FScholar
Ferdowsi
Author of the Shahnama , the national epic of Iran, and one of the greatest poets of Persian literature. His kunya was Abu al-Qasim, his title Fakhr al-Din and his pen name Firdawsi . He was born in the village of Baj (Baz) in Tabaran, a dependency of the city of Tus. Since he says he was fifty-eight when Mahmud of Ghazna came to the throne (387/997), he must have been born in 329 (940). His father was an estate owner ( dihqan ) on the Abrahe stream, which branches off from the river of Tus. The sources say almost nothing about his childhood and education. In the period in which he grew up, certain works in Pahlavi on Iran's pre-Islamic history had come to light and were beginning to be translated into New Persian; in particular, shahnamas had been written on the basis of the Khuday-nama compiled under the Sasanian king Yazdegerd III (632-651). Firdawsi, who probably at first wrote ghazals and odes like other poets, developed a keen interest in Pahlavi works on ancient Iranian history and learned the language from his father or from Zoroastrian priests. He also knew enough Arabic to write poetry. At twenty-seven or twenty-eight he had a son, and then a daughter. He lived comfortably until forty; his later years were spent in hardship. Most probably he began writing the Shahnama in 370 (980) or 380 (990); who supported him is unknown. In some manuscripts the governors of Tus Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn Abd al-Razzaq and Huyayy-i Qutayba are named among his patrons; since the former died twenty years before the work was written, only the latter's help can be meant. With additions linking the epics he had composed piece by piece, he completed the first redaction in 394 (1003-1004); in the same year he lost his thirty-seven-year-old son. Wishing to dedicate the work to a great ruler, he was introduced to Sultan Mahmud through the vizier Abu al-Abbas Fadl ibn Ahmad al-Isfara'ini and the sultan's brother Nasr ibn Sebüktigin, and probably at their urging completed a second redaction. But just as he was about to present it, his patron Fadl died (404/1014). The Shahnama took its final form after 408 (1018). There are differing reports about how the work was presented to the sultan. According to one, Firdawsi went to Ghazna and presented it himself, but the sultan, influenced also by his new vizier Ahmad ibn Hasan-i Maymandi, did not give him a reward worthy of it; the poet gave 20.000 of the 60.000 dirhams he received to the sultan's favourite Ayaz, 20.000 to the bath-keeper and 20.000 to the beer-seller or tavern-keeper, and wrote a satire on the sultan. According to another, when the sultan said of the epic hero Rustam, "In my army there are many stronger than he," the poet replied, "But God never created another like Rustam"; to escape the angered sultan he went to Herat and wrote a 100-couplet poem satirizing him. According to yet another, he went to Tabaristan and took refuge with the Ispahbad Shahriyar of the Bavandid dynasty, who, out of respect for the sultan, bought the satire and burned it. Firdawsi later returned to Tus, spent the rest of his life in poverty and died there. His death is given in some sources as 411 (1020) and in others as 416 (1025). His Poetry and Sufi Line — Firdawsi's line is that of the epic poet. The Shahnama narrates Iran's epic history blended with historical fact, from the creation of the first man, Kayumars, to the era of Arab rule over Iran, treating events of the Pishdadian, Kayanian, Ashkanian and Sasanian ages. Its sources are oral tradition, the prose Khuday-nama , the work of Abu al-Mu'ayyad-i Balkhi, the prose shahnama commissioned by Abu Mansur, governor of Tus, and the verse shahnamas of Daqiqi and Mas'udi-yi Marwazi. Figures such as Jamshid, Zahhak, Kava the blacksmith, Faridun, Rustam son of Zal, Afrasiyab king of Turan (Alp Er Tonga), Kay Khusraw, Isfandiyar and Alexander appear in it. It is written in the mathnawi form in the mutaqarib metre; according to the manuscripts the number of couplets ranges between 48.000 and 52.000. It contains few Arabic words. The two most imitated works of Persian literature are Sa'di's Gulistan and the Shahnama; the Ottoman sultans too had shehnames written for themselves on its model. Firdawsi traces the Turanians and the Iranians to Tur and Iraj, sons of Faridun, thus counting the two peoples as brothers; in the Shahnama he extols Mahmud of Ghazna to the skies and names him the true heir of the Kayanian throne. His Works — His principal work is the Shahnama . In the XII century the Ayyubid historian al-Bundari translated it into Arabic. Turner Macan produced the first edition (I-IV, Calcutta 1829), followed by more than twenty editions. Of Necati Lugal's Turkish translation, based on the Vullers edition (Leiden 1877-1884), only four volumes appeared (Istanbul 1945-1955). Until recently a mathnawi titled Yusuf u Zulaykha was also attributed to him (see Multiple Perspectives).
