Rudaki - The First Great Iranian Poet

Rudaki was born in the year 858, in Khorasan, Iran. His name is taken from the village of his birthplace, Rudak, which is now part of Tajikistan. He was contemporary with the Samanid ruler Nasr II and became his court poet and companion. His qasidas are written to the praise of this friend and sovereign.

Some 1,300,000 verses have been attributed to him, of which only 52 qasidas (elegies), ghazals and rubais (quatrains) are extant. His most important work was translating into Persian the Arabic version of Kalila and Dimna (Panchatanntra), an old Indian Fable book, which unfortunately has also been lost.

Though he was blind at the time of his death, it has been disputed whether he was born blind or lost his eyesight later, but what is certain is that his poetry displays an acute sense of colours and a refined taste. Rudaki was the first to perfect every form of epic, lyric and didactic poetry, and to develop the diwan, the alphabetical arrangement of a poet’s lyrical compositions, which has been used as the standard form since. His many contributions to Persian poetry and Iranian culture have rightly won him the title of the father of Persian Poetry.