Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 09:47, 7 January 2025

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Persian. (December 2024) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Persian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Persian Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fa|فردوسی}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation.

Ferdowsi فردوسی
An imaginary portrait of Ferdowsi
Native name	Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی
Born	940 Tus, Iran, Samanid Empire
Died	1019 or 1025 (79 or 85 years old) Tus, Ghaznavid Empire
Occupation	Poet
Language	Early Modern Persian
Period	Samanids and Ghaznavids
Genre	Persian poetry, national epic
Notable works	Shahnameh

Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single poet, and the greatest epic of Persian-speaking countries. Ferdowsi is celebrated as one of the most influential figures of Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature.

Name

Except for his kunya (ابوالقاسم – Abul-Qâsem, meaning 'father of Qasem') and his pen name (فِردَوسی – Ferdowsī, meaning 'paradisic'), nothing is known with any certainty about his full name. According to Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, the information given by the 13th-century author Bundari about Ferdowsi's name should be taken as the most reliable. Bundari calls the poet al-Amir al-Hakim Abu'l-Qasem Mansur ibn al-Hasan al-Ferdowsi al-Tusi. From an early period on, he has been referred to by different additional names and titles, the most common one being حکیم / Hakīm ("philosopher"). Based on this, his full name is given in Persian sources as حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی / Hakīm Abol-Qâsem Ferdowsī Tusī. Due to the non-standardised transliteration from Persian into English, different spellings of his name are used in English works, including Firdawsi, Firdusi, Firdosi, Firdausi, etc. The Encyclopaedia of Islam uses the spelling Firdawsī, based on the standardised transliteration method of the German Oriental Society. The Encyclopædia Iranica, which uses a modified version of the same method (with a stronger emphasis on modern Persian intonations), gives the spelling Ferdowsī. The modern Tajik transliteration of his name in Tajik Cyrillic is Ҳаким Абулқосим Фирдавсӣ Тӯсӣ (Hakim Abdulqosim Firdavsí Tŭsí).

Life

Family

Ferdowsi was born into a family of Iranian landowners (dehqans) in 940 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, which is located in the present-day Razavi Khorasan province of northeastern Iran. Little is known about Ferdowsi's early life. The poet had a wife, who was probably literate and came from the same dehqan class. The dehqans were landowning Iranian aristocrats who had flourished under the Sasanian dynasty (the last pre-Islamic dynasty to rule Iran) and whose power, though diminished, had survived into the Islamic era which followed the Islamic conquests of the 7th century. The dehqans were attached to the pre-Islamic literary heritage, as their status was associated with it (so much so that dehqan is sometimes used as a synonym for "Iranian" in the Shahnameh). Thus they saw it as their task to preserve the pre-Islamic cultural traditions, including tales of legendary kings.

He had a son, who died at the age of 37, and was mourned by the poet in an elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh.

Background

The Islamic conquests of the 7th century brought gradual linguistic and cultural changes to the Iranian Plateau. By the late 9th century, as the power of the caliphate had weakened, several local dynasties emerged in Greater Iran. Ferdowsi grew up in Tus, a city under the control of one of these dynasties, the Samanids, who claimed descent from the Sassanid general Bahram Chobin (whose story Ferdowsi recounts in one of the later sections of the Shahnameh). The Samanid bureaucracy used the New Persian language, which had been used to bring Islam to the Eastern regions of the Iranian world and supplanted local languages, and commissioned translations of Pahlavi texts into New Persian. Abu Mansur Muhammad, a dehqan and governor of Tus, had ordered his minister Abu Mansur Mamari to invite several local scholars to compile a prose Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which was completed in 1010. Although it no longer survives, Ferdowsi used it as one of the sources of his epic. Samanid rulers were patrons of such important Persian poets as Rudaki and Daqiqi, and Ferdowsi followed in the footsteps of these writers.

Details about Ferdowsi's education are lacking. While it is likely that he learned Arabic in school, there is no evidence in the Shahnameh that he knew either Arabic or Pahlavi.

