Ferdowsi

Lore & Background

Ferdowsi was born into a family of Persian landowners (dehqans) in the village of Paj, near Tus, in the Samanid Empire. He had a wife, probably literate and from the same class, and a son who died at age 37, mourned in an elegy inserted into the Shahnameh. Other poems attributed to him, such as the mathnawi of Yusuf and Zulaikha, are mostly baseless; a satire condemning Mahmud is known to be by Ferdowsi.

Reader's Guide

Ferdowsi's significance lies in his role as the author of the Shahnameh, which links pre-Islamic Iranian culture with post-Islamic Iran. He was influenced by ancient Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism, and Mithraism, though some researchers attribute these to the themes of his source material. His work reflects a worldview centered on wisdom as the source of all goodness, enabling recognition of good and evil. Ferdowsi was indebted to predecessors who cultivated Persian language in the 9th and 10th centuries, and his legacy was carried by Persians, Turks, and Indians. He knew Arabic but did not dominate Arabic literature. His full name, given as Hakim Abu al-Qasim Firdawsi Tusi, includes the title 'Hakim' (philosopher). The Shahnameh remains a foundational text of Persian literature.

Did You Know?

• Ferdowsi's pen name Firdawsī means 'paradisic'.
• He was a Shia Muslim, though varying views exist on which Shiite sect he belonged to.
• The only poem clarified as his is the Shahnameh itself.