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Abolqasem Mansour bin Hassan Tusi (940–1025), better known by his pen name Ferdowsi, was a Persians poet and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry created by a single poet, and the greatest epic of Persian-speaking countries. Ferdowsi is celebrated as one of the most influential figures of Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature.
Researchers believe that Ferdowsi began composing the Shahnameh based on the Abu-Mansuri Shahnameh at the age of 30. The only poem that has been clarified about him is the Shahnameh itself. The Shahnameh is Ferdowsi's most famous poem and one of the greatest writings of ancient Persian literature. Ferdowsi completed the Shahnameh in 944, three years before Mahmud's accession to the throne. In 1010, Ferdowsi completed the second edition. Other poems have also been attributed to Ferdowsi, most of which are baseless. The most famous of them are the Masnavi of Yusuf and Zulaikha. Another poem that is known to be by Ferdowsi is a satire in condemnation of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.
Ferdowsi came from a family of landed gentry. He spent the beginning of his life in the Samanid Empire and at the same time as the movement for independence and identity among Iranians. The Samanid Empire, with the support of the Persian language, prepared a brilliant time for the cultivation of the Persian language and thought, and Ferdowsi is clearly indebted to his predecessors and all those who reached the pinnacle of the Persian language in the ninth and tenth centuries, and he was able to use that capital to express his speech so brilliantly. In a comprehensive look at Ferdowsi's knowledge and learnings, it can be said that he knew the Arabic language, but he did not dominate Arabic literature. In the "Baysunghur Shahnameh", Ferdowsi's name is associated with the title of "Hakim", which according to some refers to the wisdom of Khosravani.
In the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi links the culture of pre-Islamic Iran with the culture of post-Islamic Iran. It can be concluded from the Shahnameh that Ferdowsi was influenced by ancient Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism and Mithraism, although some researchers consider the source of these influences to be the themes of Ferdowsi's work, to which he was very loyal. Also, due to his peasant origins, he was familiar with the ancient culture and rituals of Iran, and later increased the scope of this knowledge, so that this knowledge established his poetic worldview. What Ferdowsi was dealing with was not only poetic, but also intellectual; he did not write fiction. Ferdowsi Holy Wisdom as the source and capital of all goodness. He believes that a person with wisdom recognizes good and evil from each other, and in this way, he reaches the happiness of this world and the salvation of that world. Ferdowsi carefully examined his motifs, most of which were from the Abu-Mansuri Shahnameh. He was able to gather an excerpt from the vast wealth of knowledge he had at his disposal to have a legacy carried by the Persians, Turkish people, and Indian people.
He had a son, who died at the age of 37, and was mourned by the poet in an elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh.
Details about Ferdowsi's education are lacking. While it is likely that he learned Arabic in school, there is no evidence in the Shahnameh that he knew either Arabic or Pahlavi.
Ferdowsi was a Shia Muslim, although varying views exist on what Shiite sect he belonged to. Khaleghi-Motlagh, following Theodor Nöldeke, notes that Ferdowsi displays a contradictory attitude towards religion in the Shahnameh: on the one hand, he shows a "lenient" attitude towards religion, but on the other hand, he believed that his sect was the "only true Islamic one." Khaleghi-Motlagh concurs with Nöldeke that Ferdowsi was "above all a Deism and monotheist who at the same time kept faith with his forbears." Ferdowsi criticized philosophers and those who tried to prove the existence of God. He saw God's creation as the only evidence of His existence and believed everything in life to be the product of God's will. Khaleghi-Motlagh and others have suggested that a certain fatalism in Ferdowsi's work contradicts his "absolute faith in the unicity and might of God," and that this may have been the legacy of the Zurvanism of the Sasanian period.