Ferdowsi was a Shiite Muslim, although varying views exist on what Shiite sect he belonged to. Khaleghi-Motlagh, following Theodor Nöldeke, notes that Ferdowsi displays a contradictory attitude towards religion in the Shahnameh: on the one hand, he shows a "lenient" attitude towards religion, but on the other hand, he believed that his sect was the "only true Islamic one." Khaleghi-Motlagh concurs with Nöldeke that Ferdowsi was "above all a deist and monotheist who at the same time kept faith with his forbears." Ferdowsi criticized philosophers and those who tried to prove the existence of God. He saw God's creation as the only evidence of His existence and believed everything in life to be the product of God's will. Khaleghi-Motlagh and others have suggested that a certain fatalism in Ferdowsi's work contradicts his "absolute faith in the unicity and might of God," and that this may have been the legacy of the Zurvanism of the Sasanian period.

Life as a poet

It is possible that Ferdowsi wrote some early poems which have not survived. He began work on the Shahnameh around 977, intending it as a continuation of the work of his fellow poet Daqiqi, who had been assassinated by his slave. Like Daqiqi, Ferdowsi employed the prose Shahnameh of Abd-al-Razzaq as a source. He received generous patronage from the Samanid prince Mansur and completed the first version of the Shahnameh in 994. When the Turkic Ghaznavids overthrew the Samanids in the late 990s, Ferdowsi continued to work on the poem, rewriting sections to praise the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud. Mahmud's attitude to Ferdowsi and how well he rewarded the poet are matters which have long been subject to dispute and have formed the basis of legends about the poet and his patron (see below). The Turkic Mahmud may have been less interested in tales from Iranian history than the Samanids. The later sections of the Shahnameh have passages which reveal Ferdowsi's fluctuating moods: in some he complains about old age, poverty, illness and the death of his son; in others, he appears happier. Ferdowsi finally completed his epic on 8 March 1010. Virtually nothing is known with any certainty about the last decade of his life.

Tomb

Ferdowsi was buried in his own garden, burial in the cemetery of Tus having been forbidden by a local cleric who considered him a heretic. A Ghaznavid governor of Khorasan constructed a mausoleum over the grave and it became a revered site. The tomb, which had fallen into decay, was rebuilt between 1928 and 1934 by the Society for the National Heritage of Iran on the orders of Reza Shah, and has now become the equivalent of a national shrine.

Legend

According to legend, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni offered Ferdowsi a gold piece for every couplet of the Shahnameh he wrote. The poet agreed to receive the money as a lump sum when he had completed the epic. He planned to use it to rebuild the dykes in his native Tus. After thirty years of work, Ferdowsi finished his masterpiece. The sultan prepared to give him 60,000 gold pieces, one for every couplet, as agreed. However, the courtier whom Mahmud had entrusted with the money despised Ferdowsi, regarding him as a heretic, and he replaced the gold coins with silver. Ferdowsi was in the bath house when he received the reward. Finding it was silver and not gold, he gave the money away to the bath-keeper, a refreshment seller, and the slave who had carried the coins. When the courtier told the sultan about Ferdowsi's behaviour, he was furious and threatened to execute him. Ferdowsi fled to Khorasan, having first written a satire on Mahmud, and spent most of the remainder of his life in exile. Mahmud eventually learned the truth about the courtier's deception and had him either banished or executed. By this time, the aged Ferdowsi had returned to Tus. The sultan sent him a new gift of 60,000 gold pieces, but just as the caravan bearing the money entered the gates of Tus, a funeral procession exited the gates on the opposite side: the poet had died from a heart attack.

Works

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh is the most popular and influential national epic in Iran and other Persian-speaking countries. The Shahnameh is the only surviving work by Ferdowsi regarded as indisputably genuine.

He may have written poems earlier in his life but they no longer exist. A narrative poem, Yūsof o Zolaykā (Joseph and Zuleika), was once attributed to him, but scholarly consensus now rejects the idea it is his.

There has also been speculation about the satire Ferdowsi allegedly wrote about Mahmud of Ghazni after the sultan failed to reward him sufficiently. Nezami Aruzi, Ferdowsi's early biographer, claimed that all but six lines had been destroyed by a well-wisher who had paid Ferdowsi a thousand dirhams for the poem. Introductions to some manuscripts of the Shahnameh include verses purporting to be the satire. Some scholars have viewed them as fabricated; others are more inclined to believe in their authenticity.

