Rustam captured by the Akvan Div, extract from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi, in Anthology of Ghazals (Ghazaliyyat al-motafarriqeh) by multiple authors

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Rustam captured by the Akvan Div, extract from the Book of Kings (Shahnama) by Firdausi, in Anthology of Ghazals (Ghazaliyyat al-motafarriqeh) by multiple authors. This painting depicts an episode in Firdausi's Book of Kings, in which the great hero Rustam has been kidnapped while sleeping, by the evil demon known as the Akvan Div. The demon has lifted away the ground beneath the sleeping hero, in order not to wake him up. The demon hovers above the earth, and asks Rustam to choose his death - would he prefer to be thrown to the rocks below or into the sea? Knowing that the Akvan Div will do the reverse, Rustam asks to be thrown to the land, and is therefore hurled down into the waves. He swims ashore, and escapes. Folio in safina format, ink, colours and gold on paper, Persian poetry in nasta`liq script, painting (on recto), stencilled border (on verso), detached from an anthology of ghazals (Ghazaliyyat al-motafarriqeh) by the poets Sa`di, Hasan Dihlavi, Khwaju Kirmani, `Iraqi, Awhadi, Qasim-i Anvar, Amir Khusrau, Katibi, Mahmud ibn Yamin, Firdausi (from the Shahnama), Salman Savaji, Kamal al-Din Khujandi, `Imad Faqih, Hafiz, Nazari, Nizami (from Layla wa Majnun), Jalal, `Ubayd, `Ismat, Shahi, Abu Ishaq (gastronomy poems), probably Shiraz, Iran, dated Rajab 853H (colophon in codex Per 127, on f. 204r), July-August 1449.