Among these are: the story that a Middle Persian (Pahlavi) version of the Shahnameh traveled from Ctesiphon to the Hejaz, Abyssinia, and India before returning to Iran in the hands of Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar; Ferdowsi’s confrontation with three Ghaznavid court poets (Unsuri, Farrukhi Sistani, and Asjadi); his alleged flight to Baghdad, India, Tabaristan, or Quhistan after composing a hajw-nama (satire); the claim that he presented the Shahnameh to Mahmud of Ghazni out of poverty in order to provide a dowry for his daughter; the tale that—on the advice of Ahmad ibn Hasan Maymandi—Mahmud sent silver instead of gold; Ferdowsi’s supposed gift of that reward to a seller of fuqāʿ (a kind of malt beverage) and to a bathhouse attendant; and finally Mahmud’s remorse, with the gold reward arriving only as Ferdowsi died.
By contrast, Jalal Khaleghi-Motlagh—observing that information about Ferdowsi’s life after about 1009–1010 ( c. 400 AH) does not extend beyond the report of the Chahār Maqāla—argues that although some details (including those transmitted by Nizami ʿArūżī) are doubtful, there is not always decisive evidence to reject them, and some are corroborated when compared with other sources. For example, the account of Ferdowsi’s journey to Ghazna and his encounter with Mahmud appears in the Tarikh-e Sistan. Khaleghi-Motlagh also notes that poets such as Nizami Ganjavi and ʿAttar allude to Ferdowsi’s conflict with Mahmud, Mahmud’s ingratitude, and to the episode of fuqāʿ-drinking and the giving away of the royal reward. On the basis of the Chahār Maqāla, he reports the fuqāʿ episode, Ferdowsi’s flight from Ghazna, his move to Herat, and a journey to Tabaristan to the Bavandid ruler Shahriyar III. However, he regards stories of travel to Baghdad and Isfahan—found in some manuscript prefaces and later accretions to the Shahnameh—as legendary.
In addition, the Baysunghuri Preface preserves an anecdote attributed to the Safarnama of Nasir Khusraw: in 1045–1046 (437 AH), on the road to Sarakhs, Nasir Khusraw supposedly saw a large caravanserai in the village of Chāha, said to have been built with the reward Mahmud had sent Ferdowsi. Because Ferdowsi had already died, the story continues, his heir refused the reward. This passage is not found in the extant manuscripts of the Safarnama, though Hasan Taqizadeh considered it likely to be accurate; Theodor Nöldeke initially regarded it as an invention but later revised his view.
Legend-making nevertheless continued and was sometimes praised as an art in itself. Many writers and artists in later periods recast Ferdowsi’s life in narrative form. For instance, Bahram Beyzai in his screenplay Dibache-ye Novin-e Shahnameh (1986–1987) depicts Ferdowsi as an angry outsider, sacrificing his wealth to revive Iran’s ancient heritage and receiving only accusations and insults in return. Satem Ulughzade likewise portrayed Ferdowsi according to his own interpretation in the historical novel Ferdowsi (1990–1991).
At the same time, scholars searching for Ferdowsi’s historical life amid legendary material have achieved partial success. What follows summarizes some of the better-attested points.
The year 940 (329 AH) is commonly inferred from Ferdowsi’s own references to his age in three passages. In one, within the episode of the “Great War of Kay Khusraw”, he mentions his poverty at sixty-five and then recalls that, at fifty-eight, he heard a great tumult in the world and that “Fereydun” had come to life again and taken the world—understood as an allusion to Mahmud’s accession. Since Mahmud’s consolidation of power in eastern Iran is dated to 996–997 (387 AH), this reckoning yields a birth around 940.
Some scholars, however, have proposed different dates. Nöldeke argued that Ferdowsi was born shortly after 931–932 (320 AH). Rokn al-Din Homayounfarrokh proposed 925–926 (313 AH).
According to legend, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni promised Ferdowsi a gold piece for every couplet of the Shahnameh, to be paid upon its completion. After thirty years of work, the poet was instead given silver by a hostile courtier, prompting Ferdowsi to give the money away and flee after writing a satire on the sultan. Mahmud later discovered the deception and sent the promised gold, but it arrived in Tus just as Ferdowsi’s funeral procession was leaving the city.