Gallery

• The Sasanian King Khusraw and Courtiers in a Garden, page from a manuscript of the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), late 15th–early 16th century, Brooklyn Museum
• Scene from the Shahnameh: the Akvan Div throws the sleeping Rostam into the sea
• Bath scene

• The Simurgh, a mythical bird from the Shahnameh, relief from Ferdowsi's mausoleum
• A scene from the Shahnameh depicting the Parthian king Artaban facing the Sassanid king Ardashir I

Influence

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ferdowsi" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Ferdowsi is one of the undisputed giants of Persian literature. After Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity as Ferdowsi's masterpiece.

Ferdowsi has a unique place in Persian history because of the strides he made in reviving and regenerating the Persian language and cultural traditions. His works are cited as a crucial component in the persistence of the Persian language, as those works allowed much of the tongue to remain codified and intact. In this respect, Ferdowsi surpasses Nizami, Khayyam, Asadi Tusi and other seminal Persian literary figures in his impact on Persian culture and language. Many modern Iranians see him as the father of the modern Persian language.

Ferdowsi in fact was a motivation behind many future Persian figures. One such notable figure was Reza Shah Pahlavi, who established an Academy of Persian Language and Literature, in order to attempt to remove Arabic and French words from the Persian language, replacing them with suitable Persian alternatives. In 1934, Reza Shah set up a ceremony in Mashhad, Khorasan, celebrating a thousand years of Persian literature since the time of Ferdowsi, titled "Ferdowsi Millennial Celebration", inviting notable European as well as Iranian scholars. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is a university established in 1949 that also takes its name from Ferdowsi.

Ferdowsi's influence in the Persian culture is explained by John Andrew Boyle:

The Persians regard Ferdowsi as the greatest of their poets. For nearly a thousand years they have continued to read and to listen to recitations from his master work, the Shah-nameh, in which the Persian national epic found its final and enduring form. Though written about 1,000 years ago, this work is as intelligible to the average, modern Iranian as the King James Version of the Bible is to a modern English-speaker. The language, based as the poem is on a Dari original, is pure Persian with only the slightest admixture of Arabic.

The library at Wadham College, Oxford University was named the Ferdowsi Library, and contains a specialised Persian section for scholars.

See also

• Alexander the Great in the Shahnameh
• Iranian Studies
• Ferdowsi millennial celebration
• Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
• List of Persian poets and authors
  • Daqiqi, Persian poet, who started Ferdowsi's epic
  • Hafez, Persian poet
  • Rumi (1207–1273), arguably the internationally most famous Persian poet
• Persian literature
• Sassanid Empire
• List of mausoleums
• Jerry Clinton (1937–2003), US Ferdowsi scholar
• Ferdowsi (1934 film)

Notes

1. Al-Amir and al-Hakim are honorary titles. Abu'l-Qasem is a kunya. Mansur is a given name. Ibn al-Hasan is a patronymic ('son of Hasan'). Al-Ferdowsi is a pen name (takhallus). Al-Tusi is a nisba ('from Tus').
2. The spelling Ferdowsi is based on the modern Iranian Persian pronunciation, while Firdawsi reflects the historical pronunciation. The diphthong ow of modern Iranian Persian was historically pronounced as aw. This is also how it is pronounced in modern Dari (Afghan Persian). The 'short' vowel e of modern Iranian Persian was historically pronounced i (modern Dari pronunciation is closer to the latter).

