Iskandar-nama, bakhsh-i Khata

The Persian Iskandar-nama or Alexander romance is a collection of mostly legendary stories about Alexander the Great, whose core narrative goes back to a Greek account of his life and accomplishments, written between the third century BCE and the first century CE. In the Persian tradition, the work distinguishes itself from its Greek model in that Alexander is described as half-Persian and half-Greek, and also in that he is often identified with the prophet Dhu 'l-Qarnayn mentioned in the Qur?an, besides the introduction of all manner of local motifs and elements. There exist various versions of this romance in Persian, both in poetry and in prose, the oldest ones dating from the 4th/11th (Firdawsi, Shah-nama) and 6th/12th (Tarsusi, Darab-nama) centuries, respectively. The present work is one of seven chapters of a popular prose version in story-teller fashion dating from the Safavid era in which earlier, traditional themes are often overshadowed by elements introduced for entertainment.