the mind of Feridoun, and raised him up for the purpose of bestowing peace on the world and the true Believers, and at the same time of punishing the barbarous Zahák” (Mir Kh^wand, History of the Early Kings of Persia, 151). See Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 83 for textual echoes of Rawżat al-ṣafā.

82. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 27, 29, 59, 73, 88, 130, 196, 200, 232–33. Remarking on the conflation of biblical with Persian figures, Edward Browe wrote: “The early Arab (i.e., Arabic-writing) historians, who for the most part endeavor to combine the Iranian with Semitic and biblical legends, commonly identify Jamshid with Solomon… . The most notable of these false identifications is that of Zoroaster with Abraham, and of the Avesta with the Ṣuḥuf (“Leaflets” or “Tracts“) supposed by the Muhammadans to have been revealed to him, and recognized by them as one of the five revelations made to the five great Prophets” (Literary History 1:112–13). Browne's remark seems to have been based on Shāristān

83. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 54. For the original reference see Mir Jamal al-Din Husayn Inju Shirazi, Farhang-i Jahāngīrī, ed. Rahim ‘Afifi (Mashhad: Mashhad University Press, 1359 Sh./1980), 1:22.

84. Bahram b. Farhad, Shāristān, 54–59, 60–62. The sexual othering of the Arabs is an important component of Iranian oral culture and is in need of serious study.

85. Ibid., 63, 65–68.

86. Ibid., 641, 656.

87. Dabistān, 19–20.

88. The Dabistan, 32. Transliterations have been altered.

89. See Tavakoli-Targhi, “Refashioning Iran,” 78–86.

90. Ā'īn-i Hūshang, comp. Darvish Fani, ed. Mirza Bahrain Rustam Nasrabadi (Bombay: n.p., 1296/1879). According to Mirza Bahram, the first edition of Ā'īn-i Hūshang was edited by ‘Abd al-'Ali Khan Shushtari, thirty years prior to the publication of his edition (p. 4).

91. Ibid., 2–31, 32–76, 77–148, 149–77. Authorship of Kh^wīshtāb is attributed to Hakim Pishtab, who is identified as a student of Sasan V. It was “translated” into Persian by Mawbad Hush, the tutor of Azar Kayvan's son Kaykhusraw Isfandyar (pp. 2–3). Zar-i dastafshdr was “translated” into Persian by Mubad Surush Dadpuyah b. Hush (see Dabistan, 27, 38). Zāyandah rūd is attributed to Zindah Azarm and was “translated” into Persian by Farzanah Khushi. Zawrah-yi bāstānī is attributed to Ibrahim Zardusht, “a prophet of Iran.” It was “translated” into Persian by Azar Pazhuh (p. 149).

92. Ibid., 191–92.

93. Tavakoli-Targhi, “Tārīkh-pardāzī va Īrān-ārāyī,” 583–628.

94. Among efforts for the reinvention of that history were Mahmud Mirza Qajar's Taẕkirah-yi salāṭīn, I'tizad al-Saltanah's Iksīr al-tavārīkh, Jalal al-Din Mirza's Nāmah-yi khusravān, I'timad al-Saltanah's Durar al-tījān fī tārīkh-i Banī al-Ashkān, Furughi's Tārīkh-i salāṭīn-i Sāsānī, Kirmani's Āyinah-yi Sikandarī, and Tusirkani's Farāzistān. Taẕkirah-yi salāṭīn began with Kayumars and concluded with the reign of Fath ‘Ali Shah Qajar. Iksīr al-tavārīkh, composed between 1253 and 1258 (1837–42), also began with Kayumars and ended with the reign of Muhammad Shah, who had commissioned the work. Nāmah-yi bāstān, clearly indebted to Dasātīr and Dabistān-i maẕāhib, also began with Kayumars, the first king, and ended with Nasir al-Din Shah.

95. In his introduction Fani argued that “Īrān-i mīnū nishān” was the best land on earth. He referred to Pars as the holy land (arż-i aqdas), claiming that the first human being emerged in Iran and that truth and God-worshipping and the principles of humanity and religiosity and liberation from animalistic characteristics and separation from demons also began from this country. See Ā'īn-i Hūshang, 8.

96. al-Saltanah, ‘Itimad, Durar al-tījān fī tārīkh-i Banī al-Ashkān, 3 vols. (Tehran: Dar al-intiba'at, 1309/1892), 1:4Google Scholar.

97. Akhundzadah to Jalal al-Din Mirza, 15 June 1870, in Alifbā-yi jadīd va maktūbāt, ed. Hamid Muhammadzadah (Tabriz: Nashr-i ihya, 1357 Sh./1978), 172, cited in Algar, Hamid, Mind Malkum Khan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 92Google Scholar.

98. Furughi, Tārīkh-i salāṭīn-i Sāsānī 1:5.

99. Ibid., 194.

100. Ibid. 2:196.