References

1. Khaleghi-Motlagh 1999, pp. 514–523 Shahnameh published by Eisenbrauns, Inc. Vol. 6, Pg 341 Vs 657.
2. ^ Huart/Massé/Ménage: Firdawsī. In: Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, Leiden. CD-Version (2011)
3. ^ Khaleghi-Motlagh 1999, pp. 514–523.
4. "Search Results – Brill Reference". referenceworks.brillonline.com. Retrieved 5 January 2019. Abū l-Qāsim Firdawsī (320–416/931–1025) was a Persian poet, one of the greatest writers of epic and author of the Shāhnāma ("Book of kings").
5. Kia 2016, p. 160.
6. Dahlén 2016, p. 249.
7. Dabashi 2012, p. 39.
8. Maggi & Orsatti 2018, pp. 33–34.
9. ^ Davis 2006, p. xviii.
10. Frye, R. N. (1975). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge University Press. p. 136. ISBN 0521200938.
11. Frye 1975a, p. 200
12. "Abu Mansur". Encyclopædia Iranica.
13. Frye 1975a, p. 202.
14. Feuillebois 2017.
15. Shahbazi, A. Shahpur (26 January 2012). "Mausoleum". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
16. Rosenberg 1997, pp. 99–101.
17. Shahbazi, A. Shahpur (26 January 2012). "Hajw-nāma". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
18. Dahlén 2016, pp. 249–276.
19. Ghani 2000, p. 400.
20. "Presence of Persian Historical poets at Tarna Media Station - Tarna". en.tarna.ir. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
21. Boyle, John Andrew (2007). "Ferdowsi". Britannica. Retrieved 4 June 2007.

Works cited

• Abolqasem Ferdowsi (2006). Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. Translated by Davis, Dick. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-670-03485-7.
• Dabashi, Hamid (2012). The World of Persian Literary Humanism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-06759-2.
• Dahlén, Ashk (2016), "Literary Interest in Zoroastrianism in Tenth-Century Iran: The Case of Daqiqi's Account of Goshtāsp and Zarathustra in the Shāhnāmeh", in Williams, Alan; Stewart, Sarah (eds.), The Zoroastrian Flame: Exploring Religion, History and Tradition, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 9780857728869
• Feuillebois, È. (2017). Fleet, K.; Krämer, G.; Matringe, D.; Nawas, J.; Stewart, D. J. (eds.). "Firdawsī, Abū l-Qāsim, and the Shāhnāma". Encyclopaedia of Islam Three Online. Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27139.
• Frye, Richard N. (1975a). The Golden Age of Persia. Weidenfeld.
• Kia, Mehrdad (2016). The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781610693912.
• Huart, Cl. & Massé, H. (1971). "Firdawsī". In Lewis, B.; Ménage, V. L.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume III: H–Iram. Leiden: E. J. Brill. OCLC 495469525.
• Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal (1999). "Ferdowsī, Abu'l-Qāsem i. Life". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. IX/5: Fauna III–Festivals VIII. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 978-0-933273-33-7.
• Maggi, Mauro; Orsatti, Paola (2018). "From Old to New Persian". In Sedighi, Anousha; Shabani-Jadidi, Pouneh (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Persian Linguistics. Oxford University Press. pp. 33–34. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198736745.013.2.
• Rosenberg, Donna (1997). Folklore, Myths, and Legends: A World Perspective. McGraw Hill Professional. ISBN 978-0-8442-5780-8.
• Ghani, Cyrus (2000). Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-86064-629-4.

General references

• Aghaee, Shirzad (1993). Nam-e kasan va jay-ha dar Shahnameh-ye Ferdousi [Personalities and Places in the Shahnameh of Ferdousi]. Nyköping, Sweden. ISBN 91-630-1959-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Aghaee, Shirzad (1997). Imazh-ha-ye mehr va mah dar Shahnameh-ye Ferdousi [Images of the Sun and Moon in the Shahnameh of Ferdousi]. Spånga, Sweden. ISBN 91-630-5369-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Browne, E. G. (1998) . A Literary History of Persia. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-7007-0406-4.
• Chopra, R. M. (2014). Great Poets of Classical Persian. Kolkata: Sparrow. ISBN 978-81-89140-75-5.
• Mackey, Sandra; Harrop, W. Scott (2008). The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the soul of a nation. University of Michigan. ISBN 978-0-525-94005-0.
• Rypka, Jan (1968). History of Iranian Literature. Reidel. ISBN 90-277-0143-1. OCLC 460598.
• Shahbazi, A. Shapour (1991). Ferdowsī: A Critical Biography. Harvard University, Center for Middle Eastern Studies. ISBN 978-0-939214-83-9.
• Sharma, Sunil; Waghmar, Burzine K., eds. (2016). Firdawsii Millennium Indicum: Proceedings of the Shahnama Millenary Seminar, the KR Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai, 8–9 January, 2011. KR Cama Oriental Institute. pp. 7–18. ISBN 978-93-81324-10-3.
• Wiesehöfer, Josef (2001). Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-4175-2077-0.

