Shah Namae, the story of Zal, introduction with Dr. Sahaffa Shoyoni. How are you today?

Just going to be Saba, please.

Yes, Sathb.

Well, thank you for joining me today.

This is a very exciting new series that we have.

We're going to be talking about the Shah Nama.

Which, for those of you who don't know what that means, it means the

book or the letter, the story, the book of kings. Okay, the book of kings. Yeah. So this is going to be

a first, hopefully, of a series of many of the stories of the Shah Nama, but in this part one,

we're going to focus on the story of Zal.

And so, Sahpa, if you can give us an introduction to the Shah Nome and tell us what we're

going to be talking about today.

Of course, of course.

Thank you again for having me.

It's wonderful to be here.

So the Shahname is in a way the, well, it is the magnum opus of Ferdozzi. Ferdozzi was the poet of it,

and it was completed in 1010 CE, so in the 11th century. Now, new Persian, which we speak today,

begins to be formed in the 9 and in the ninth century, essentially.

So in 670, you have the Arab or the, you know, the Muslim conquest of Iran.

And that's when Arabic enters sort of the field, the Persianate field as a dominant language.

And so little by little through the centuries, Persian begins to evolve. And by

the 9th century, we have what we call new Persian, which is the Persian that we speak today. This is

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