Ferdowsi, National Epic Poet

Ferdowsi is considered the greatest Persian poet, author of the Shahnameh ("The Epic of Kings"), and the Persian national epic, to which he gave its final and enduring form, although he based his poem mainly on an earlier prose version. For nearly a thousand years, Persians have continued to read and to listen to recitations from his masterwork in which the Persian national epic found its final and enduring form. It is the history of Iran's glorious past, preserved for all time in sonorous and majestic verse. The language, based as the poem is on a Pahlavi original, is pure Persian with only the slightest admixture of Arabic.

His great epic, The Shahnameh (The Epic of Kings), to which he devoted most of his life, was originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan. During Ferdowsi's lifetime, the dynasty was conquered by the Ghaznavid Turks, and there are various stories in medieval texts describing the lack of interest shown by the new ruler of Khorasan, Mahmud Ghaznavi, in Ferdowsi and his lifework.

The Shahnameh is one of the definite classics of the world. It tells hero tales of ancient Persia. The contents and the poet's style in describing the events takes the readers back to the ancient times with a sense and feel the events. Ferdowsi worked for thirty years to finish this masterpiece.

Compiled during the poet's early adulthood in his native Tus, the Shahnameh contains 60,000 rhyming couplets making it more than seven times the length of Homer's Iliad. The poem deals first with the legendary Persian kings: Gayumart; Hushang; Tahmuras; and the most famous of the group, Jamshid, who reigned for 500 years.

The evil rule of the Arab Dahhak, or Zohak followed this happy period. Dahhak was tempted by Ahriman, his own blood relative. As a result, Dahhak fell into sin, becoming more and more evil until Kavah, a smith, rebelled and established his leather apron as the banner of revolt. Finally, the tyrant was bound and confined beneath Mount Damavand.

Soon after this point in the poem, an episode of considerable beauty is inserted; it recounts the love of Zal, of the royal line of Persia, and Rudabah, the daughter of the king of Kabul. Their union resulted in the birth of the hero Rustam, who occupies a position in Iranian legend somewhat analogous to that of Hercules in Greek and Latin literature. The epic progresses through Persian legend to historic times, tracing the reigns of the Sassanian kings down to the Muslim conquest and the death of Yazdegerd III in 651.

In addition to his poetic incentive, Ferdowsi had a distinctly patriotic motive in writing the Shahnameh. He desired to keep alive in the hearts of his people the faith of their ancestors and the glories of their deeds so that the Persians would not forget their heritage.

The Shahnameh is perhaps best known to English readers through Sohrab and Rustum, a poem by English poet Matthew Arnold that is based on the Persian epic.

The Ferdowsi Mausoleum is in Tus near Mashhad.

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