Ferdowsi's
Life
Ferdowsi
mentions the exact date for his sixty-third birthday in the
Shahnameh. After reconciling the calendar he used with the
ones still in use today, it’s been determined that he
was born on Friday January 3rd, 940 A.D. (329 A.H., lunar
calendar). His birthplace, Bazh, was a village in the neighborhood
of Tabaran, the main district of the old city of Tus, in the
province of Khorasan, Iran. His honorific title (konye) is
unanimously recorded as Abu’l Qassem, which indicates
that he had a son named Qassem. His son’s death
at a young age grieved the poet immensely. According
to Nezami-Aruzi, Ferdowsi left behind only a daughter –
a high-spirited lady. But there seems to be no trace
of her in the poet’s work.
Ferdowsi’s
first name and that of his father are given variously. The
most reliable version is Mansur son of Hasan, recorded by
al-Bondari of Isfahan. We know no other forebear of Ferdowsi,
and he himself makes no direct mention of his family history. A
well-known fact, however, that he came from a dehqan (a noble
landowner) family, throws light on his background, and on
his monumental undertaking, the Shahnameh.
For
Centuries after the fall of the Sasanian (the last Iranian
dynasty overthrown in the Arab invasion of the seventh century
A.D.), the dehqans remained pillars of the Iranian community. They
endeavored to preserve the memories of the golden days of
the perished empire. They upheld the heroic traditions
and the cultural heritage of Iran. Consequently, they
became the paragons of the Iranian people. The very term
dehqan became synonymous with “Iranian”, and the
“learned narrator of history and sagas” of Iran.
Ferdowsi
came from this class, the landed nobility. Although his
early years are obscure, being the son of a well-to-do squire,
he undoubtedly received a high education and a strenuous physical
training. The type of education and training which the
sons of Iranian nobility would traditionally undergo. It
is evident from his masterly creation, the Shahnameh, that
his educational concentration was on the Persian literature,
and the Iranian history & sagas. He learned a great
deal about ancient Iran and its heroes, culture, and heritage.
In
360/970, Ferdowsi, then thirty years old, was an accomplished
poet, married, with a two-year old son. He had a number
of celebrated friends; among whom Mansur, the son of Abu Mansur
Mohammad Abd-al-Razzaq, occupied a special position. Ferdowsi’s
life was filled with efforts to learn incessantly and attending
the learned gatherings. He had a profound appreciation
for beauty, especially natural beauty. This combined with
his astonishing imagination made him an artist whose descriptions
of the scenes are as colorful, as lively, and as absorbing
as the great work of a master painter of the Realism School.
Ferdowsi
was a tall figure with a lively and optimistic nature. He
lived much in the same way, as did his Sasanian ancestors,
with prosperity and joy. He enjoyed such pastimes as
horseback riding, playing games, feasting and drinking wine,
and listening to music and songs. He loved life and all
it had to offer. He was courteous, kindhearted, truthful,
open-handed, warm, and faithful. He despised prejudice,
ignorance, and greed. Ferdowsi’s personality is
well reflected in his work.
He
admired wisdom sincerely. For Ferdowsi, “truth”
and “wisdom” were the keys to salvation. He
emphasized that in moments of defeat and decline, hope must
be retained; because old fallen trees can grow anew if their
roots are preserved. This is one reason why he wanted
to preserve the memories of Iran’s glorious past –
which someday it might rise again. It was as if his love
for Iran was part of his religion and governed his way of
thinking. He idolized Iranian heroes, glorified their
ways of life, and defended their traditions with zeal and
conviction.
Ferdowsi
spent his best years pouring his energy and heart into charming,
meaningful, and exciting poetry. The Shahnameh is an
impressive monument of poetry and historiography; a poetical
recast of what Ferdowsi and his predecessors regarded as the
account of Iran’s history. The singular message
that the Shahnameh strives to convey is the idea that the
history of Iranshahr was a complete and immutable whole. It
started with Gayumarth, the first man, and ended with his
fiftieth scion and successor, Yazdegerd III: six thousand
years of history. The task of Ferdowsi was to prevent
this history from losing its connection with the future Iranian
generations. Needless to say, he succeeded in a way that
no other historian has, either before or after him.