External links

• Works by Firdawsi at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Ferdowsi at the Internet Archive
• Works by Ferdowsi at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Khosrow Nāghed, In the Workshop of Thought and Imagination of the Master of Tūs (Dar Kargāh-e Andisheh va Khiāl-e Ostād-e Tūs), in Persian, Radio Zamāneh, 5 August 2008.
• Ferdowsi: Poems Ferdowsi's poems in English
• Iraj Bashiri, The Shahname of Firdowsi
• Ferdowsi Museum photos
• Ferdowsi Tomb photos
• A king's book of kings: the Shah-nameh of Shah Tahmasp, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF)
• Ferdowsi Quotes Archived 17 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine

v t e Ferdowsi
Books	Shahnameh
Places	Ferdowsi Metro Station Ferdowsi Square, Tehran Ferdowsi Street Ferdowsi Street, Tabriz Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Tomb of Ferdowsi
Lands	Ghazni List of places in Shahnameh Turan Tus Zabulistan
Organizations	Firdeusi Institute
People	Abolhassan Sadighi Abu-Mansur Daqiqi Asadi Tusi Bundari Hooshang Seyhoun Julius von Mohl Keikhosrow Shahrokh Mir Jalaleddin Kazzazi Mohammad-Ali Eslami Nodooshan Mohammad-Amin Riahi
Memorial	Ferdowsi millennial celebration Ferdowsi millennial celebration in Berlin Firdousi (crater)
Depictions in others' works	Ferdowsi (film) A New Prologue to the Shahnameh
Related	Abu-Mansuri Shahnameh Bizhan Nama Borzu Nama Derafsh Kaviani Kurdish Shahnameh Persian art Persian mythology Persians and I Rostam and Sohrab (opera) Rustam and Zohrab Rustom O Sohrab
Category Template

