A Reappraisal of the Birth Year of Sabā and the Formation of His Epic Poems

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 PhD Candidate in Persian Language and Literature, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran.

2 Corresponding author, Associate Professor, Persian Language and Literature, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran.

10.22034/perlit.2026.69920.3885

Abstract

Fath-ʿAli Xān Sabā Kāšāni was a pioneering court poet of the Qājār era, and his legacy—beyond his panegyrics—finds its fullest manifestation in two extensive epic poems: Šāhanšāhnāme and Xodāvandnāme, which hold a distinctive place among Qājār epics. Nevertheless, what has made an exact understanding of Sabā difficult is the disagreement regarding the date of his birth and the time of the composition of these two epics—an issue that has remained unresolved in literary and historical research. Therefore, the study of this subject gains both importance and necessity, for beyond determining the year of Sabā’s birth and the dates of the epics’ composition, it reveals the process of their development. It can also move beyond the one-dimensional perspective of earlier studies—which have been confined merely to poems or biographical anthologies—and open new horizons of inquiry. The present study has been conducted through a descriptive-analytical method, and data have been collected using library-based research. The collected evidence has then been evaluated within a comparative framework; thus, it may be said that this research adopts an integrative approach. By examining textual evidence alongside external accounts-such as the reports of contemporaries and biographers-together with codicological clues and the political and military events of the time, a more precise estimation of Sabā’s year of birth and the approximate chronology of the epics’ composition has been achieved. In addition, the hypothesis has been proposed that Šāhanšāhnāme underwent revision and reorganization, while Xodāvandnāme remained unfinished.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Persian Language and Literature

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 02 March 2026

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History

  • Receive Date: 28 October 2025
  • Revise Date: 28 February 2026
  • Accept Date: 30 January 2026
  • Publish Date: 02 March 2026

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