Every Iranian owes his language to the great poet, renowned not only in Iran but worldwide for Shahnameh, the longest epic poem by a single poet and the greatest epic of Persian-speaking states, encompassing ancient Iranian history.

Born in 940 CE in a small village near Tous in Iran’s eastern Khorasan Razavi Province, Ferdowsi spent over three decades writing the book in Persian at a time when Arabic was the main scientific and literary language of Iran.

He is best known for his magnum opus, Shahnameh (Book of the Kings), which is a classic in epic Persian poetry and recounts Iran’s mythical and historical past.

Shahnameh is composed of 55,000 couplets and has been translated into several languages.

‘Shahnameh’ narrates 62 stories, told in 990 chapters with 50,000 rhyming couplets. It is divided into three parts — the mythical, heroic, and historical ages. Written in modern Persian, ‘Shahnameh’ is a work of poetry, historiography, folklore, and cultural identity and is a continuation of the age-old tradition of storytelling in the Near East.

Ferdowsi began his epic poem in 977 and took 33 years to complete it. The result of his work is the world’s longest epic poem written by a single author; it is twice as long as Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ combined. It was written at a time when modern Persian had started to thrive and the structures and standards for the language were being set.

The book, which had a great influence on the nation’s cultural heritage, chronicles the legendary history of the pre-Islamic kings of Iran from Keyumars to Yazdegerd III.

Ferdowsi’s tomb is situated in Tus 24 kilometers away from Mashhad, the capital city of Khorasan Razavi Province, where the holy shrine of Imam Reza (PBUH) is located.

Among the various attractions of Mashhad, visiting the tomb is of interest to every Iranian and foreign tourist.

Persian Language

Persian Language (Farsi) is being taught in some 50 language centers out of Iran.

Set up in 2013, Saadi Foundation has a mission to spread Farsi all around the world.

Saadi Foundation designs and holds Persian language olympiads for foreigners and also grants scholarships to teachers of Persian language from other countries.

On Average, more than 10,000 foreigners take the courses offered by the Foundation every year.

The Mina Online School is currently viewed as the number one e-learning platform for teaching the Persian language.

The school offers courses for a variety of students ranging from false beginners to advanced learners.

Saadi Foundation focuses on six main missions: conducting online and in-person Persian language classes, training Farsi teachers through offline classes, compiling books for learners of Persian (from beginner to advanced levels), standardizing and administering Persian language proficiency tests (AMFA), offering knowledge enhancement courses for individuals already familiar with Farsi, both short-term and long-term, and conducting research on Persian language teaching methods and corpus.

Reported by Tohid Mahmoudpour