Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi (Persian: فردوسی‎‎)
Sadighi's Statue of Ferdowsi in Rome, Italy
Born	c. 940 Tus, Samanid Empire
Died	1020 (aged 79–80) Tus, Ghaznavid Empire
Occupation	Poet
Ethnicity	Persian
Period	Samanids and Ghaznavids
Genre	Persian poetry, national epic

Abu ʾl-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi (c. 940–1020), or Ferdowsi (also transliterated as Firdawsi, Firdusi, Firdosi, Firdausi) was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is the world's longest epic poem created by a single poet, and the national epic of Iran and the Greater Iran. Having drafted the Shahnameh under patronage of the Samanid and the Ghaznavid courts of Iran, Ferdowsi is celebrated as the most influential figure in Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature. He is widely regarded as the greatest poet in the Persian language. He was called "The Lord of the Word" and "The Savior of Persian Language".

Except for his kunya (ابوالقاسم - Abu'l-Qāsim) and his laqab (فردوسی - Ferdowsī, meaning "paradisic"), nothing is known with any certainty about his full name. From an early period on, he has been referred to by different additional names and titles, the most common one being حکیم / Ḥakīm ("philosopher"). Based on this, his full name is given in Persian sources as حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی / Ḥakīm Abu'l-Qāsim Firdowsī Țusī. Due to the non-standardized transliteration from Persian into English, different spellings of his name are used in English works, including Firdawsi, Firdusi, Firdosi, Firdausi, etc. The Encyclopaedia of Islam uses the spelling Firdawsī, based on the standardized transliteration method of the German Oriental Society. The Encyclopædia Iranica, which uses a modified version of the same method (with a stronger emphasis on Persian intonations), gives the spelling Ferdowsī. In both cases, the -ow and -aw are to be pronounced as a diphthong ([aʊ̯]), reflecting the original Arabic and the early New Persian pronunciation of the name. The modern Tajik transliteration of his name in Cyrillic script is Ҳаким Абулқосим Фирдавсӣ Тӯсӣ.