Jahangirnameh

Jahangirnameh (Persian: جهانگیرنامه "Story of Jahangir") is an epic poem in the Persian language which relates the story of Jahangir son of Rostam. It is composed in the same meter as the Shahnameh. The author mentions his name as Qāsem-e Mādeḥ in one of the last couplets of the poem. Composed in Herat, it contains nearly 3,600 couplets. It was published in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1309/1886.^[1]

It should not be confused with another work often called the "Jahangirnameh" but also the Tuzk-e-Jahangiri. This is the autobiography or memoirs of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1569-1627) in Persian prose.

Unlike other poems in Persian, Jahangirnameh contains a relatively high number of Arabic loanwords, and the stories also were under Islamic influence. According to Zabihullah Safa, this indicates that the poem is composed in the late 6th century AH or early 7th century AH. The poem seems to be largely an imitation of the Borzu Nama. In both stories, Rostam's son is brought up in Turan by Turanians and unknowingly fights against his Iranian compatriots. But at the end, he is recognized by the Iranians and then joins the Iranian army. Later, he is killed by a demon when hunting.^[2]

Modern scholarship situates the Jahāngīr-nāma within the post-Shāhnāmeh epic tradition of eastern Iran, noting both its imitation of earlier heroic cycles and its comparatively heavier use of Arabic vocabulary and Islamic motifs.^[3] Recent studies describe the poem’s narrative confrontations and character dynamics as continuations of the Persian epic idiom after Ferdowsi, while reflecting the literary milieu of Herat and the later Persianate courts.^[4] A Persian text of the work attributed to Qāsem-e Mādeḥ is available in open-access form and has been used by researchers to corroborate plot details and dictional features.^[5] For broader contextualization of late and post-classical Persian epics that mention or classify the Jahāngīr-nāma, see also surveys of the Iranian epic tradition.^[6]