Ferdowsi
The great Persian poet (c. 940–1020) and author of the Shahnameh, Iran's national epic, who played a foundational role in preserving the Persian language.
Read in context →Biography
Abolqasem Ferdowsi (c. 940–1020) was a Persian poet born near Tus in Khorasan, traditionally to a family of land-owning gentry (dehqan). He devoted roughly three decades (c. 977–1010) to composing the Shahnameh ('Book of Kings'), an epic of some 50,000 couplets recounting the mythical and historical past of the Iranian world from creation to the Arab conquest. The work is celebrated for consciously preserving the Persian language and identity, drawing heavily on pre-Islamic vocabulary and minimizing Arabic loanwords, and it is among the longest epic poems by a single author, becoming foundational to Persian national consciousness. A persistent though likely embellished tradition holds that the Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud underpaid Ferdowsi, leaving the poet embittered — a story whose details scholars treat with caution. His death year is unsettled, with 1019, 1020, and 1025 all appearing in the sources.
Quotes & narrations
«Much have I toiled in these thirty years; I revived the Persians with this Persian tongue.»
«Mighty is he who is wise; through knowledge the old heart grows young.»
«Do not harm even the ant that drags a grain, for it has a life, and life is sweet and dear.»
Related entities
Also appears in
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Ferdowsi, Abu'l-Qāsem i. Life" (A. Sh. Shahbazi)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ferdowsī"
- Dick Davis (translator), Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings