> On the one hand, by the time Ferdowsi was writing, several hundred years of Arab rule in Iran had made stories about Alexander (who the Arabs thought was pret

> On the one hand, by the time Ferdowsi was writing, several hundred years of Arab rule in Iran had made stories about Alexander (who the Arabs thought was pretty awesome) popular. Indeed, it's sometimes overlooked in the West that much of the Middle East and Southwest Asia consider their cultures at least in part descended from Greece, much as Europe and places like the US consider Greece the starting point of their cultures. And that's mainly because of Alexander. So you see some of the same stuff there that you see in Europe with Greek (and, by the transitive property, Roman) history, not seeing Alexander so much as a conqueror who defeated them, but rather as a vital part of the fabric of their history and society, as the British celebrate their Roman ruins rather than being angry or ashamed of them despite the Romans being, at one time, foreign conquerors, and even freely tie major cultural founding-myths to Rome (e.g. King Arthur), much as the Aeneid ties Roman culture to Greek.