As part of events marking Ferdowsi Commemoration Day and celebrating Persian language and literature, Central BookCity hosted an analytical session entitled “War and Negotiation in the Shahnameh,” featuring Dr Nasrin Faqih Malek-Marzban.
Faqih Malek-Marzban, professor of Persian language and literature and a faculty member at Alzahra University, offered an in-depth examination of war and peace in the Shahnameh. Reading and citing passages from Ferdowsi’s epic, she identified az—greed and the desire for ever more—as one of the principal and most destructive motives behind war in Ferdowsi’s view. She then explained its different forms and manifestations across the stories of the Shahnameh.
The lecture also considered different forms of diplomacy and negotiation in the Shahnameh, classified the kinds of war represented in the work, and connected these classical themes with contemporary social and human concerns.
