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Shahnama (Book of Kings)
Composed by Abu al-Qasim Firdawsi, the Shahnama has been at the summit of Persian literature since it was completed in the early 11th century.
This illuminated nineteenth-century Indian copy of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) is preserved in a Kashmiri-style lacquer binding decorated with floral designs. The binding bears the signature of the master lacquer artist ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Mughal, together with the inscription: "The work of ʿAzīz Mughal, in the year 1252 AH (1836–37 AD), by order of the Honourable Colonel Sahib."
Composed by Abu al-Qasim Firdawsi, the Shahnama has been at the summit of Persian literature since it was completed in the early 11th century. The result of more than three decades of labour, the epic comprises around 60,000 rhyming couplets. Revered as the paramount Persian national epic, it interweaves myth, legend and history narrating the reigns of Persian kings from the creation of the world to the fall of the Sasanian Empire during the Arab conquest of Persia.
[Source: Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia]