As
a man of strong principles, Ferdowsi kept the Shahnameh undedicated
for a long time. In all the years he was composing the
Shahnameh, he had saved it for a royal patron who would recognize
the value of such a treasure and would be worthy of receiving
it. Such patron would ensure preservation of copies of
the Shahnameh, and would help to propagate them throughout
Iran.
In
the eyes of many Iranians, including Ferdowsi, Soltan Mahmud,
the Ghaznavid, had created a burning hope for an Iranian renaissance. For
the first time since the Arab invasion, an Iranian dynast,
speaking Persian and following all Iranian traditions, had
unified the whole of Iran and appeared to be heading for the
revival of the Sasanian culture and empire. The Divan
system was being kept in Persian instead of Arabic; a nationalistic
move that only Mahmud’s sanction could have made possible. With
his mighty armies, lofty palaces, valuable treasures, hosts
of musicians, singers, and poets, his “eagle banner”,
his elephants and park games, his banquets with wine, and
his celebration of Noruz, Mehrgan, and Sadeh, for the first
time since the fall of the Sasanian, their magnificence
and splendor had been revived in the court of Soltan Mahmud. In
order to emphasize his “Sasanian origin”, Mahmud
had gone so far as to publish a fictitious pedigree tracing
his descent to Yazdegerd III.
Ferdowsi
regarded Mahmud as a new Freidun, a just, brilliant, worthy
and legitimate Iranian King. He finally presents his
Shahnameh to Soltan Mahmud, a sovereign whom he viewed as
deserving of such a treasure. This occurred in 395/1004,
when Ferdowsi was sixty-five years old, and exactly twenty-five
years after he had begun to compose these stories in verse.
The
popular myths about Ferdowsi agreeing to compose the Shahnameh
in return for sixty thousand gold coins (Dinars) from Soltan
Mahmud, as well as his visit to Mahmud’s court and defeating
the court poets in a poetic contest are all false. By
the time Mahmud came to power in Khorasan, Ferdowsi had been
working on the Shahnameh for nineteen years. Furthermore,
he never met Mahmud.
As
it happened, Mahmud did not appreciate the Shahnameh, nor
did he realize the honor that its dedication had bestowed
upon him. Many reasons have been given for Mahmud’s
cool reception. First and foremost, Ferdowsi never presented
the Shahnameh in person. As a result, the Shahnameh was
deprived of a traditional and highly effective “ceremony
of presentation to the royal patron” by the author himself. Unattended,
his work had little chance of fair introduction and, therefore,
little chance of fair attention.
Secondly,
unfamiliar with Mahmud and his pretentious and lordly nature,
Ferdowsi employed a bold and advisory tone in his panegyrizing
passages. He called the king’s attention to the
achievements and nobility of Iranian heroes in the Shahnameh. Undoubtedly,
Mahmud took such remarks too personally and as an affront
to his own majesty; he therefore received Ferdowsi’s
work with no enthusiasm. Furthermore, Ferdowsi had praised
Mahmud’s grand vizier, Fazl ebn-e Ahmad-e Asfarayeni,
a bold counselor imposed upon him by his father, Sebuk-Tegin,
while Mahmud was the Sepahsalar of Khorasan.
Asfarayeni
frequently questioned Mahmud’s Judgments and threatened
him with resignation. By the time Ferdowsi sent the second
edition of the Shahnameh to Mahmud’s court, in 395/1005,
almost certainly through the grace of Asfarayeni, the king
had made up his mind to remove this powerful and headstrong
minister. Ferdowsi’s warm and impressive praises
of Asfarayeni and his statesmanship most certainly further
alienated Mahmud.