Older sources such as ʿAjāʾib al-Makhlūqāt, Hamdallah Mustawfi’s Tarikh-e Gozideh, and an early “third” preface to the Shahnameh give his personal name as Hasan. Other sources—such as the Arabic translation associated with al-Bundari of Isfahan, the “Florence manuscript” preface, and the Baysunghuri Preface and texts derived from it—report Mansur. The earliest source to mention Ferdowsi by name, pen name, and city is Asadi Tusi’s Garshaspnama.
For his father, Tarikh-e Gozideh and the same early preface give the name Ali. After reviewing the earliest sources, Mohammad-Amin Riahi argued that “Hasan ibn Ali” is plausible and considered it more compatible with other indications sometimes used to suggest an affinity with certain branches of Shia Islam, while still emphasizing—like many researchers—that Ferdowsi should not be portrayed as sectarian.
Some later and less reliable sources supply additional names for his father. Nöldeke rejected “Fakhr al-Din” on the grounds that honorifics ending in “al-Din” became common only later and were associated with powerful rulers, making such a title unlikely for Ferdowsi’s father.
In the Bundari tradition, ʿUmar Farrokh recorded Ferdowsi’s lineage as “Abu’l-Qasim Mansur ibn Ahmad ibn Farrokh Ferdowsi”. In his edition of al-Hakim al-Nishaburi’s Tarikh-e Nishapur, Mohammad-Reza Shafiʿi Kadkani discusses a method derived from contemporary naming conventions in Khurasan, suggesting that if Ferdowsi’s kunya (Abu’l-Qasim) is certain but his given name is disputed between Hasan and Mansur, the conventional pairing of kunya and given name might favor Hasan.
Little reliable information exists about Ferdowsi’s childhood and youth; the early sources largely contain legend. Nevertheless, close attention to the linguistic structure and historical-cultural texture of the Shahnameh suggests that, during his formative years, he accumulated substantial learning by reading and reflecting on earlier poetry and prose—resources that later became material for his composition of the Shahnameh.
Ferdowsi’s youth unfolded under the Samanid Empire, whose rulers patronized Persian literature. He lived in a milieu where stories of Iran’s ancient past were widely cherished—an atmosphere he himself evokes in the Shahnameh preface when he recalls the making of a “Book of the Famous” (the Shahnameh-ye Abu Mansuri).
Khaleghi-Motlagh suggests that Nöldeke’s overall caution is largely persuasive: Ferdowsi likely learned Arabic but was not a master stylist in Arabic prose or verse; and although he may have understood Middle Persian material when read aloud, the difficulty of Pahlavi script and scribal practice makes it unlikely that he could himself read it fluently. In any case, the Shahnameh provides no clear proof of Pahlavi literacy. The Shahnameh does contain occasional allusions to astronomy, philosophy, and other fields, but these do not by themselves demonstrate specialized mastery; what is unmistakable is Ferdowsi’s command of Persian language and of Iranian cultural-historical tradition.
According to Nizami ʿArūżī’s report as discussed by Khaleghi-Motlagh, Ferdowsi left only a daughter, and he sought the royal reward for her marriage portion. After Ferdowsi’s death, the daughter refused the reward, and the money was spent on improving the caravanserai at Chāha.
He may have written poems earlier in his life but they no longer exist. A narrative poem, Yūsof o Zolaykā (Joseph and Zuleika), was once attributed to him, but scholarly consensus now rejects the idea it is his.
There has also been speculation about the satire Ferdowsi allegedly wrote about Mahmud of Ghazni after the sultan failed to reward him sufficiently. Nizami Aruzi, Ferdowsi's early biographer, claimed that all but six lines had been destroyed by a well-wisher who had paid Ferdowsi a thousand for the poem. Introductions to some manuscripts of the Shahnameh include verses purporting to be the satire. Some scholars have viewed them as fabricated; others are more inclined to believe in their authenticity.
