or Firdusī or Firdousī orig. Abū al-Qāsim Manṣūr
born с 935, near Ṭūs, Iran
died сc1020, Ṭūs
Persian poet.
Though many legends surround his name, few facts are known about his life. He gave the final and enduring form to the Persian national epic, the Shāh-nāmeh (completed с 1010; "Book of Kings"), a poem based mainly on an earlier prose history. His language is still readily intelligible to modern Iranians, who regard the poem's nearly 60,000 couplets as a sonorous, majestic evocation of a glorious past. He reportedly worked on the poem for 35 years to earn a dowry for his only daughter.