Ferdowsi

c. 940 - c. 1020 · Persian (Ṭus in Khorāsān, under the Samanids and the Ghaznavids) · Persian Epic Poetry, Philosophy of Kingship and Justice, Wisdom Literature, Philosophy of History

Yet live I shall: the seed of words have I flung broad-cast and henceforth I shall not die.

Ferdowsi (c. 940 – c. 1020), Abu'l-Qāsim of Ṭus in Khorāsān, came from the old Persian landed gentry, the *dehqāns*, who kept the memory of Iran's kings two centuries after the Arab conquest. He spent some thirty-five years turning that memory into the *Shāhnāma*, the Book of Kings: about fifty thousand couplets running from the first king of the world to Yazdegerd, the last Sasanian, killed after the Arabs came. He took up the task after the poet Daqiqi, who had begun it, was murdered by his own slave, working from an old Persian book of kings a friend found for him, and he finished in 1010…

Topics Ferdowsi addresses

the ancient book and its sources
Daqiqi's thousand couplets
oral tradition and storytellers of the epic
the farr, divine glory of kingship
Jamshid's pride and loss of the glory
Żaḥḥāk and the serpents on his shoulders
Fereydun's division of the world
the war of Iran and Turān
Zāl raised by the Simorgh
Rostam and his horse Rakhsh
Rostam's seven labours
Rostam and Sohrāb
the murder of Siyāvash
Rostam and Esfandiyār
Bahrām Gur
Anushirvān the Just and Bozorgmehr
Mazdak and community of goods and women
Khosrow Parviz and Shirin
Rostam son of Hormozd and the fall of the Sasanians
God beyond sight and description
wisdom as God's first gift
the turning sky that raises and casts down
death as a wind striking unripe fruit
the world as a wayside inn

Questions to put to Ferdowsi

The Book of Kings and Its Sources

Where did the stories in the Shāhnāma actually come from — an ancient written book, living storytellers, or both?
What was Daqiqi working on before he died, and why did you feel you had to finish what he started?
When the tales seem impossible or fabulous, how do you decide whether to include them?
What do you mean when you say the legends carry an inner meaning beneath the surface?
How did the dehqāns — the old Persian landowning families — keep these stories alive before you put them into verse?

Kingship, the Farr, and the Fall of Kings

What is the farr, and how does a king gain or lose it?
What went wrong for Jamshid — why did pride cost him the divine glory of kingship?
How does Żaḥḥāk come to power, and what does his story teach about what happens when a king serves evil?
You say Fereydun was no angel but won greatness through justice — what does that tell us about what kingship really requires?
When a king is unjust, what are his subjects and heroes permitted to do?

Rostam, the Heroes, and the War of Iran and Turān

Who is Rostam, and why does he dominate so much of the poem?
How do you want us to feel about Rostam killing his own son Sohrāb — is it tragedy, fate, or something else?
What is the war between Iran and Turān really about — is it a clash of peoples, of values, or of something deeper?
Zāl was raised by the great bird Simorgh in the mountains — what does that strange upbringing mean for who he becomes?
Rostam eventually kills Esfandiyār, a man he respects — how do you think about that confrontation between two honourable men?

The Turning Sky, Death, and a Good Name

You describe the sky as something that raises and casts down without visible reason — does that mean the world is simply unjust?
What do you mean by calling the world a wayside inn?
You lost your own son while writing the poem — how did that grief shape the way you write about death?
If fate governs so much, why does it still matter whether a king chooses justice or a hero acts with honour?
You say a good name is the only lasting monument — what does it mean to earn one, and can anyone do it?

Iran, the Old Faith, and the Coming of Islam

You are a Muslim poet telling the story of kings who lived before Islam — how do you hold those two things together?
You describe the ancient Iranian kings as worshippers of the one God for whom fire was a direction of prayer — why does that distinction matter to you?
How do you grieve the fall of the Sasanian throne to the Arab conquest without setting yourself against your own faith?
Why did you work so hard to keep Arabic words out of the poem's Persian?
You declare devotion to ʿAli at the opening of the poem — what does that Shiʿite allegiance mean for how you see the history you are telling?

The Poet, the Sultan, and the Life of Words

You spent decades writing the Shāhnāma — what kept you going through all those years?
What actually happened between you and Sultan Maḥmud, and how much of the famous satire on him is really yours?
You say your words will outlive the sultan who failed to reward you — what gives you that confidence?
How do you see your own role: are you an inventor of stories, a keeper of memory, or something else entirely?
Your tagline says you have flung the seed of words and shall not die — what does it mean for a poet to live on through a poem?

Converse with Ferdowsi on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Ferdowsi's own writing, cited to the page.