The beginning of Ferdowsi’s composition of the Shahnameh, based on the Shahnameh of Abu Mansur, is usually placed at around the age of thirty; however, judging from Ferdowsi’s poetic ability, it can be inferred that he also composed poetry in his youth, and may even have begun versifying parts of the Shahnameh at that time, drawing on older tales preserved in oral tradition among the people. This hypothesis may help explain the numerous divergences among the manuscript recensions of the Shahnameh, insofar as earlier versions of such scattered narratives may have served as exemplars for copyists. In addition to rational considerations, legendary accounts likewise suggest that Ferdowsi composed certain stories separately, that copies of these circulated, and that they were transmitted from hand to hand. Ferdowsi’s own remarks in the concluding portion of the Shahnameh also point to this. Among the stories thought to have been composed during his youth are the narratives of the “first few reigns” in the Shahnameh, as well as Bijan and Manijeh, Rostam and Esfandiyar, Rostam and Sohrab, the tale of Akwan Div, and the story of Siyavash.
Apart from the verses that Ferdowsi himself attributes to Daqiqi, the only work securely established as his is the Shahnameh itself. Other works have also been ascribed to him, though most of these attributions are unfounded. The most famous is the masnavi Yusuf and Zulaykha, which the “Preface to the Baysunghur Shahnameh” counts as Ferdowsi’s composition. Modern scholarship has rejected this attribution; among others, Mojtaba Minovi concluded in 1976 that its author was “a mediocre versifier named Shamsi”. Other poems have likewise been attributed to Ferdowsi—such as a number of qet‘e (occasional poems), chaharpareh (quatrain stanzas), ruba'i, qasida, and ghazal—but scholars have been highly doubtful that he composed them. In particular, the qasidas are often regarded as products of the Safavid Iran. In anthologies such as Makhzan al-Ghara'ib, Lubab al-Albab, Tazkira-ye Atashkadeh, Haft Iqlim, Riyaz al-Shu‘ara, and Tazkira-ye Botkhaneh, qasidas, qet‘es, and ruba‘is have been attributed to Ferdowsi, though some remain doubtful. Hermann Ethé collected these poems and translated them into German language. However, Hasan Taqizadeh argued that some of these pieces cannot be genuine, since they differ markedly from Ferdowsi’s language and style and from the poetry of the 10th century CE. Among these attributions, the authenticity of one ghazal, two qet‘es, and two ruba‘is, and their assignment to Ferdowsi, has been considered relatively plausible.
Ferdowsi had already composed some narratives during the reign of Mansur I, the Samanid amir. Later, around 980–981 CE, in the reign of Nuh II (Mansur’s son), and after the death of Daqiqi, he began versifying the prose Shahnameh of Abu Mansur. It is thought that Daqiqi had begun the versification of the Shahnameh by order of the Samanid ruler. Accordingly, Ferdowsi initially intended to travel to Bukhara—the Samanid capital—to obtain authorization to continue Daqiqi’s work, secure financial support, and consult a copy of the prose Shahnameh compiled for Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Razzaq, which was presumably kept in the Samanid court library and used by Daqiqi. However, after a friend from his hometown—identified in the Baysonghori Preface as Muhammad Lashkari—made a manuscript of that source available to him, he abandoned the journey and began the work in his own city. At first he benefited from the patronage of Amirak Mansur, son of Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Razzaq, but this period did not last long and ended with Mansur’s death. Mansur ibn Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Razzaq, known as Amirak Mansur, was the son of the ruler of Tus in Ferdowsi’s time. Amirak Mansur was arrested in Nishapur around 987–988 CE, taken to Bukhara, and then killed.
Ferdowsi completed the Shahnameh in about 994–995 CE, three years before Mahmud’s accession. This was the first recension of the Shahnameh, and for nearly sixteen further years he worked to expand and refine it. These years coincided with the fall of the Samanids and the rise of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. It is clear that the first recension did not include praise of Mahmud; it is thought that the praise of Mansur ibn Abu Mansur may have been more extensive than in the text as it survives, and the first recension may even have been dedicated to Amirak Mansur. In about 1003–1004 CE, at the age of sixty-five, Ferdowsi decided to present the Shahnameh to Sultan Mahmud and therefore undertook a new recension. In the second recension he completed the portions relating to the reign of the Sasanian Empire.
