Important People

Ferdowsi

Background
Ferdowsi was a great poet of Iran and he kept the culture alive it’s darkest times. Ferdowsi was born in Tus and in the year 940 CE his full name was Abolqasem Ferdowsi. Ferdowsi was known as one of the most famous poets of the history of Iran. One of his most popular writings is the Shahnameh or (The Persian Book of Kings). His name meant “from paradise” but the people thought of him as “the man from paradise.” The poet Ferdowsi had started writing the Shahnameh after his contemporary poet Daqiqi was killed by a slave after Daqiqi had written a version of the Shahnameh. The Shahnameh has all the records of Persian history from the beginning of the empire and to the end when the Arabs took over.

Shahnameh
The Shahnameh took Ferdowsi most of his life to write which was 33 years; it was written from 977 to 1010 CE. The Shahnameh has 60,000 verses in it, and there are 62 stories in the Shahnameh. The Shahnameh is one of the last books to written to remember the Persian culture. When Ferdowsi finished writing the Shahnameh he presented the Shahnameh to the ruler of his home land town Maḥmūd of Ghazna. The sultan that Ferdowsi showed the Shahnameh to gave him many riches. Ferdowsi died right when he returned to Tus from visiting Mahmud of Ghazna and when he reached his home he died from a heart attack. When Ferdowsi died he was placed in a tomb in Tus.