Ferdowsi poems
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Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi's tomb in Tus | |
| Full Name | Hasan Mansur |
|---|---|
| Teknonym | Abu l-Qāsim |
| Epithet | Hakim Ferdowsi |
| Well-known As | Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi |
| Religious Affiliation | Shi'a |
| Birth | 329/940 |
| Place of Birth | Paj, Khorasan |
| Place of Residence | Khorasan |
| Death | 411/1019 |
| Burial Place | Tus, Khorasan |
| Era | Mahmud of Ghazni |
| Notable roles | Iranian poet and epicist |
| Works | Shahnameh |
Abu l-Qāsim Ḥasan Manṣūr, known as Abu l-Qāsim Ferdowsi (Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی), (b. 329/940 — d. 411/1019) was an Iranian poet and epicist of the fourth/tenth century. He was born in Paj, a village in Khorasan. One of his famous works is Shahnameh (Book of Kings), in which the lives of the kings of Iran are narrated in poems. Historians have reported that he spent all his wealth in this way, but his effort was not accepted by Mahmud of Ghazni. Some sources considered this denial originating from the religious opposition between Ferdowsi and Mahmud of Ghazni. Sayyid Hasan Amin has considered Ferdowsi's approach in composing Shahnameh, adopted from the Q
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FERDOWSI, ABU'L-QĀSEM i. Life
FERDOWSI, ABU'L-QĀSEM (حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی)
i. LIFE
Life. Apart from his patronymic (konya), Abu’l-Qāsem, and his pen name (taḵallosá), Ferdowsī, nothing is known with any certainty about his names or the identity of his family. In various sources, and in the introduction to some manuscripts of the Šāh-nāma, his name is given as Manṣūr, Ḥasan, or Aḥmad, his father’s as Ḥasan, Aḥmad, or ʿAlī, and his grandfather’s as Šarafšāh (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, pp. 458-59). Of these various statements, that of Fatḥ b. ʿAlī Bondārī, who translated the Šāh-nāma into Arabic in 620/1223, should be considered the most creditable. He referred to Ferdowsī as “al-Amīr al-Ḥakīm Abu’l-Qāsem Manṣūr b. al-Ḥasan al-Ferdowsī al-Ṭūsī” (Bondārī, p. 3). It is not known why the poet chose the pen name Ferdowsī, which is mentioned only once in text and twice in the satire (ed. Khaleghi, V, p. 275, v. 3, ed. Mohl, I, p. lxxxix, vv. 4, 6). According to a legend recorded in the introduction to the F
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Ferdowsi: the Poet and the Legend
Ferdowsi is widely regarded as the preserver of the Persian language and of pre-Islamic Iranian cultural identity. Of all the peoples conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century, the Persians are the only ones who can boast a major literature in the indigenous language that they were using before the conquest. When asked recently why the vast majority of Egyptians, the heirs to a great pre-Islamic civilization, speak Arabic rather than Coptic, a leading Egyptian historian replied: ‘Because we had no Ferdowsi.’
Hakim Abu’l-Qasem Ferdowsi (940–1025) was born in the family of wealthy land owners (the class known as dehqan) in Tus, in northeast Iran’s province of Khorasan (today’s Razavi Khorasan state). His life coincided with a period of intense interest in Persian traditions. After the collapse of the Sasanian Empire, Iran offered the Arab conquerors ancient models of kingship that they could adopt in order to legitimize and solidify their dominance over peoples of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Iran also provided the Caliphate o
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