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Jamali: Khamsa (Quintet) (1465)

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Taken from: Oriente moderno, Volume 15, Issue 2, Part 2 by Istituto per l'oriente. (also written Gamali Hamsah)

 

Has five poems the last one is an Iskander nama. The protagonist here is not Alexander, but Anusang (1) (or Manusang), king of Iran, and the struggle which occupies the entire extant part of the poem is not against Darius (2) but against the Kaqan (3), i.e. the king of Turan (4).

But his first victory is also against the Zangi, the black anthropophagists, here placed in India. On the way back Gadanfur (nickname of Anusang) builds a town in which he settles the numerous Zangi prisoners, and calls it Zangistan, but today it is called Sistan (5).

(1) Anusang (or Manusang: literally meaning companionship;

(2) Darius: Darius III ( c. 380 – 330 BC) In 334 BC, Alexander the Great began his invasion of the Persian Empire. Before Alexander caught Darius he was killed by his relative Bessus.

(3) Kaqan: title of a ruler in the nomadic societies in Eurasia.

(4) Turan: is a historical region in Central Asia. The original Turanians were an Iranian tribe of the Avestan age.

(5) Sistan: the border region of eastern Iran.

 

A battle scene from the manuscript.