A Glance at the Prose and Verse Iskandarnama

The story of Alexander, though having a definite historical foundation, is mixed with strange episodes which are superstitious and some having epical elements. Same traces of Alexanderian literature can be found in Greek, Arabic and Iranian literature.Kallisthenes, a Greek historian and philosopher, who was Alexander’s comrade during his studies in Greece, wrote about his victories. However, he failed to thoroughly admire him and introduce him as a God. Thus, Kallisthens fell victim to Alexander’s anger, and was imprisoned, and died in prison. Accordingly, a novel was written on the basis of the said event in 7th century, and later was translated to Pahlavanic, Syrian, Arabic and Persian.There are similarities between the Arabic version of the story and its Persian one. Also there is a similarity between this and Nezami’s Alexander story. In this article, an effort has been made to give an account of the differences and commonalities between these two versions of the same book which are in verse and prose