Hakīm Abu'l-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī (Persian: ͘یã ÇÈæÇáÞÇÓã ÝÑÏæÓی ÊæÓی), more commonly transliterated as Ferdowsi (or Firdausi), (940–1020) is a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shāhnāmeh, the national epic of Persian people.
According to the Britannica Encyclopedia: The Persians regard Ferdowsi as the greatest of their poets. For nearly a thousand years they have continued to read and to listen to recitations from his masterwork, the Shah-nameh, in which the Persian national epic found its final and enduring form. Though written about 1,000 years ago, this work is as intelligible to the average, modern Iranian as the King James version of the Bible is to a modern English-speaker. The language, based as the poem is on a Pahlavi original, is pure Persian with only the slightest admixture of Arabic