Investigating the origin of Hamzanāma’s folk epic in comparison with Bahrām Chōbīn

Hamzamehnāmah is one of the Persian folk tales published in different languages, in prose and verse, in the Islamic world. By collecting historical data and while examining and commenting on the origins of this oral epic, this study examines descriptively and analytically the historical documents on its origin. According to historical documents, the review of literature on Hamzamnāmeh as a literary genre in Persian literature and its various writings show that the origins of this story correspond to the events of Sasānian Iran. For the first time, the authors of the present research have tried to compare the origin of Hamzanāmeh in the Sassānid era with the epic story of Bahrām Chobin and have attempted to describe the similarity of this work to a lost epic of pahlavi literature called Bahrām Chōbīn book. This analogy compares all the historical events in which Hamzah is present with the historical narrative of Bahram Chōbīn and shares any similarities. By examining the probability of the Sasānian origins for this story, it is possible to make this hypothesis that the story of Hamzah has been implemented based on the free translation of Bahrām's Pahlavi story into Arabic (with many intermediaries), or at least into Arab folk literature, the myths of Bahrām has had a direct influence on the formation of Hamza's oral epic, although the popular principle of the work gradually took on an Arab-Islamic character.