Ferdowsi (Hakim Abol-Ghasem Ferdowsi Tusi)
Hakim Abol-Ghasem Ferdowsi Tusi was born in Tābarān-e Tus around the year 935. Ferdowsi is the greatest Persian-speaking poet, the orator, the sage of Tus, the Iranian epic poet par excellence and author of Shahnameh (Book of Kings). It is made up of almost sixty thousand couplets and is Ferdowsi's most famous composition and one of the greatest works of ancient Persian literature.
We do not know much about his life before the writing of the Shāhnāmeh but it is clear that in his youth, with the proceeds of his father's land holdings, he had no economic problems, but slowly he lost those assets and found himself in conditions of poverty. Ferdowsi from the beginning devoted himself to learning science and wisdom, he was interested in reading stories, in particular history and information on ancient Persia. Precisely this interest in Iran and the ancient Persian civilization convinced him to put together the ancient and religious texts of the Iranians in the form of a national epic or the Shāhnāmeh and for almost thirty years he dedicated the best days of his life to this work . In the year 1020 he died in Tus; the majestic Ferdowsi's mausoleum it was built in his garden on the occasion of the thousand years after his birth, inviting the greatest orientalist-experts of the Shāhnāmeh and Iranians of the world. To date the Book of Kings has been translated into many languages and there are many manuscripts of it in Iran and in other countries; for example we can mention one of the oldest and most authoritative that is kept in the national library of Florence.
Some streets and squares have been given the name of Ferdowsi and there are statues that portray him in Tehran, in Tus (next to his mausoleum), in Rome, in the square with this name inside Villa Borghese, in Mashhad, (The Ferdowsi University) etc ... Numerous bodies and institutions have been founded in his name in Iran and in the world and so far many have been organized ceremonies to honor him including the party for the millennial anniversary of his birth. The thousand years that have passed since the end of the writing of the Shāhnāmeh have been included by UNESCO in the list of national glories and scientific, cultural and artistic events of the year 2010-2011.
