Persian lyric Poet Hafez-e Shirazi (1315-1390) grew up in Shiraz. Very little is known about his life. Many semi-miraculous mythical tales were woven around Hafez after his death. It is said that by listening to his father's recitations, Hafez had accomplished the task of learning the Quran by heart at an early age (that is the meaning of the word Hafez). At the same time, he is said to have known by heart the works of Rumi, Saadi, Farid ud-Din, and Nizami. Let not the pious judge the meek;Each for his own deeds will speak.Whether I’m good or bad, you judge yourself;You reap what you sow, find what you seek.Everyone is seeking love, sober or drunk;Everywhere a house of love, yet so unique.I submit my head on the tavern’s bricks,If you don’t understand, just take a peek.Let me keep my hope of eternal grace,Behind the veil, who is good, who the freak?Not only I fell out of virtuous path,My father too, treaded that path oblique.Hafiz, on your deathbed, bring the cup to your cheek.You go from the tavern straight to the heaven’s peak. Ghazal 80 | Hafiz The Life of Hafez-e Shirazi When his father died, he left school to work at a bakery and as a copyist. There, he first saw Shakh-e Nabat, a woman of great beauty, to whom some of his poems are addressed. Ravished by her beauty but knowing that his love for her would not be requited, he allegedly held his first mystic vigil in his desire to realize this union. Still, Hafez-e Shirazi encountered a being of surpassing beauty who identified himself as an angel, and his further attempts at union became mystic; a pursuit of spiritual union with the divine. A Western parallel is that of Dante and Beatrice. Hafez-e Shirazi was a Persian poet whose
Persian lyric Poet Hafez-e Shirazi (1315-1390) grew up in Shiraz. Very little is known about his life. Many semi-miraculous mythical tales were woven around Hafez after his death. It is said that by listening to his father’s recitations, Hafez had accomplished the task of learning the Quran by heart at an early age (that is the meaning of the word Hafez). At the same time, he is said to have known by heart the works of Rumi, Saadi, Farid ud-Din, and Nizami.
Let not the pious judge the meek; Each for his own deeds will speak. Whether I’m good or bad, you judge yourself; You reap what you sow, find what you seek. Everyone is seeking love, sober or drunk; Everywhere a house of love, yet so unique. I submit my head on the tavern’s bricks, If you don’t understand, just take a peek. Let me keep my hope of eternal grace, Behind the veil, who is good, who the freak? Not only I fell out of virtuous path, My father too, treaded that path oblique. Hafiz, on your deathbed, bring the cup to your cheek. You go from the tavern straight to the heaven’s peak.
Ghazal 80 | Hafiz
The Life of Hafez-e Shirazi
When his father died, he left school to work at a bakery and as a copyist. There, he first saw Shakh-e Nabat, a woman of great beauty, to whom some of his poems are addressed. Ravished by her beauty but knowing that his love for her would not be requited, he allegedly held his first mystic vigil in his desire to realize this union. Still, Hafez-e Shirazi encountered a being of surpassing beauty who identified himself as an angel, and his further attempts at union became mystic; a pursuit of spiritual union with the divine. A Western parallel is that of Dante and Beatrice.
Hafez-e Shirazi was a Persian poet whose collected works (The Divan) are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature and are to be found in the homes of most people in Iran, who learn his poems by heart and still use them as proverbs and sayings.His life and poems have been the subject of much analysis, commentary and interpretation, influencing post-14th century Persian writing more than any other author. Themes of his Ghazals are the beloved, faith, and exposing hypocrisy. His influence in the lives of Persian speakers can be found in “Hafez readings” and the frequent use of his poems in Persian traditional music, visual art, and Persian calligraphy. His tomb is visited often. Adaptations, imitations and translations of his poems exist in all major languages.
Though Hafez-e Shirazi is well known for his poetry, he is less commonly recognized for his intellectual and political contributions. A defining feature of Hafez’ poetry is its ironic tone and the theme of hypocrisy, widely believed to be a critique of the religious and ruling establishments of the time. Persian satire developed during the 14th century, within the courts of the Mongol Period. In this period, Hafez and other notable early satirists, such as Ubayd Zakani, produced a body of work that has since become a template for the use of satire as a political device. Many of his critiques are believed to be targeted at the rule of Amir Mobarez Al-Din Mohammad, specifically, towards the disintegration of important public and private institutions. He was a Sufi Muslim.
