Telling a Different Story: Redeployment of the Narrative Alexander Tradition in a Medieval Persian Dāstān

This article explores the remaniement of three episodes current in the Perso-Arabic Alexander tradition-i.e., Eskandar's confrontation with the Indian king Fur; Eskandar's visit to Queen Qeydāfeh; and Eskandar's encounter with the Gymnosophists-in the anonymous Persian Eskandarnāmeh, a medieval epic narrative in prose (dāstān; ca. 12^th-14^th c.). Through extensive comparative evidence from other genres, primarily narrative poetry (Ferdowsi's Shāhnāmeh, Nezāmi's Sharafnāmeh and Eqbālnāmeh), mirabilia ('ajāyeb), and exegetical works (qesas al-anbeyā' and tafsir), this study engages with how the modalities of the dāstān genre, with its strong leaning towards traditional oral storytelling, affect the narrative choices Eskandarnāmeh's author makes in treating these themes. In so doing, this article attempts to develop a more informed assessment of the strategies and devices which, activated both on the production and reception planes, generate competing interpretations of well-known plots recast in different narrative modes.