Ferdowsi

The Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, is a Persian epic covering mythic, heroic, and historical rulers of Iran. It includes famous figures such as Rostam, Sohrab, Zal, and Zahhak.

The Shahnameh is commonly described as having about 50,000 couplets. Ferdowsi worked on it for decades and completed it around 1010.

Ferdowsi wrote the Shahnameh in New Persian at a time when Arabic had enormous prestige in learned culture. The poem became a cornerstone of Persian literary identity and preserved pre-Islamic Iranian legend in a durable poetic form.

Ferdowsi is buried in Tus, near Mashhad in northeastern Iran. His tomb became an important cultural site, especially because the Shahnameh is treated as a national epic in Persian-speaking traditions.