Shahnameh

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The Shahnameh, also romanized Shahnama (lit. 'Book of Kings'), is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couplets (two-line verses), the Shahnameh is one of the world's longest epic poems, and the longest epic poem created by a single author. It tells of the mainly mythical but to some extent historical past of Iran from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic. It took Ferdowsi 33 years to complete the Shahnameh in its entirety. The work is of central importance in Persian culture and Persian language. It is regarded as a literary masterpiece, and is the definitive work of the ethno-national cultural identity of Iran.

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