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Zusatztext 74647019 Informationen zum Autor Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami Klappentext Here is the first unabridged English translation of a major Indo-Persian epic: a panoramic tale of magic and passion! a classic hero's odyssey that has captivated much of the world. It is the spellbinding story of Amir Hamza! the adventurer who in the service of the Persian emperor defeats many enemies! loves many women! and converts hundreds of infidels to the True Faith before finding his way back to his first love. In Musharraf Ali Farooqi's faithful rendition! this masterwork is captured with all its colorful action and fantastic elements intact. Appreciated as the seminal Islamic epic or enjoyed as a sweeping tale as rich and inventive as Homer's epic sagas! The Adventures of Amir Hamza is a true literary treasure. Praise for The Adventures of Amir Hamza: "The Iliad and Odyssey of medieval Persia! a rollicking! magic-filled heroic saga... in an interpretation so fluent that it is a pleasure to sit down and lose oneself in it." -The New York Times Book Review "A marvelous dovetailing of fantasy! history and religion . . . This sensitive new translation by Musharraf Ali Farooqi is filled with lyrical resonance. . . . [Readers] will love losing themselves in this complex yet ancient world of the imagination." -The Washington Post Book World "It's hard to think of an epic more dazzlingly splendid . . . Farooqi has given world literature a gift." -Time "With prose as embroidered as the tales themselves! the book should be savored under the covers like a secret lover." -The Austin Chronicle "[A] revelatory translation of a masterpiece of world literature . . . unequivocally an amazing piece of publishing history." -The Buffalo News Chapter 1 The florid news writers, the sweet-lipped historians, revivers of old tales and renewers of past legends, relate that there ruled at Ctesiphon1 in Persia (image of Heaven!) Emperor Qubad Kamran, who cherished his subjects and was a succor to the impecunious in their distress. He was unsurpassed in dispensing justice, and so rigorous in this exercise that the best justice appeared an injustice compared to his decree. Prosperity and affluence thrived in his dominions while wrong and inequity slumbered in death, and, rara avis–like, mendicants and the destitute were extinct in his lands. The wealthy were at a loss to find an object for their charity. The weak and the powerful were equals, and the hawk and the sparrow roosted in the same nest. The young and the old sought one another’s pleasure, neither ever deeming himself the sole benefactor. The portals of houses remained open day and night like the eyes of the vigil, for if someone stole even the color of henna from the palm,2 he was ground in the mill of justice. The thief therefore did not even dream of thieving, and if perchance a wayfarer should come upon someone’s property on the road, he took it upon himself to restore it to its owner. Compared with Qubad Kamran’s fearlessness, might, and valor, Rustam was the same as a hag most decrepit and cowardly. This imperious monarch had forty viziers,3 who were the epitomes of learning, wisdom, and prudence; and seven hundred wise men before whom even the likes of Plato and Aristotle were abecedarians.4 All these viziers were peerless in intellect and cognition, and so accomplished in physics, arithmetic, ramal, jafar,5 and astrology that they did not consider the likes of Galen and Euclid and Pythagoras fit company for themselves, let alone their equals. The emperor had seven hundred privy counselors, each more adept than ancient masters in arts and letters and in the decorum of assembly. And at the emperor’s command were four thousand champion warriors, to whom Sam and Nariman and Rustam and Zal would alike present the sword of humility in combat and accept f...
