Farrokhi or Mokhtāri? Completion, Adaptation or Plagiarism? (Exploring the Identity of the Real Author of Shahriār-nāma and Describing the Relation between the First and Second Versions)

Shahriār-nāma is one of the most remarkable Persian epics. In spite of many years of research in this regard, still there are fundamental ambiguities about it: the attribute of the work to some other famous poets, speculations about the exact time of its compilation from the sixth to the twelfth century (the end of Safavid dynasty), a hypothesis of the two long parts and a long and short pieces that the second part of the Shahriār-nāma was the a continuation of the first part. In this research, these theories are discussed and criticized. In this essay, for the first time, all four manuscripts of the Shahriār-nāma were carefully studied. According to the content of the work and other woks, it became clear that the main poet of Shahriār-nāma, named Farrokhi, lived in the ninth or tenth century or even some centuries earlier, who donated his to a king called Mahmoudshah. Some unknown events have caused, after the death of Farrokhi, another poet seemed to be called Mokhtāri, assumed the book. Making the work smaller, making slight or big changes in lexicon, syntax and images of the verses, and shortening the text, Mokhtāri plagiarized and reversified the work. He assumed the book and present it as a new work to the son of previous king, called Masoud.