September 2015 | BIPS Travel Grant

In November 2015 I was given a generous grant by BIPS to go to Tehran to conduct research in libraries on illustrations to the romance of Alexander the Great in Persian literature, which is the subject of my recently submitted University of Exeter doctoral dissertation (2015) entitled “The Alexander Romance in the Persian Tradition: Its Influence on Persian History, Epic and Storytelling.” Over the Christmas and new Years’ break (2015-16), I managed to travel to Tehran and conduct my research without any problems.

The first institute that I visited was the Kitabkhana-ye melli (National Library of Iran) where I spent several days looking up in the computerized card catalogue for all possible manuscripts relating to Alexander. Unfortunately, it took me two full days of argumentation and discussion to become a member of the library in order to have access to the manuscripts. Finally, after viewing my online academic profile on the University of Exeter, the librarian there granted me a two-week temporary membership, which allowed me to have access to digitalized copies of all manuscripts in the National Library. I immediately found several old manuscripts of the Shahnama of Firdawsi, which the librarian download on to their library’s computer for me, so that I could search through them for their illustrations. I located over ten different illustrations of the Alexander Romance in various copies of the Shahnama there, all of which they allowed me to copy and download on to a CD for only 2,000 rials per folio (approx. 2 pence a folio). As BIPS members may know, Iranian libraries do not charge any copyright fees in general; in order to reproduce folios and illustrations, one can simply cite their source and send them a copy of the publications for their records.

Next, I visited the Farhangistan-e Adab-e Farsi (Academy for the Study of Persian Literature) where I met with Dr. Khatibi, a leading expert on the Shahnama. He was incredibly kind and helpful to me, generously putting aside many hours of his time to discuss my project and interests in the history and legends of Alexander. He personally gave me digital copies of several rare illustrated manuscripts of the Shahnama that he owned and directed me to other institutions in Iran which he thought would help me.

My next stop was the Kitabkhana-ye Malek (Malek Library). On asking to access their manuscripts, I only needed to prove my status as a doctoral candidate to them, and as with the National Library of Iran, it sufficed to simply show them my online academic profile. However, they did not require me to become a member. Here I made a major discovery, which was a rare illustrated manuscript of the Dhakirat al-Iskandar (Treasury of Alexander), a hermetic text attributed to Aristotle and handed down to Alexander [ADD DETAILS]. It contained _ folios, of which there were five illustrations. There were no other interesting manuscripts related to the Alexander Romance in this library.

I then visited the Majles Library, and thanks to my two-week membership of the Kitabkhana-ye melli I was allowed to access all their manuscripts as well, and discovered two illustrated manuscripts of the Shahnama, which together contained various miniatures of the Alexander Romance. However, I only spent a day there, because their collection proved to be somewhat limited for my purposes.

My next visit was to the Kitabkhana-y Kakh-e Golestan (Golestan Palace Library), which by far housed the best collection of illustrated manuscripts concerning Alexander. Unfortunately, their catalogue was not digitalized and their rules and regulations regarding both viewing and making copies of manuscripts make scholarly research prohibitively difficult. For instance, I wanted to view the five illustrated manuscripts of Khameh of Nizami housed in their collection, but they refused to allow me to view the manuscripts, and see the miniatures therein. The librarian offered to send me a copy of two illustrations by email, but both refused to tell me which ones and see them. I still have hope that at least these illustrations (whatever they are) will be sent to me.

After exploring and exhausting the resources in all the various libraries in Tehran, I next turned to the second-hand bookshops in the Khiyaban-e Inqilab district, spending several days combing through their shelves. I stumbled upon a publisher’s bookshop called Nashr-e Shahnama (Shahnama Publications) where I found a rare book on the Iskandar-nama-ye haft-jildi (Seven Volume Book of Alexander). This rare book was quite expensive but I bought it anyway, since it is an essential source for the motifs of chivalry (Javanmardi) relating to the Alexander Romance in Persian Literature.

Altogether my trip to Iran was extremely productive, and has actually enabled to obtain all the illustrated material I need for my research project on illustrations of the Alexander Romance in Persian literature, legend and historiography. Without BIPS’s support, for which I remain extremely grateful, my research would certainly have not succeeded.

Haila Manteghi