The completion of the second recension is dated to 8 March 1010, when Ferdowsi was seventy-one years old.
According to Nizami Aruzi, Ali Deylam wrote out the Shahnameh in seven volumes, and Ferdowsi, together with Budalaf, took it to the court of Ghazni to Sultan Mahmud. There, with the assistance of the vizier Ahmad ibn Hasan Maymandi, it was presented to the sultan.For discussion of the reliability of Nizami Aruzi’s account concerning Maymandi’s support for Ferdowsi, see the relevant section on Ferdowsi’s patrons.
However, due to slander by envious courtiers and because of Ferdowsi’s religious beliefs, Mahmud is said to have been displeased with the work and failed to honor it: instead of an initial reward of sixty thousand dinars, fifty thousand dirhams were allocated, and ultimately only twenty thousand dirhams were paid. After this episode and until the end of his life, Ferdowsi added further passages to the Shahnameh, many of them complaints and criticisms directed at Mahmud and reflections on the bitterness of the times. On the basis of a verse in the Hajw-nama, Ferdowsi again refers to his age in the years after the completion of the Shahnameh, calling himself eighty years old:
Based on remarks attributed to Nizami Aruzi and Farid al-Din Attar, the total time spent composing the Shahnameh is given as twenty-five years. In the Hajw-nama, however, “thirty years” is mentioned in three places, and “thirty-five years” once. If one assumes a start date of 978–979 and an end date of 1010, the period of composition would amount to thirty-three years. According to Jalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, considering the date of composition of “Bijan and Manijeh” and Ferdowsi’s revisions after 1010, Ferdowsi devoted about thirty-five years of his life to the Shahnameh.
(Notes: Although Ravandi and some other historians have called the Samanids’ cultural–literary movement “Shu'ubiyya,” in many sources Shu'ubiyya refers more specifically to a movement that flourished in the 2nd–3rd centuries AH (from the late Umayyad period to shortly before the end of the Abbasid era), often expressing the superiority of non-Arabs over Arabs.)
Frye says that the number of poets of this period recorded in biographical anthologies ( tadhkiras)—such as al-Thaʿālibī’s Yatimat al-dahr and Muḥammad ʿAwfī’s Lubāb al-albāb—is striking, and that religious scholars, poets, historians, and other learned figures adorned the court of Nasr II. At that time, Persian and Arabic books were written in the capital and other cities, and the library of Bukhara amazed scholars such as Avicenna.
The relative social equality of Transoxiana (compared with the more rigidly stratified society of Iran proper) helped prepare the ground for an egalitarian society there; thus, the Iranian renaissance began not in Iran itself, but in Transoxiana. According to Frye, this renaissance was an Islamic–Iranian “Renaissance” nurtured under the Samanids, whose Iranian aspect outweighed its Arabic aspect. By this process, the Samanids helped make Islam a world culture and showed that Islam need not be tied to the Arabic language.
In this period, religious and non-religious works were translated from Arabic into New Persian. Balʿamī translated the History of al-Ṭabarī from Arabic into Persian. Works on medicine and pharmacology were written, and al-Khwarizmi compiled an encyclopedic work. Poets, too, perhaps enjoyed an even higher status. Daqiqi began versifying Iran’s pre-Islamic history by order of Nuh II, but his death left the project unfinished—work that Ferdowsi later completed, thereby preserving, to some extent, the heritage of Middle Persian literature from being lost.
In Ferdowsi’s time, the intensity of the Shu'ubiyya movement had somewhat diminished; nevertheless, some patriotic Iranians still reflected on their ancestral past. Ravandi says that, accordingly, many Iranian scholars and writers took steps to revive the History of ancient Iran. To that end, historical, literary, and social writings that had survived the Arab conquest were gathered and prepared as source material for the composition of histories and Shāhnāmas. Abū al-Muʾayyad Balkhī wrote a prose Shāhnāma, and Masʿūdī Marvazī composed one in verse. From childhood, Ferdowsi witnessed efforts by those around him to safeguard ancient values; he himself matured intellectually in such a milieu and became a determined follower of the same path.