Related articles

v t e Shahnameh of Ferdowsi Characters Pishdadian Keyumars Hushang Tahmuras Jamshid Fereydun Iraj Manuchehr Nowzar Zaav Garshasp Kayanian Kay Kawād Kay Kāvus Kay Khosrow Kay Lohrasp Goshtasb Kay Bahman Humay Chehrzad Kay Darab Dara II Male characters Jamasp Siamak Shahrasp Abtin Kayanoush Kāve Arash Salm Tur Qobád Qaren Tous Gostaham Gershasp Nariman Sām Zāl Rostam Sohrab Esfandiyār Pashotan Faramarz Fariborz Siyâvash Farud Zangay-i Shavaran Kashvad Goudarz Giv Bizhan Rohham Bahram Hojir Gorgin Zavara Shaghad Rostam Farrokhzād Barbad Eskandar (Alexander) Female characters Faranak Arnavāz Shahrnāz Sindukht Rudaba Sudabeh Tahmina Banu Goshasp Gordafarid Farangis Manizheh Katāyoun Azadeh Tazian Mardas Zahhak Mehrab Kaboli Turanian Zadashm Pashang Aghrirat Garsivaz Afrasiab Tageuo Shideh Arjasp Viseh Piran Houman Barman Nastihan Biderafsh Clans and families Kashvadian House of Goudarz House of Viseh House of Nowzar House of Sasan House of Sām Creatures and animals Akvan Div Kharvazan Div Arzhang Div Azhdaha Div-e Sepid Koulad-Ghandi Huma bird Simurgh Rakhsh Shabdiz Shabrang White Elephant Places Iran Turan Zabulistan Sistan Kabul Balkh Ctesiphon Estakhr Mazandaran Alborzkouh Mount Damavand Tammisha Kasa-Roud Other locations... Structures Gonbadan Castle (Dez-i Gonbadan) Roein Castle (Dez-i Roein) Sepid Castle (Dezh-i Sepid Bahman Castle (Dezh-i Bahman) Alanan Castle (Dezh-i Alanan Gang Castle (Gang-Dez) Manuscripts Florence Shahnameh Great Mongol Shahnameh (or Demotte) Baysonghor Shahnameh Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp Shahnameh of Rashida Windsor Shahnameh Davari Shahnameh Related Daqiqi Abu-Mansuri Shahnameh Derafsh Kaviani Babr-e Bayan Zal and Rudabeh Rostam and Sohrab Rostam and Esfandiyar Rostam's Seven Labours Davazdah Rokh Khosrow and Shirin Bijan and Manijeh Persian mythology Category v t e Rostam and Sohrab from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh Characters Rostam Sohrab Operas Rustam and Zohrab (1910 Hajibeyov) Rostam and Sohrab (1963 Tjeknavorian) Other Rustom O Sohrab (play) Sohrab and Rustum (epic poem) Rustom Sohrab (film) Battle of the Kings: Rostam and Sohrab (film) Farsala Trilogy (novels) v t e Persian literature Old Behistun Inscription Old Persian inscriptions Ganjnameh Inscription of Xerxes the Great in Van Fortress Achaemenid inscription in the Kharg Island Middle Ayadgar-i Zariran Counsels of Adurbad-e Mahrspandan Dēnkard Book of Jamasp Book of Arda Viraf Karnamak-i Artaxshir-i Papakan Cube of Zoroaster Dana-i Menog Khrat Shabuhragan of Mani Shahrestanha-ye Eranshahr Bundahishn Menog-i Khrad Jamasp Namag Dadestan-i Denig Anthology of Zadspram Warshtmansr Zand-i Wahman yasn Drakht-i Asurig Shikand-gumanig Vizar Classical 800s Muhammad ibn Wasif 900s Rudaki Daqiqi Ferdowsi (Shahnameh) Abu Shakur Balkhi Abu Tahir Khosrovani Shahid Balkhi Bal'ami Rabia Balkhi Abusaeid Abolkheir (967–1049) Avicenna (980–1037) Unsuri Asjadi Kisai Marvazi Ayyuqi 1000s Bābā Tāher Nasir Khusraw (1004–1088) Al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006–1088) Asadi Tusi Qatran Tabrizi (1009–1072) Nizam al-Mulk (1018–1092) Masud Sa'd Salman (1046–1121) Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) Fakhruddin As'ad Gurgani Ahmad Ghazali Hujwiri Manuchehri Ayn-al-Quzat Hamadani (1098–1131) Uthman Mukhtari Abu-al-Faraj Runi Sanai Banu Goshasp Borzu-Nama Afdal al-Din Kashani Abu'l Hasan Mihyar al-Daylami Mu'izzi Mahsati Ganjavi 1100s Iranshah Suzani Samarqandi Hassan Ghaznavi Faramarz