Ferdowsi: The greatest Iranian poet of all time

The story of the Iranian poet, Ferdowsi, reads like an epic itself. He was commissioned by a Shah to write a classic, it took him 30 long years and when he was through, instead of reward, he fell out with the king. Sunday Trust reporter, who was in Iran, brings us this interesting account.

By Aliyu Machika (from Nigeria), who was in Iran

During our visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran last month, one of the interesting sites we were taken to was the museum of the late Ferdowsi in Tus, a suburb some kilometers outside Mashhad city in North Eastern Iran, in the province of Khorasan. Beside his many works preserved in this museum, the museum also houses the tomb of the late great poet.

Listening to the accounts of the life of Ferdowsi, it is obvious it is the stuff of legends. But whether it really happened or not did not really matter, what did was what kept ringing in my mind about how the story reveals something about Ferdowsi’s character and what people think of him. The story reveals a man determined to write the perfect poem, his belief that he had achieved this aim, and his courage to stand up for his art.

Ferdowsi, who lived between 940 – 1020 AD was born in Tus. As a boy, Ferdowsi was said to have loved to play beside the river. But the bridge was always being washed away by floods. No one could build a bridge strong enough to withstand the floods. Ferdowsi dreamt that one day, he might earn enough money to build a bridge that would stand up to the floods.

When he was just 23, he found a ‘Shāhnāmeh’, (The Book of Kings) written by Abu-Mansour Almoammari, which, however, was not in poetic form. It consisted of older versions ordered by Abu-Mansour ibn Abdol-razzagh. The discovery was a fateful moment in the life of the poet. Ferdowsi started his composition of the Shahnameh in the Samanid era in 977 A.D.

Immediately Ferdowsi became a renowned poet all over Persia and was given the job by the King, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, to write down the history of Persia. The King put Ferdowsi in a special room in his palace, which had paintings covering the walls, to inspire Ferdowsi’s poetry. The King told Ferdowsi that he would pay him 1,000 gold pieces for each 1,000 couplets that he managed to write.

At the end of 30 years of hard work, Ferdowsi had written 60,000 couplets - the Shahnameh. He gave the poem to the King and asked for his 60,000 gold pieces. But it was said that during the 30 years of writing, Ferdowsi had argued with the King because he felt the King did not praise his work or value him enough. The King on his part thought that Ferdowsi was much too proud and therefore decided to slash the price he had earlier placed on the couplets. And the king only gave him 60,000 silver pieces.

Some think it was the jealousy of other poets at the king’s court that led to this treachery. The incident encouraged Ferdowsi’s enemies in the court. But in the end, Ferdowsi rejected the payment and, by some accounts, he gave it to a poor man who sold wine.

Furious and wandering for a time in Sistan and Mazandaran, he eventually returned back home to Tus, heartbroken and enraged. But it was said that he left behind a poem for the King, stuck to the wall of the room he had worked in for all those years. It was a long and angry poem, more like a curse, and ended with the words: “Heaven’s vengeance will not forget. Shrink tyrant from my words of fire, and tremble at a poet’s ire.”

Having seen the write up, the King ordered that Ferdowsi be found and trampled to death by elephants. After some interventions, Ferdowsi begged for forgiveness. The King accepted but said he never wanted to see or hear from Ferdowsi again.

But because the work of Ferdowsi had gone out to the society, many, many people complained to the King about the decision he took on the poet and its possible consequences. And in the end, the King felt remorseful and sent a camel train to Tus carrying 60,000 gold pieces along with cloths of silk, brocade and velvet, perfumes and spices to Ferdowsi.

But the King’s gifts arrived too late. It is said that Ferdowsi died before the camel train arrived. As the King’s caravan arrived in one gate of the city, Ferdowsi’s coffin and funeral procession was leaving through the other.

Ferdowsi’s daughter inherited her father’s hard earned money, and she built a new and strong bridge with a beautiful stone caravanserai nearby for travellers to rest and trade and tell stories.

Among the many miniature paintings of the Shahnameh, you will find many pictures of Ferdowsi himself, writing, showing his poems to the King and competing with other poets to prove that he really is the best poet of all.

His masterpiece, the Shāhnāmeh, is the most popular and influential national epics belonging to the Iranian people that at one time made up the greater Persian Empire, named in Zarathustra’s Gatha as Airyanem Vaejah, in Shahnameh as Iran, and in Greek as the Persian Empire.

Hence, the greatest achievement of Ferdowsi is to have all of the named fragments of the former Persian Empire, once again recited together as he himself simply put it, “If there is no Iran, may my body be vanquished, and in this land and nation no one remain alive, if everyone of us dies one by one, it is better than giving our country to the enemy.” This document is seen as the single document in Persian literature that can reunite Persia and all of its nations.

Today, the name of Ferdowsi, whose Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) is a well-known classic chef-d’oeuvre in Persian literature has also gone further and wider not only in Iran but across the world with one of the top universities in the country named after the great epic poet and scholar i.e. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM).