''Abu-Mansuri Shahnameh'' or ''The Shahnameh of Abu-Mansur'' ( fa, شاهنامهٔ ابومنصوری) was a prose epic and history of

Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

before

Muslim conquests The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( ar, الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, ), also referred to as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. He estab ...

. It was the main source of ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 5 ...

'' of

Ferdowsi , image = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran 3 (cropped).jpg , image_size = , caption = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus by Abolhassan Sadighi , birth_date = 940 , birth_place = Tus, Samanid Empire , death_date = 1019 or 1025 (87 years old) , d ...

. The ''Shahnameh'' of Abu-Mansur is now lost, but its preface which consists of 15 pages, has survived and is one of the oldest examples of Persian prose and is considered one of the most valuable heritages of

Persian literature Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources h ...

. The ''Shahnameh'' of Abu-Mansur was composed at the order of

Abu Mansur Muhammad Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Razzaq ibn 'Abdallah ibn Farrukh, also simply known as Abu Mansur Muhammad and Ibn 'Abd al-Razzaq, was an Iranian aristocrat who served the Samanids during the most of career, and briefly served as governor of Azerbai ...

in 346 AH (April 957 AD). It was composed by four

mowbed A Mobed, Mowbed, or Mobad (Middle Persian: 𐭬𐭢𐭥𐭯𐭲) is a Zoroastrian cleric of a particular rank. Unlike an ''herbad'' (''ervad''), a ''mobed'' is qualified to serve as celebrant priest at the Yasna ceremony and other higher liturgical ...

s: ''Old Mākh'' from

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safē ...

, Yazdāndād son of Shāpur from

Sistan Sistān ( fa, سیستان), known in ancient times as Sakastān ( fa, سَكاستان, "the land of the Saka"), is a historical and geographical region in present-day Eastern Iran ( Sistan and Baluchestan Province) and Southern Afghanistan ( ...

, Shāhooy-e Khorshid son of Bahrām from

Nishapur Nishapur or officially Romanized as Neyshabur ( fa, ;Or also "نیشاپور" which is closer to its original and historic meaning though it is less commonly used by modern native Persian speakers. In Persian poetry, the name of this city is wri ...

, Shādān son of Barzin from Tus. Before Ferdowsi,

Abu-Mansur Daqiqi Abu Mansur Daqiqi ( fa, ابومنصور دقیقی), better simply known as Daqiqi (), was one of the most prominent Persian poets of the Samanid era. He was the first to undertake the creation of the national epic of Iran, the Shahnameh, but w ...

tried to versify the ''Shahnameh of Abu-Mansur'', but he died after writing almost 1000 verses. Ferdowsi has included these 1000 verses in his ''Shahnameh''.

References

Shahnameh 10th-century books Lost books {{Iran-hist-stub