Editing Shahnameh (section)

=== Message ===
According to Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq, the ''Shahnameh'' teaches a wide variety of moral virtues, like worship of one God; religious uprightness; patriotism; love of wife, family and children; and helping the poor.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Mutlaq|first=Jalal Khaleqi|title=Iran Garai dar Shahnameh|journal=Hasti Magazine|year=1993|volume=4|trans-title=Iran-centrism in the Shahnameh|publisher=Bahman Publishers|location=Tehran}}</ref>

There are themes in the Shahnameh that were viewed with suspicion by the succession of Iranian regimes. During the reign of [[Mohammad Reza Shah]], the epic was largely ignored in favor of the more abstruse, esoteric and dryly intellectual Persian literature.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran|last=Ansari|first=Ali|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-521-86762-7|location=Cambridge|page=193}}</ref> Historians note that the theme of [[regicide]] and the incompetence of kings embedded in the epic did not sit well with the Iranian monarchy. Later, there were Muslim figures such as [[Ali Shariati]], the hero of Islamic reformist youth of the 1970s, who were also antagonistic towards the contents of the Shahnameh since it included verses critical of Islam.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Mute Dreams, Blind Owls, and Dispersed Knowledges: Persian Poesis in the Transnational Circuitry|last=Fischer|first=Michael|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-8223-8551-6|location=Durham|page=21}}</ref> These include the line: ''tofu bar to, ey charkh-i gardun, tofu!'' (spit on your face, oh heavens spit!), which Ferdowsi used as a reference to the Muslim invaders who despoiled Zoroastrianism.<ref name=":0" />