Michael Richard Jackson Bonner. Three neglected sources of Sasanian history in the reign of Khusraw Anushirvan (2011)

Michael Richard Jackson Bonner. Three neglected sources of Sasanian history in the reign of Khusraw Anushirvan. Studia Iranica: cahier 46. Paris: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes, 2011, 115 p. ISBN 9782910640323

This cahier deals with the criticism of three sources: Dīnawarī’s al-Akhbār al-Ṭiwāl, the so-called Sīrat Ānūsharwān, and Firdawsī’s Shāhnāma. The need to examine these sources arises from a re-evaluation of Nöldeke’s Khudāy-Nāma hypothesis; a case is built for the independence and utility of those three sources; and four test cases follow, in which the sources are put to work on issues of central importance in the history of sixth-century Iran. The conclusion is a narrative integrating the findings of the test cases into the broad picture of Sasanian history.