The Shahnameh atlas · The heroic age
Isfijab (Sepijab)
سپیجابVarazad's kingdom, where Rostam's war of vengeance for Siyavash begins
- A real place the poem names
- Varazad, Faramarz, Rostam, Afrasiab, Gudarz
Sepijab appears in the poem as one of the lands Afrasiab holds on the side of Iran. When he makes peace with Siyavash, he gives up Bukhara, Sughd, Samarkand, Chach and Sepijab to show good faith, a peace that Kay Kavus refuses to accept.
After Siyavash is killed, Sepijab is the first kingdom in the path of Rostam's army. Its king, Varazad, rides out with thirty thousand swordsmen and asks the Iranian vanguard who they are. Rostam's son Faramarz answers that his father is coming to avenge Siyavash, unhorses Varazad with his lance and cuts off his head, calling it the first head of vengeance. Soon afterwards Afrasiab's son Sorkheh, sent against Faramarz with thirty thousand more, is taken prisoner and put to death as Siyavash was. When Rostam has driven Afrasiab out of Turan, he gives Sughd and Sepijab to the old hero Gudarz, with authority from Sepijab to the river Golzaryun.
The name is that of Isfijab, a town known to the medieval Muslim geographers on the north-eastern edge of Transoxiana, beyond the Syr Darya, where the settled lands met the steppe. Its site is generally placed at Sayram, an old town near Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan. The point here marks Sayram.
The tales told hereداستانها
Rostam avenges Siyavashکینخواهی رستم
Rostam kills Sudabeh and carries the war of vengeance deep into Turan
In Mythologyاسطوره
Siyavash and the trial by fire
The innocent prince who rode through fire to prove his honour, kept his word at the cost of his life, and was mourned for centuries in Central Asia.
More from the heroic ageشاهنامه
Mount Alborzالبرز کوه
On the heights of the Alborz the Simorgh raises Zal, the white-haired child his father abandoned. The poem's Alborz is a mountain at the edge of the world, traditionally identified with the range north of Tehran.
Kabulکابل
Kabul frames the life of Rostam. His mother Rudabeh is a princess of Kabul, and it is in the hunting grounds of a later king of Kabul that Rostam is betrayed and killed.
Zabulistanزابلستان
Zabulistan is the realm of the house of Sam: the court where Zal rules, Rostam is raised, and Esfandiyar comes to put Rostam in chains. Tradition places it in Sistan, around today's Zabol.
Kuh-e Khwajaکوه خواجه
A flat-topped black hill rising from the Hamun wetlands, crowned with the ruins of a Parthian and Sasanian palace that local people call Rostam's castle. It is the closest thing Rostam has to a home on the map.