In Persian literature, epic poetry held a place alongside lyric poetry; epic as a genre was unfamiliar in Arabic poetry and was thoroughly Iranian, signaling the continuity of literature before and after Islam. Linking themes—such as an ethical outlook, counsel grounded in reason, and reflection on the transience of worldly life—sustained this continuity. Islam’s influence on these themes was limited, while their Iranian roots were ancient and deep. Even some lyrical themes, such as descriptions of nature, had roots in pre-Islamic literature.
According to Zabihollah Safa, one feature of Persian poetry in the 4th century and the first half of the 5th century AH was the great number of poets—an especially notable point given that Persian poetry at the time was largely limited to eastern Iran. Poets’ mastery and their ability to express novel themes with clarity were other hallmarks of the period. Beyond the favorable environment, the “naturalness” of the language for poets should be considered: poets did not need extensive study to learn Persian, unlike 6th-century AH poets in Iraq-i Ajam and Azerbaijan and elsewhere. Another characteristic was the sheer abundance of verse: the number of couplets attributed to Rudaki is reported as 1,300,000 in one account and (more plausibly) 100,000 in another; and the Shahnameh itself is often reported as 60,000 couplets. Similar claims were made for other poets of the period. The loss of much of this poetry is attributed, first, to the archaic language and diction becoming unfamiliar to later audiences, and second, to repeated incursions by eastern neighboring peoples into Transoxiana and Khorasan, which destroyed many books and libraries. Other features of Persian poetry in this era include simplicity and fluency of expression and thought, the evolution and diversification of Persian prosody compared with the 3rd century AH, and the freshness of themes and ideas. Poetry also reflected poets’ lived experience and social, military, and political conditions—due to their realism, familiarity with their environment, and relatively limited interest in ornate fantasy (except in some lyrical and ghazal-like poems). The comfortable lives of many poets also meant that poetry more often spoke of pleasure, joy, and ease, giving readers a stronger sense of vitality.
In the Zurvanite myth, Ohrmazd is attacked by his counterpart Ahriman; similarly, the Shahnameh frequently portrays the div as a primordial enemy. In the stories of Keyumars, Siamak, Tahmuras, Hushang, and Jamshid, the div play a foundational role in shaping the narrative world.
By contrast, Sajjad Aydinlou argues that Ferdowsi’s engagement with Mazdayasnian and Mithraism ideas is more prominent than his use of other religious currents. As an example, he interprets Zal’s white hair and Sam’s rejection of him not as a retelling of the Zurvanite account of Ahriman’s birth, but as reflecting a Mazdayasnian notion that physical “defects” can signify an Ahrimanic intrusion into creation. He connects this to other narrative motifs, including accounts involving demons and the origin of beings from them, and also to Sam’s marriage to peri-descent figures such as Peri-dokht, a daughter of the emperor of China.
Other scholars have pointed to additional Mazdayasnian features in the Shahnameh, including references to the Zend and Avesta in stories set before the appearance of Zoroaster, the “three goods” associated with Mazdayasnian ethics, accounts of social groupings, praise of fire, and a number of idioms and motifs related to animals (including horses).
Aydinlou also disputes the view that the religion of the Shahnameh’s kings prior to Vishtaspa should be understood primarily as Zurvanite. He argues that evidence for Zoroastrian and Mithraic elements in pre-Zoroaster Iran is stronger, and suggests that, on internal and external indications, Rostam is more plausibly read through a Mithraic lens than a Zurvanite one, even if no single identification can be treated as conclusive.
Farzad Qaemi describes the epistemic structure of Khosravani wisdom as grounded in the “emanation” of multiplicity from unity, such that each material entity is understood to have a supra-material archetype. On this view, the Shahnameh’s opening praise of God as “the Lord of life and wisdom” aligns with conceptions in which Ahura Mazda is associated with the originating substance of soul and intellect. Qaemi adds that, based on current knowledge, it remains difficult to determine whether such formulations should be traced first to Greek thought or to traditions shaped by Zoroastrianism.
