The Persian Prose Alexander Romance

Alexander the Great is the glorious hero of numerous legends in different eras and cultures. Iranians saw their glorious ancient empire conquered by Alexander and in Islamic times the Iranian view of Alexander turned Alexander to a glorious Muslim champion-a king and prophet, the ideal champion who came to personify the Iranian worldview on various themes, such as love and fate. The image of Muslim Alexander in the Iranian literary and popular tradition forms a substantial part of this book, which analyzes the Iskandarnma (Book of Alexander), the oldest prose version of the Alexander romance in the Persian tradition (eleventh century AD).