Nama Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (1155–1191) Adib Sabir Falaki Shirvani Am'aq Najm al-Din Razi Attar (1142–c.1220) Khaqani (1120–1190) Anvari (1126–1189) Faramarz-e Khodadad Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209) Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1209) Kamal al-Din Esfahani Shams Tabrizi (d.1248) 1200s Abu Tahir Tarsusi Awhadi Maraghai Shams al-Din Qays Razi Sultan Walad Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī Afdal al-Din Kashani Fakhr-al-Din Iraqi Mahmud Shabistari (1288–1320s) Abu'l Majd Tabrizi Amir Khusrau (1253–1325) Saadi (Bustan / Golestān) Bahram-e-Pazhdo Pur-Baha Jami Zartosht Bahram e Pazhdo Rumi Homam Tabrizi (1238–1314) Nozhat al-Majales Khwaju Kermani Badr Shirvani Zu'l-Fiqar Shirvani 1300s Ibn Yamin Shah Ni'matullah Wali Hafez Abu Ali Qalandar Fazlallah Astarabadi Nasimi Emad al-Din Faqih Kermani 1400s Ubayd Zakani Salman Savaji Hatefi Jami Kamal Khujandi Ahli Shirazi (1454–1535) Fuzuli (1483–1556) Ismail I (1487–1524) Baba Faghani 1500s Vahshi Bafqi (1523–1583) Mohtasham Kashani (1500–1588) 'Orfi Shirazi 1600s Taleb Amoli Saib Tabrizi (1607–1670) Asir-e Esfahani (c. 1620–1648) Kalim Kashani Hazin Lāhiji (1692–1766) Saba Kashani Abdul-Qādir Bēdil (1642–1720) Naw'i Khabushani Mohammad Qoli Salim Tehrani Rasa Salim Tehrani 1700s Hatef Esfahani Azar Bigdeli (1722–1781) Neshat Esfahani Abbas Foroughi Bastami (1798–1857) 1800s Yaghma Jandaqi (1782–1859) Mirza Ghalib (1797–1869) Zayn al-Abidin Shirvani (1779–1837) Reza-Qoli Khan Hedayat (1800–1871) Mirza Mohammad Taqi Sepehr (1801–1880) Qaani (1808–1854) Mahmud Khan Malek al-Sho'ara (1813–1893) Contemporary Poetry Iran Ahmadreza Ahmadi Mehdi Akhavan-Sales Hormoz Alipour Qeysar Aminpour Mohammad Reza Aslani Aref Qazvini Ahmad NikTalab Aminollah Rezaei Manouchehr Atashi Mahmoud Mosharraf Azad Tehrani Mohammad-Taqi Bahar Reza Baraheni Simin Behbahani Dehkhoda Hushang Ebtehaj Bijan Elahi Parviz Eslampour Parvin E'tesami Forugh Farrokhzad Hossein Monzavi Hushang Irani Iraj Mirza Bijan Jalali Siavash Kasraie Esmail Khoi Shams Langeroodi Mohammad Mokhtari Nosrat Rahmani Yadollah Royaee Tahereh Saffarzadeh Sohrab Sepehri Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar Ahmad Shamlou Manouchehr Sheybani Nima Yooshij (She'r-e Nimaa'i) Fereydoon Moshiri Armenia Edward Haghverdian Afghanistan Nadia Anjuman Wasef Bakhtari Raziq Faani Khalilullah Khalili Youssof Kohzad Massoud Nawabi Abdul Ali Mustaghni Tajikistan Sadriddin Ayni Farzona Iskandar Khatloni Abolqasem Lahouti Gulrukhsor Safieva Loiq Sher-Ali Payrav Sulaymoni Mirzo Tursunzoda Satim Ulugzade Uzbekistan Asad Gulzoda Pakistan Muhammad Iqbal Novels Ali Mohammad Afghani Ghazaleh Alizadeh Bozorg Alavi Reza Amirkhani Mahshid Amirshahi Ghassem Hashemi Nezhad Reza Baraheni Simin Daneshvar Mahmoud Dowlatabadi Soudabeh Fazaeli Reza Ghassemi Mohammad Hanif (Iranian writer) Houshang Golshiri Aboutorab Khosravi Zeyn al-Abedin Maraghei Ahmad Mahmoud Shahriyar Mandanipour Abbas Maroufi Mansour Koushan Iraj Pezeshkzad Short stories Jalal Al-e-Ahmad Shamim Bahar Sadeq Chubak Abolhassan Etessami Javad Mojabi Simin Daneshvar Nader Ebrahimi Ebrahim Golestan Houshang Golshiri Sadegh Hedayat Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh Aboutorab Khosravi Mostafa Mastoor Jaafar Modarres-Sadeghi Houshang Moradi Kermani Bijan Najdi Shahrnush Parsipur Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi Bahram Sadeghi Goli Taraqqi Plays Reza Abdoh Mirza Fatali Akhundzadeh Mohsen Yalfani Bahram Beyzai Bahman Forsi Amir Reza Koohestani