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Ferdowsi Composes the Shahnameh

Type Event Region Persia Time 970–1010

At the end of the 10th century, the Persian poet Ferdowsi spent over thirty years in Tus, Khurasan, composing the epic Shahnameh, systematically writ…

Timeline

  1. 970–980Tus · IranAgainst the backdrop of the Samanid cultural legacy and the rise of the Ghaznavids, Ferdowsi resolved to write in New Persian a national epic covering the entire history of Iran's kings, inheriting and surpassing the earlier tradition of royal chronicles such as the Khwaday-Namag.
  2. 980–1000Khurasan · KhurasanFerdowsi spent some thirty years narrating in sixty thousand couplets the history from Kayumars to Yazdegerd III, blending myth, legend, and historical fact, and establishing a model for the literary language of New Persian; the core period of composition was concentrated at the end of the 10th century.
  3. 1008–1010Ghazni · AfghanistanAfter completing the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi traveled to Ghazni to present it to Sultan Mahmud, but disputes over reward left him without satisfactory treatment; legend holds he received only a paltry payment. Despite this, the epic soon circulated widely and became the most important literary classic of the Persian-speaking world.

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