Elyas Nooraei similarly emphasizes light as a central theme in Khosravani wisdom and argues that it appears both in the Shahnameh and in Suhrawardi’s Illuminationism. He interprets Ferdowsi’s message as oriented around “spiritual intellect” and light, and connects this to the idea of Khvarenah, which he treats as a key basis for legitimacy and authority in the epic’s portrayal of rulers such as Kay Khosrow.
Lazard further argues that Ferdowsi’s principal written source was the Shahnameh of Abu Mansur ( Shahnameh-ye Abu Mansuri), compiled by a committee of four Zoroastrians who apparently drew not only on the Khwadāy-nāmag but also on additional materials. Similar assessments are associated with scholars such as Khaleghi-Motlagh, Shapur Shahbazi, and Saeed Nafisi.
Zarrinkub links the movement’s overlap with currents such as Shi‘ism and the Kharijites in anti-Umayyad opposition to Umayyad policies that sought to establish what he characterizes as an “exclusively Arab state” and to maintain harsh attitudes toward the mawali. He further argues that the movement expanded under the Abbasids, partly because Abbasid politics relied heavily on Khurasani support and displayed less overt Arab chauvinism, allowing some space for such polemics so long as they did not cross into accusations of heresy. He also notes that a range of Muslim groups shared with Shu‘ubiyya the principle of equality among Muslim peoples, and that a number of Shu‘ubiyya works are listed in Al-Fihrist.
Some scholars have described Ferdowsi (like Daqiqi) as adopting a Shu‘ubiyya-leaning perspective when emphasizing Iranian national memory; in this context, Safa and others have connected accusations of “Rāfiḍī” sentiment toward Ferdowsi with such tendencies. Zarrinkub also argues that Ferdowsi’s account of the Arab conquest of Iran and related wars reflects narratives that were added to “Books of Kings” traditions by Magi after Yazdegerd III, thereby introducing a tone of ethnically inflected hostility while also explaining defeat through divine decree.
Lazard argues that Ferdowsi’s achievement in rhetoric and poetic craft builds on more than a century of Persian literary development by earlier writers who stabilized the language’s structures and expanded its expressive range. In this view, without that prior maturation of New Persian, the Shahnameh would not have been possible.
Mohammad Ja‘far Yahaghi suggests that scattered epic compositions by poets without surviving collected works—and by poets such as Abu Shakur Balkhi, Daqiqi, and Mas‘udi—often written in motaqāreb metre, likely provided precedents for Shahnameh-style writing and may have influenced Ferdowsi. He notes that Ferdowsi mentions Rudaki explicitly in the episode about bringing Kalila wa Dimna from India and translating it into Pahlavi, praising Rudaki’s poetic treatment of it.
Yahaghi further argues that Rudaki and Ferdowsi both belong to a broader “rationalist” cultural climate associated with Samanid patronage of Persian, which fostered a flourishing of language and Iranian intellectual identity and prepared the ground for the Shahnameh. He also notes parallels in themes such as culture, intellect, mortality, and devotion to the Prophet’s family, though he cautions that these resemblances may reflect shared intellectual contexts rather than direct borrowing.
Regarding Daqiqi, it has been argued that Ferdowsi’s decision to incorporate Daqiqi’s verses into the Shahnameh was motivated less by convenience than by a desire to preserve Daqiqi’s work. Ferdowsi frames this decision in the story of dreaming of Daqiqi, where Daqiqi requests that Ferdowsi not be “stingy” and include his verses. Ferdowsi then evaluates Daqiqi’s poetic strengths and limits, praising him as an accomplished panegyrist while criticizing aspects of his narrative technique, and he nonetheless credits Daqiqi as a pathfinder in the epic project.
Later scholarship has described Daqiqi, on the basis of the surviving corpus, as a capable poet whose contemporaries praised his talent. At the same time, comparisons with Ferdowsi have highlighted differences in pacing and narrative economy. Khaleghi-Motlagh argues that Daqiqi’s verse sometimes slows narrative momentum through repetition or extended detail, and that a Shahnameh composed entirely in Daqiqi’s manner would likely have been longer but less effective as an epic.
