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ZĀL (also called Dastān, Zar, and Zāl-e Zar), legendary
prince of Sistān, father of Rostam, and a leading paladin of the
Iranian traditional history. His story is given in the Šāh-nāma (partially retold in prose by Yarshater, 1959, pp. 83-9, 93-133), so closely paralleled in Ṯaʿālebi’s Ḡorar (pp. 68-10, 114, 119-22, 127-9, 138-41, 143 ff., 355-57, 379 ff., 383-88) as to suggest a common source, the Šah-nāma-ye Abu
Manṣuri. Sām, lord of Sistān and the chief paladin of Iran, had no
child. A woman of his harem gave birth to a beautiful boy whose “hair
was all white.” Sām was ashamed, likening the infant to a child of “dēv” or “Ahriman” (Šāh-nāma,
ed. Khaleghi, I, pp. 164, v. 45, p. 166, vv. 63, 65; all references are
to this edition and volume unless given otherwise), and
he abandoned it on the Alborz Mountain, but the fabulous bird,
Simorḡ, which nested there, nursed the boy, and he grew to become a
dashingly handsome young man endowed with great physical power and a
brilliant mind, whom travelers saw and admired (I,
pp.167-68). One night Sām dreamt that a mounted warrior rode in
from India and informed him that he had a grown-up son. Sām consulted
wise men, but they all blamed him for having destroyed his God-given
child. Again he dreamt that from the mountain of India there appeared
an army led by a youth flanked by a Zoroastrian priest (mōbad)
and an advisor, and that these companions condemned his act: “If you
needed a bird as the nurse for your son, what use of this royal and
heroic state? If white hair is a cause of shame, what say you of your
own white hair and beard?” Profoundly ashamed, Sām went to the Alborz,
besought God for forgiveness, and discovered his son: “a figure worthy
of royal crown and throne, with side and arms of a lion, Sun-like face,
heroic heart, sword-seeking hands, deep black eyes and lashes,
coralloid lips and (red-)blood face (I, pp. 169-73, vv. 104-49). The
youth was unwilling at first to leave Simorḡ, but the bird assured him
of a glorious future, and gave him samples of his feather, which
contained God-given fortune (farr), to use when in peril: “put one of my feathers onto fire, at once shall you behold my farr” (I, pp. 171-72). The boy, now called Dastān (cf. Yarshater, 1983, pp. 432, 453), Zāl, or Zar, (on zar “old,” see Bailey, Dictionary, p. 346) or Zāl-e zar, came with Sām to Sistān and was clothed in a paladin’s garb (pahlavāni qabāy).
King Manučehr heard the wonderful story and summoned Zāl to his court and recognized that he possessed the Royal Glory (farr-e kayān), the heart of the wise, and the courage of a lion” (I
p. 175). The story of Simorḡ and Zāl “spread throughout the
world” (ibid., p. 176, v. 185), and court astronomers cast his
horoscope and
predicted that he would be a mighty and wise paladin. The king
invested Sām with “a throne of turquoise and crown of gold, a ruby
signet-ring and golden girdle,” made him lord over “the whole of Kabul,
Donbor, Māy and Hend, from Zābolestān to the other side of Bost,” and
entitled him the chief paladin (jahān pahlavān) (I, pp. 177-78).
All these Sām delegated to Zāl when they returned to Zābolestān as he
himself had to lead an expedition against the Gorgsārs and Māzandarān.
Zāl ruled with justice and became an avid learner and surpassed others
in mastering astronomy, religion, and art of war (I, pp. 178-81). Zāl
met and fell in love with Rudāba, daughter of Mehrāb, king of Kabul,
and married her after overcoming many difficulties and proving his
skills in horsemanship, archery, and other military traits as well as
in explaining some (Zurvanite) riddles (Zaehner, pp. 242-44, 444-46) at
the court of Manučehr. Zāl and Rudāba begot two sons, Rostam and
Zavāra. Later a slave girl from Kabul bore Zāl another son, Šaḡād (V,
pp. 241-42).
The career of Zāl span the entire Kayanid period
(Yarshater, 1983, pp., 373-74, 377, 389, 432). He served as a military
commander under all kings, but usually in an advisory role, and was
regarded as the last bastion of hope. He defeated two Turanian paladins
who had attacked Mehrāb at Kabul, clashed with Afrāsiāb (q.v.) after
the murder of Nowḏar, rejected Ṭus and Gostahm in favor of electing Zaw
as the successor of Nowḏar, and sent Rostam to fetch Kay Qobād from the
Alborz mountain and offered him the crown, thereby establishing the
Kayanid dynasty (I, pp. 309-14, 317-27, 338-44). He initially opposed
Kay Ḵosrow’s nomination of Lohrāsp as heir to the throne and played
host to Goštāsp for two years (Daqiqi, in Šāh-nāma V, pp.
171-72), tried to dissuade Rostam from fighting Esfandiār (V, pp.