Thirdly,
political developments had in the meantime shifted Mahmud’s
interests and had changed his personal behavior. While
rising to power, he posed as an Iranian king wishing to revive
the Sasanian state. Having achieved his aim in becoming
the most powerful sovereign of his time, he no longer deemed
it necessary to rely on ethnic or national loyalties. Instead,
Mahmud decided to play the role of an Islamic hero crusading
for the spread of the faith. This way, he could rely
on mass support throughout the Islamic Asia, and especially
from Baghdad. He was being hailed as the restorer of
the traditional Islamic beliefs. Obviously, Iranian nationalistic
tendencies ran contrary to his new pro-Arab policies. As
the symbol of Iranian heroes and veneration of Iranian traditions,
Ferdowsi had gone so far as to condemn the Arab conquest of
Iran. To champion such a book as the Shahnameh meant
weakening his Islamic support, and this, Mahmud was not prepared
to do.
Two
other factors contributed to the cool reception of the second
edition in 396/1005. One was the envy of Mahmud’s
court poets, who depicted their king as greater, wiser, braver,
and more splendid than the most illustrious Shahnameh heroes,
while condemning Iranian sagas as “baseless tales”. The
flatterers attended the king constantly, and had ample opportunity
to belittle the value of the Shahnameh. The second factor
was Mahmud’s constant occupation with state affairs,
preparing and carrying out military expeditions and time consuming
feasts, and ceremonial occasions, which all combined to leave
him little time or enthusiasm to read or listen to long stories
of ancient Iranian kings and heroes.
How
much of this was known to Ferdowsi, it is not clear. He
often wondered over the lack of response from the royal court. Yet
he continued to perfect his work and supplement his stories. Occasionally,
he inserted a few lines panegyrizing, at the same time criticizing,
the king and hinting at his own condition. Finally, in
400/1009-10, the third and principal version of the Shahnameh
was completed. As a grand and continuous history of the
Iranian nation, it was sent to Ghazne with definite dedication
to Soltan Mahmud. It contained nearly sixty thousand
distiches of imposing epic and lyrical nature and was the
result of thirty long years of hard work by the greatest Iranian
poet. Seventy-one years of age, weak, lonely and distressed,
Ferdowsi expected a handsome reward from a king whom he once
viewed as a second Freidun, a reward that never came.
The
popular sentiments toward Ferdowsi exacted a terrible “revenge”
from Soltan Mahmud by fabricating a biting satire on him. As
it stands, the Satire is a truly fascinating literary creation. It
contains a fair number of genuine verses taken from Ferdowsi’s
statements on occasions with no relevance to himself or to
his relation with Mahmud. They are skillfully joined
together to supposedly convey Ferdowsi’s judgment on
a pact-breaking king. No reader could remain unimpressed.
It succeeds in presenting Soltan Mahmud as a ruler of lowly
origin who was envious of the glorious descent and deeds of
the ancient heroes and kings. It depicted him as vengeful,
greedy, and incapable of appreciating poetry and fine skills. Above
all, the Satire explains Mahmud’s lack of appreciation
of the Shahnameh as due to his fanatical anti-Shiism.
However
impressive, the Satire is a forgery. Ferdowsi did indeed
show his disapproval of Mahmud’s excesses and fanaticism. He,
however, did so very politely and indirectly, in the form
of advice and warnings often inserted in the passages panegyrizing
the king. Although one can see clear traces of Ferdowsi’s
complete disappointments, there is nothing in his work to
suggest that he actually denounced Soltan Mahmud.
As
reported by Nezami-Aruzi and echoed in the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi
was a wealthy landowner with a considerable estate when he
began composing the Shahnameh. He lived comfortably for
sixty years. At that point, his occupation with the Shahnameh
and, as a result, lack of attention to his land forced him
to sell most of his property. All that remained was an
orchard wherein he was later buried.
When
nearing sixty, he laments over the time when he was a rosy-cheeked
young man with thick black hair, proud of his horsemanship
and other outdoor sports, enjoying a comfortable life and
a skill for composing poetry. By the age of sixty-five,
in 395/1005, he is completely white haired. He has become
deaf, shortsighted, empty-handed, and exhausted. To top
things off, a disaster strikes. His only son dies at
age thirty-seven. Ferdowsi’s mourning over his son
is one of the most personal and moving pieces of the Shahnameh.
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