FIRDAUSI

One day during my stay in Lahore, the great Syed Ghulam Abbas Sahib mentioned Ferdowsi from the Qibla. He asked me to write a fictional book on Ferdowsi's biography and noted many things according to my research. After reaching India, I studied many books in this series and found so much difference in the narrators of the events that my decision-making power began to respond. Finally, Allama Shibli's "Sheer-ul-Ajam" had to be made the guide, but at some points, reason did not agree with the opinion of the late Allama. Therefore, the need for Ferdowsi himself to lead was felt and the story had to be composed from selected poems of the Shahnameh. As far as the beginning of the Shahnameh is concerned, it was undoubtedly in Tus. The patriotism of the Iranians and Ferdowsi's good humor were the motivations. The year of the beginning of the composition has been determined from the evidence to be 365 AH. Because, according to his own statement, Ferdowsi completed the Shahnameh in 400 AH when he was eighty years old and spent thirty-five years in composing it. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni ascended the throne in 388 AH and it is obvious that he would not have been so famous as soon as he ascended the throne that Firdawsi would have set out for Ghazni. Two or four years later, when the fame of Jud and Sakha spread, Firdawsi also turned towards that direction. Therefore, Firdawsi's departure from Tus is 390 AH or later and he left Ghazni immediately after the completion of Shahnameh, so his stay is not understood to be more than ten years. After drawing conclusions about the events and taking up his pen, the difficulty arose that the fictional characters should be portrayed in such a way that the facts are not distorted. Historians will be able to appreciate the amount of caution I have taken in this regard.

Vashhi Mahmudabadi