371-72), and when he saw his son severely wounded and his family
threatened, he once more appealed
to Simorḡ for help. Guided by the bird, Rostam killed
Esfandiār, but he and Zavāra fell victim to Šaḡād’s treachery and were
killed (V, pp. 396-422, 442-56). Bahman, son of Esfandiār (qq.v.), then
invaded Sistān, overthrew the house of Rostam, imprisoned Zāl, and took
his treasures, but released him after his own uncle, Pašōtan,
intervened on his behalf (V, pp. 471-83). But Masʿudi of Marv, who had
composed a versed Šāh-nāma early in the 10th century stated (apud Ṯaʿālebi, GÚorar, p. 388; cf. Ṭabari, I, p. 687 and Maʿudi, Moruj II, p. 127), that Bahman killed Zāl and slaughtered his family. Epic narratives other than the Šāh-nāma (e.g., Bahman-nāma, Farāmarz-nāma, Borzu-nāma (qq.v.) and Šahriār-nāma; see GŌDARZIĀN) ascribe to Zāl many heroic deeds, especially in wars with Afrāsiāb and Bahman. The Mojmal al-tawāriḵ (ed. Bahār, p. 54) asserts that Zāl wrote several books on the history of the House of Bahman and maligned Goštāsp. The Tāriḵ-e Sistān (ed. Bahār, pp. 22-23) states that Zarang owed its name and prosperity to Zāl-e Zar, and according to the Bundahišn (36.40; tr. Markwart, Provincial Capitals,
p. 52), Sām divided his realm between his six sons, giving Sistān and
the region of south (Nimrōz) to the leading one, Dastān, Aparšahr to
Aparnak, Rey to Ḵosrow, Patišxwārgar to Mārgandag, Isfahan to Sparnag,
and Asōrestān to Damnag.
The origins of the stories about the House of Rostam go
back to the Saka people (Yarshater, 1983, pp. 454-55), but there are
reasons for connecting the names of these brothers with the names of
the provinces of the Parthian Empire and seeing the fully developed
accounts of the House of Rostam as reflections of an Arsacid family
which ruled over Zarang (Old Pers. Zarannka, Gk. Drangiana, the old
Sistān; Kent, Old Persian, p. 211) and was annihilated by Ardašir I, the historical model of Ardašir Bahman (Shahbazi, pp.158-59).
Unaware of the reports on Zāl’s death, some have considered him as the manifestation of eternity, connecting zāl/zar
with Zurwan, god of Time (Wikander, pp. 324-26). It is more probable,
however, that Zāl/Zar was named after the land Zarang (cf. Zar-bānu
“Lady of Zar,” a daughter of Rostam: Irānšāh, pp. 210, 270-73; for an
attempt to explain Dastān as a compound *dast-tanu “with a capable body” or as representing a family name “of the descendants of *Dast’,” see Skjærvø, pp. 165-63).
Zāl’s personality has been the subject of much
speculation. Šehāb-al-Din Sohrevardi explained him as a mystic figure
(Parhām, pp. 334-47, with literature). His white hair at birth would
have been viewed as a sign of future greatness, similar to the case of
Pābak, father of Ardašir, who was born with long hair (Ṭabari, I, 814),
which his mother took as presaging future glory (Balʿami, ed. Bahār,
pp. 875-76). The nursing by a mighty bird was another sign of unusual
fame and achievement, analogous to the legend of the rearing of
Achaemenes (q.v.) by an eagle (Aelianus, Nature of Animals
12.21, with Spiegel, II, p. 262; cf. Nöldeke, p. 4). These stories are
common-place with the type of “the feared child,” whose lordly sire is
warned by signs of the infant’s future greatness and tries to dispose
of him but fails because the child is saved and reared by a miraculous
beast and finally replaces the guilty potentate (Yarshater, 1991, pp.
67-68). That some revered Zāl as an extraordinary, wise and mystic
personality is borne out by the fact that to this day the mystic order
of Ahl-e Ḥaqq (q.v.) in Kurdistan regard Simorḡ, Zāl, and Rostam as the
duns, the incarnation of the light of God. And the Malek Ṭāwusi
tribes of northwestern Iran, Iraq and Syria also count Kāva, Zāl,
Rostam, and Simorḡ as the incarnations of Malek Ṭāwus, himself the
highest manifestation of God on earth (see, with literature, Amir
Moʿezzi, p. 80).
Bibliography: Moḥammad-ʿAli Amir Moʿezzi, “Nokāt-i čand dar bār-ye taʿābir-e ʿerfāni-e Šāh-nāma,”Iran-nāma/Iran Nameh 10/1, Winter 1992, pp. 76-82. Irānšāh/Irānšān b. Abi’l-Ḵayr, Bahma-nāma, ed. Raḥim ʿAfifi, Tehran, 1991. Marijan Molé, “Le partage de monde dans la tradition iranienne,” JA, 240, 1952, pp. 455-63. Theodor Nöldeke, Das iranisches Nationalepos,
2nd rev. ed., Leipzig, 1920. Bāqer Parhām, “Taʾammol-i dar taʿbir-e
Sohravardi az sar-anjām-e nabard-e Esfandiār bā Rostam dar Šāh-nāma wa āṯār wa natāyej-e ān dar tāriḵ-e andiša wa siāsat dar Irān,” Iran-šenāsi/Iranshenasi 5/2, Summer 1993, pp. 324-52. A. Shapur Shahbazi, “The Parthian Origins of the House of Rostam,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, N.S. 7, 1993, pp. 155-63. Prods Oktor Skjærvø, “Eastern Iranian Epic Traditions,” AAASH 51, 1998, pp. 159-70. Friedrich Spiegel, Erânische Altertumskunde, 3vols., Leipzig, 1871-78. Stig Wikander, Śur les fonds commun indo-iranien des épopées de la Perse et de l’Inde,” La Novelle Clio 2, 1950, pp. 300-29. Ehsan Yarshater, Dāstānhā-ye Šāh-nāma, Tehran, 1959. Idem, “The Feared Child in Iranian Mythology,” K. R. Cama Oriental Institute International Congress Proceedings (5th to 8th January 1989), Bombay, 1991, pp. 65-68. Idem, “Iranian National History,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III, pp. 359-477. Robert Charles Zaehner, Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, Oxford, 1955.
(A. SHAPUR SHAHBAZI)
February 19, 2004 |