Khaleghi-Motlagh also notes that, despite such critiques, Daqiqi cannot be treated as unfamiliar with epic expression. Some of his descriptive passages resemble Ferdowsi’s style closely; however, determining whether this similarity reflects Daqiqi’s influence on Ferdowsi or shared dependence on earlier epic materials is difficult, given the limited survival of earlier sources.
During the Bazgasht-e Adabī (“Literary Return”), alongside a renewed interest in poets such as Sa‘dī and Hāfeẓ and in poets such as ‘Onṣorī, Farrokhī, and Manūčehrī, Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh also received considerable attention. One example is Shahanshāh-nāma by Fatḥ-‘Alī Ṣabā, composed in imitation of the Shahnameh and devoted to the military campaigns of Fatḥ-‘Alī Shāh.
Interest in the Shahnameh increased further with the rise of modern nationalism after the Constitutional Revolution and with the celebration of the millennial commemoration of Ferdowsi in 1934, as well as growing attention from Orientalist scholars. Many plays have also been written on the basis of Shahnameh narratives. Poets such as Mirzadeh Eshqi, Aref Qazvini, Moḥammad-Taqī Bahār, Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Shahryār, Ḥosayn Masrūr, and modern poets such as Fereydūn Moshīrī and Mehdī Akhavān Sāles—among many others—drew inspiration from Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh in their own works. Beyond Ferdowsi’s influence within Persian literature, countless translations, studies, and editions relating to Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh have been produced worldwide. According to Ketāb-shenāsī-ye Ferdowsī va Shāhnāmeh ( Bibliography of Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh), compiled by Iraj Afshar—which covers writings on Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh from their beginnings up to 2006—and including works attributed to Ferdowsi such as Yūsuf o Zoleykhā, a total of 5,942 items had been identified by 2006. These include articles, lectures, chapters, standalone books and independent collections, translations and quotations, dated and undated manuscripts and selections (including prose retellings), editions of the Shahnameh and its summaries (whether of the whole work or one or more of its stories), works compiled on the basis of the Shahnameh, plays based on it, and editions of Yūsuf o Zoleykhā published during this period.
Ferdowsi is one of the undisputed giants of Persian literature. After Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity as Ferdowsi's masterpiece. has a unique place in Persian history because of the strides he made in reviving and regenerating the Persian language and cultural traditions. His works are cited as a crucial component in the persistence of the Persian language, as those works allowed much of the tongue to remain codified and intact. In this respect, Ferdowsi surpasses Nizami Ganjavi, Omar Khayyam, Asadi Tusi and other seminal Persian literary figures in his impact on Persian culture and language. Many modern Iranians see him as the father of the modern Persian language.
Ferdowsi in fact was a motivation behind many future Persian figures. One such notable figure was Reza Shah Pahlavi, who established an Academy of Persian Language and Literature, in order to attempt to remove Arabic and French words from the Persian language, replacing them with suitable Persian alternatives. In 1934, Reza Shah set up a ceremony in Mashhad, Khorasan, celebrating a thousand years of Persian literature since the time of Ferdowsi, titled "Ferdowsi Millennial Celebration", inviting notable European as well as Iranian scholars. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is a university established in 1949 that also takes its name from Ferdowsi.
Ferdowsi's influence in the Persian culture is explained by John Andrew Boyle:
Contemporary writer Zana Vahidzadeh (Dana Pishdar) has reflected on Ferdowsi’s legacy, emphasizing that the Shahnameh is not only a monument of Persian language but also a repository of collective memory. In his view, Ferdowsi’s verses continue to serve as a bridge between Iran’s pre-Islamic past and modern cultural identity, ensuring that questions of nationhood and heritage remain vivid in the Persian imagination.Z. Safâ. Anthologie de la poésie persane. Paris : Gallimard/UNESCO, 1987, p. 67.
The library at Wadham College, Oxford University was named the Ferdowsi Library, and contains a specialised Persian section for scholars.
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