Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi: Difference between revisions

Abu l-Qasim Hasan Mansur, known as Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi, was an Iranian poet and epicist of 4th century AH. He was born in 329 AH in Paj, a village in Khorasan and passed away in 411 AH. One of his famous works is Shahnameh, in which the lives of the kings of Iran are narrated in poems. Historians have reported that he spent all his wealth in this way, but his effort was not accepted by Shah Mahmud Ghaznavi and some sources considered it because of the religious opposition between Ferdowsi and Shah Mahmud. Sayyid Hasan Amin considered Ferdowsi’s approach in composing Shahnameh, adopted from the Qur’an’s method. About Ferdowsi’s religion, different views have been mentioned. ‘Abd al-Jalil Qazwini was the first person who introduced Ferdowsi Shi’a in al-Naqd.

Abu l-Qasim Hasan Mansur known as Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi was an Iranian poet and epicist in 4th century AH. The date of his birth has been considered 329 AH or 330 AH.

Ferdowsi was the child born after the second marriage of Abu Mansur Sharaf Shah. History reports that one day, Sharaf shah dreamed that from his house, a son went to sky. They interpreted his dream as he would have a son whose name would remain in the history.

Ferdowsi was son of a peasant born in Paj, a village of Tus. He also had journeys to Baghdad and Mazandaran. According to Nizami ‘Aruzi, Ferdowsi was rich, but gradually spent his wealth and time for composing Shahnameh and toward the end of his life, he became poor and finally passed away in 411 AH at the age of 80 in his birth town.

Sayyid Hasan Amin wrote that at the time of Ferdowsi, some areas of Khorasan, especially Tus, Beyhaq, Paj and Tabiran, were Shi’a and thus, he did not consider it impossible for Ferdowsi to have inclinations toward Shi’a community at that time, and even he pointed about Fedowsi’s titles such as Rafidi, attributed to him. Amin mentioned the Shi’a region and atmosphere of Ferdowsi’s living place, that people in that region supported Shi’a uprisings and other similar issues as evidences to suggest that he was Shi’a.

According to historical sources, Ferdowsi’s burial in Muslims’ cemetery was opposed by a person known as Abu l-Qasim Gorgani who believed that Ferdowsi praised disbelievers and Zoroastrians in his poems.

‘Abd al-Jalil Qazwini was the first person who mentioned in al-Naqd that Ferdowsi was Imami Shi’a. Later, Qadi Nurullah Shushtari too introduced him as Shi’a. However, some people such as Ibrahim Purdavud and his student, Mohammad Mo’in considered him Zoroastrian and Malek al-Sho’ara Bahar too considered him the reviver of Zoroastrian.

Mahdavi Damghani believed that it is impossible to find about a poet’s religion by the number of his poems, except that he mentions a clear statement in them. He continued and said that Ferdowsi was Shi’a and there is no doubt about his religion.

One of the notable works of Ferdowsi is Shahnameh. Amin claimed that the manner of Shahnameh in composing poems is adopted from the Qur’an, while the eloquence of the Qur’an is higher. In Shahnameh, Ferdowsi has frequently spoken about culture and sought to link between the culture of Iran before and after Islam.