The contestants are judged by the color of their plumage, their combs, stance, strut, and ultimately, their spirit and the pride they display in their movements.

This presentation focuses on the ecumenism of Ferdowsi with regard to religion. Such ecumenism can best be understood in terms of the reception of this poet’s poetry—a reception extending from the poet’s own life and times in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries CE all the way to the era of the Timurid prince Bāysonghor in the fifteenth century CE.