Sohrab is the son Rostam did not know he had. His mother is Tahmineh, and he grows up in Samangan on the other side of the border, hearing what his father is and deciding, as a boy would, that he will go and find him and put him on the throne of both countries.

He rides into Iran at the head of a Turanian army, asking after one name. Everybody who could answer him has a reason not to. The two of them meet three times on the field, and the poem spends its whole weight on how nearly, at every single step, it does not happen. It is the most famous thing in Persian literature, and it is famous because nobody in it is a villain.