Alireza Koushk Jalali Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi Bijan Mofid Hengameh Mofid Abbas Nalbandian Akbar Radi Pari Saberi Mirza Aqa Tabrizi Mohammad Yaghoubi Screenplays Saeed Aghighi Mohammad Reza Aslani Rakhshan Bani-E'temad Bahram Beyzai Hajir Darioush Pouran Derakhshandeh Asghar Farhadi Bahman Farmanara Farrokh Ghaffari Behrouz Gharibpour Bahman Ghobadi Fereydun Gole Ebrahim Golestan Ali Hatami Abolfazl Jalili Ebrahim Hatamikia Abdolreza Kahani Varuzh Karim-Masihi Samuel Khachikian Abbas Kiarostami Majid Majidi Mohsen Makhmalbaf Dariush Mehrjui Reza Mirkarimi Rasoul Mollagholipour Amir Naderi Jafar Panahi Kambuzia Partovi Fereydoun Rahnema Rasul Sadr Ameli Mohammad Sadri Parviz Shahbazi Sohrab Shahid-Saless Translators Amrollah Abjadian Jaleh Amouzgar Najaf Daryabandari Mohammad Ghazi Lili Golestan Sadegh Hedayat Ramak NikTalab Saleh Hosseini Ahmad Kamyabi Mask Ahmad Shamlou Mohammad Moin Ebrahim Pourdavoud Hamid Samandarian Jalal Sattari Jafar Shahidi Ahmad Tafazzoli Abbas Zaryab Children's literature Samad Behrangi Houshang Moradi Kermani Babak NikTalab Hengameh Mofid Poopak NikTalab Farhad Hasanzadeh Ramak NikTalab Essayists Aydin Aghdashloo Ali Latifiyan Mohammad Ebrahim Bastani Parizi Ehsan Yarshater Ahmad Kasravi Contemporary Persian and Classical Persian are the same language, but writers since 1900 are classified as contemporary. At one time, Persian was a common cultural language of much of the non-Arabic Islamic world. Today it is the official language of Iran, Tajikistan and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. v t e People of Khorasan Scientists Abu Hatam Isfizari Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi Abu Wafa Abu Ubayd Juzjani Abu Zayd Balkhi Alfraganus Ali Qushji Avicenna Birjandi Biruni Hasib Marwazi Ibn Hayyan Abu Ja'far al-Khazin Khazini Khojandi Khwarizmi Nasawi Nasir al-Din al-Tusi Omar Khayyam Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi Sijzi Philosophers Algazel Amiri Avicenna Farabi Haji Bektash Veli Nasir Khusraw Sijistani Shahrastani Islamic scholars Abu Dawud al-Sijistani Abu Barakat Nasafi Abu Hanifa Abu Hafs Nasafi Abu Layth Samarqandi Abu Mu'in Nasafi Abu Qasim Samarqandi Ansari Baghavi Bayhaqi Bazdawi Bukhari Dabusi Fatima Samarqandi Ghazali Ghaznawi Hakim Tirmidhi Hakim Nishapuri Ibn Hibban Ibn Mubarak Ibn Tayfour Sajawandi Juwayni Kasani Kashifi Lamishi Marghinani Maturidi Mulla al-Qari Muqatil Muslim Nasa'i Qushayri Razi Sabuni Sajawandi Sarakhsi Shaykh Tusi Taftazani Tha'labi Nishapuri Tirmidhi Zamakhshari Poets and artists Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr Anvari Aruzi Samarqandi Asadi Tusi Attar Nishapuri Behzad Daqiqi Farrukhi Sistani Ferdowsi Jami Kashifi Nasir Khusraw Rabia Balkhi Rudaki Rumi Sanā'ī Historians and political figures Abu'l-Fadl Bayhaqi Abu'l-Hasan Isfarayini Abu'l-Ma'ali Nasrallah Abu Muslim Khorasani Gardizi Ali-Shir Nava'i Ata-Malik Juvayni Aufi Abu Ali Bal'ami Gawhar Shad Ibn Khordadbeh Khalid ibn Barmak Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani Nizam al-Mulk Tahir ibn Husayn Yahya Barmaki Ahmad ibn Nizam al-Mulk Shihab al-Nasawi

• Ferdowsi
• 11th-century Persian-language writers
• Poets from the Ghaznavid Empire
• Poets from the Samanid Empire
• Epic poets
• Mythopoeic writers
• Dehqans
• Iranian folklore
• People from Khorasan
• People from Tus, Iran
• Shahnameh
• 10th-century Persian-language writers
• 10th-century Persian-language poets
• 11th-century Persian-language poets
• 10th-century births
• 11th-century deaths