The key to the spirit of Iran is its national epic, the Shahnamen

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh

Shāhnāmé or Shāhnāma is an enormous poetic opus written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi around 1000 AD and is the national epic of Iran. The Shāhnāmeh tells the mythical and historical past of Greater Iran from the creation of the world up until the Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century.

Aside from its literary importance, the Shāhnāmeh, written in almost pure Persian unmixed with adoptions from Arabic, has been pivotal for reviving the Persian language subsequent to the massive influence of Arabic. This voluminous work, regarded by Persian speakers as a literary masterpiece, also reflects Greater Iran's history, cultural values, ancient religions (Zoroastrianism), and profound sense of nationhood. Ferdowsi completed the Shâhnameh when national independence had been compromised. While there are memorable heroes and heroines of the classical type in this work, the real, ongoing hero is Iran itself. . . .

Ferdowsi was grieved by the fall of the Iranian empire and its subsequent rule by Arabs and Turks. The Shahnameh is largely his effort to preserve the memory of Iran's golden days and transmit it to a new generation so that they could learn and try to build a better world. Though formally Muslim, the Shahnameh nevertheless has a certain anti-Arab and anti-Turk bias