SOURCE: “Firdausî's Concept of History,” in Islam: Essays in the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1955, pp. 168-84.

In the following essay, Von Grunebaum studies Ferdowsi's portrayal of Persian history, arguing that the poet's aim was to generate a feeling of national unity by portraying the “oneness” of Iran's past.

It is only when it is drawing to its close or even after it has passed away that a creative age will receive that literary representation that will be felt thenceforth to constitute the valid embodiment of its spirit, its aspirations, and its self-interpretation. Iliad and Odyssey follow rather than accompany the efflorescence of the civilization that has come to be known, for them, as Homeric. Virgil sings the mission of Rome at the very moment when, to him, this mission has been accomplished and when, to us, stagnation and decline...