Rostam / Shahnameh

Rostam or Rustam (Persian: رُستَم‎, pronounced [ɾos'tæm, ɾʊs'tæm]), son of Zal and Rudaba, is the most celebrated legendary hero in Shahnameh and Iranian mythology. In Shahnameh, Rostam and his predecessors are Marzbans of Sistan (present-day Iran and Afghanistan). Rostam is best known for his tragic fight with Esfandiar; the other legendary Iranian hero, for his expedition to Mazandaran (not to be confused with the modern Mazandaran province); and for tragically fighting and killing his son, Sohrab, without knowing who his opponent is. Rostam was eventually killed by Shaghad, his half-brother.

Rostam was always represented as the mightiest of Iranian paladins (holy warriors), and the atmosphere of the episodes in which he features is strongly reminiscent of the Parthian period. He was immortalized by the 10th-century Persian poet Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh, or Epic of Kings, which contains pre-Islamic Iranian folklore and history.

The Shahnameh or Shahnama (Persian: شاهنامه‎ Šāhnāmeh, pronounced [ʃɒːhnɒːˈme], "The 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 verses,[1] the Shahnameh tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian empire from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century. Today Iran, Afghanistan and the greater region influenced by the Persian culture (such as Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, and Dagestan) celebrate this national epic.
The work is of central importance in Persian culture, regarded as a literary masterpiece, and definitive of the ethno-national cultural identity of modern-day Iran and Afghanistan. It is also important to the contemporary adherents of Zoroastrianism, in that it traces the historical links between the beginnings of the religion with the death of the last Sassanid ruler of Persia during the Muslim conquest and an end to the Zoroastrian influence in Iran.