This article was written by Anahita Javadi of Richard Montgomery High School
Originating in ancient Mesopotamia, the Persian civilization is one of the oldest civilizations known to man. With almost 7000 years of recorded history, Persia is home to many great poets such as Saadi, Hafez, and Rumi, who have all made Persian literature one of the most popular in the modern world. However, no matter how strong and popular this form of literature is today, there was a time when Farsi was in danger of being forgotten. At that time, the survival of this ancient language was uncertain.
The Arab conquest of Persia in the year 651 A.D. brought drastic change, taking away the Persians’ culture, religion and language by force. People were forced to learn and speak Arabic, and speaking Farsi was forbidden. By the year 977 A.D., the Arabs did not have much control anymore, but their effects made Arabic the primary language in Iran. Farsi was on the verge of extinction, only spoken in certain parts of Iran. It was then when Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi, a poet who is among the most significant figures in Iranian history, started his work on the Shahnameh, also referred to as The Epic of The Kings.
Ferdowsi was born in Tus, a city in the areas of Khorasan, into one of the few families that kept the Persian language alive within their household. He was raised as a landowner and farmer, but after the death of Abu-Mansur Daqiqi, he dedicated his time to finish what Daqiqi could not, the Shahnameh. Ferdowsi picked up the very small piece of work where Daqiqi left off, and created an epic of 60,000 rhymed couplets, covering the entire history, culture, and religion of Persia and the stories of many great kings of Iran while only using a limited number of Arabic words.
During this era in Persia, popular poets were often invited to the court of the Sultan to recite poems. For every couplet that they recited, the Sultan would reward them with one gold coin. After 30 years of working on the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi was able to write an epic that is considered one of the longest epics written by a single poet. When Sultan Mahmud Ghznavi heard of Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh he promised Ferdowsi one gold coin for every couplet that he had. When Ferdowsi showed up to the court of Sultan Mahmud with over 60,000 couplets, the Sultan gave him 60,000 silver pieces instead of gold, which was worth nearly nothing. He took the bag of coins and gave them to the first beggar he saw on the streets.
The significance of this event was not that Ferdowsi did not get what he was promised; it is that the copy of his book made it to the court of the Sultan, where after hearing it, scribes in the court started to work on their own copies of the same exact book. Over time, this caused multiple copies of the Shahnameh to spread all around Iran, preventing the book from being lost forever. The spreading of the Shahnameh started to bring Farsi back to life. By reading it, many learned Farsi and those who could speak it did so more often. The Persian culture was brought back to life again, and over time, Iran went back to having Farsi as its primary language. Ferdowsi had brought the language back to life and he knew it. Before his death, he wrote a short poem in his book, claiming that after 30 years of suffering and sacrifice, he had brought Farsi back to Iran. He wrote in his poem that because of what he has done, he will never die. His name will always be alive in the years to come. And he was right.
Over the years, Ferdowsi began to be publicly appreciated in Iran. In a garden in Tehran, there is a statue of him holding a baby and a book. The book is his Shahnameh and the baby is the Perisan language, which he saved and raised like a father. He is considered the father of Farsi and many universities around the world study his works. However, this public fame is quickly fading away.
The new generation in Iran knows little of their culture and language history. Many know Ferdowsi as simply a poet in ancient times. Some do not even know who Ferdowsi is. Many know nothing of the danger Farsi underwent and how Ferdowsi gave them the language they have today.
Regardless of all the changes that time brought to the fame of Ferdowsi, one thing is certain. Hakim Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi of Tus is the Persian poet who single handedly saved an entire language from being forgotten. His effort and sacrifice is what kept the culture and memory of Ancient Persia alive. Without him, life, culture and language in modern day Iran would be different from what we see today.
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