Haft Qalʿa; Unknown Epic of Shia from the Fifth Century AH

Persian epic texts are one of the most important and influential genres in literary research that recognizing and correcting its abandoned manuscripts has a decisive role in expanding the history of Persian literature. Meanwhile, according to Persian written sources, after the entrance of Islam into Iran, the diversity and multiplicity of religious epics is more than other epic aspects. However, the poverty of knowledge and research in religious sectarian Persian has caused many characteristics and their values remain unclear. The present article seeks to introduce one of the most important Persian religious epics. Husun al Sabea (Seven fortresses) called in Persian: Haft Qalʿa is one of the ancient narrative stories of Arabic literature in the fifth century AH that has narrated by Abu’l-Hassan Al-Bakri and based on important role of Imam Ali in The battle of Khaybar. This special monograph, in spite of the fact that the first independent narrative of The Seven Phases (called Haft Khan Test) in Persian and Arabic literature is considered to be the first Shia epic prose due to its ancient history and origin, such as: Ali Nama. Now we have found some prose and verse manuscripts of this epic in Persian which dates back to the tenth century AH. In this research, with regard to the outstanding features of the epic of Haft Qalʿa, we tried to introduce the narrator's profile and some of its important aspects in two parts.