Introduction
The Author and His World
Firdausi: the life
Firdausi: the legend
Firdausi in the Four Discourses
The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha
Firdausi's world
The Shahnama
An overview
The role of women
The prosody
The Role of Patronage
Who was Ibrahim Sultan?
The commissioning of MS Ouseley Add. 176
Problems of dating
The evidence of the Preface
Illustrated Shahnamas of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
The earliest surviving manuscripts
Manuscript production in Shiraz
Book art in the fifteenth century
The Shahnama in poetic anthologies
The context of Ibrahim Sultan's Shahnama
The Manuscript of Ibrahim Sultan's Shahnama
Description of the manuscript
Frontispieces and preliminary materials
Illuminations
Diagonal script
Rubrics
Marginal rulings
The text
Illustrating an Epic: Miniatures of the Shahnama Stories
The Paintings and Their Significance
Choice of subjects and rate of illustration
Variety of format
The impact of the manuscript
The date of MS Ouseley Add. 176
Glossary
Bibliography
Further Reading
English translations of the Shahnama
Notes