His work, particularly his imaginative references to monasteries, convents, Shahneh, and muhtasib, ignored the religious taboos of his period, and he found humor in some of his society’s religious doctrines. Employing humor polemically has since become a common practice in Iranian public discourse and Persian satire is now perhaps the de facto language of Iranian social commentary.
Goethe The encounter of Goethe with Hafiz’s ghazals became so inspiring to Goethe, that he produced his own West-östlicher Diwan and “led the way to the discovery of Persian poetry by the Romantics”, according to Shusha Guppy. In the spring of 1814, Goethe received a German translation of Ḥāfeẓ’s divān in two volumes from the publisher Cotta of Stuttgart. The translator was the Austrian Orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856), whose translations and commentaries played a major role in acquainting Germans with the East. Hammer’s translation of the divān broadened and expanded the knowledge of the Orient which Goethe had acquired in his youth, so that he could now, at the age of 65, devote himself more intensively to the East, and predominantly to Persia.
At 60, he is said to have begun a Chilla-nashini, a 40-day-and-night vigil by sitting in a circle that he had drawn for himself. On the 40th day, he once again met with Zayn al-Attar on what is known to be their fortieth anniversary and was offered a cup of wine. It was there where he is said to have attained “Cosmic Consciousness”. He hints at this episode in one of his verses in which he advises the reader to attain “clarity of wine” by letting it “sit for 40 days”.
Hafiz’s tomb is in Musalla Gardens, along the banks of Ruknabad river in Shiraz, which is referred to as Hafezieh.
Now please watch a clip of tomb of Hafez with a music of his poems by Mohammad Reza Shajarian, enjoy it !
Maryam Mirzakhani: The First Woman And The First Iranian To Win Mathematics' Fields Medal Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who was the first and only woman to win the prestigious Fields medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40. Maryam Mirzakhani: 'The more I spent time on maths, the more excited I got' In 2014, Maryam Mirzakhani was one of four winners of the Fields medal, which is presented every four years and is considered the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel prize. She was named for her work on complex geometry and dynamic systems.“Maryam Mirzakhani specialized in theoretical mathematics that read like a foreign language by those outside of mathematics: moduli spaces, Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, Ergodic theory and symplectic geometry,” the Stanford press announcement said. “Mastering these approaches allowed Maryam Mirzakhani to pursue her fascination for describing the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces spheres, doughnut shapes and even amoebas – in as great detail as possible.”Her work had implications in fields ranging from cryptography to “the theoretical physics of how the universe came to exist”, the university said. Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Tehran - Iran and studied there and at Harvard. She joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, issued a statement praising Mirzakhani.“The grievous passing of Maryam Mirzakhani, the eminent Iranian and world-renowned mathematician, is very much heart-rending,” Rouhani said in a message that was reported by the Tehran Times.Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said her death pained all Iranians, the newspaper reported.“The news of young Iranian genius and math professor Maryam Mirzakhani’s passing has brought a deep pang of sorrow to me and all Iranians who are proud of their eminent and distinguished scientists,” Zarif posted in Farsi on his Instagram account. Maryam Mirzakhani could be private
Maryam Mirzakhani: The First Woman And The First Iranian To Win Mathematics’ Fields Medal
Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who was the first and only woman to win the prestigious Fields medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40.
Maryam Mirzakhani: ‘The more I spent time on maths, the more excited I got’
In 2014, Maryam Mirzakhani was one of four winners of the Fields medal, which is presented every four years and is considered the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel prize. She was named for her work on complex geometry and dynamic systems. “Maryam Mirzakhani specialized in theoretical mathematics that read like a foreign language by those outside of mathematics: moduli spaces, Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, Ergodic theory and symplectic geometry,” the Stanford press announcement said.
“Mastering these approaches allowed Maryam Mirzakhani to pursue her fascination for describing the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces spheres, doughnut shapes and even amoebas – in as great detail as possible.” Her work had implications in fields ranging from cryptography to “the theoretical physics of how the universe came to exist”, the university said.
Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Tehran – Iran and studied there and at Harvard. She joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, issued a statement praising Mirzakhani. “The grievous passing of Maryam Mirzakhani, the eminent Iranian and world-renowned mathematician, is very much heart-rending,” Rouhani said in a message that was reported by the Tehran Times. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said her death pained all Iranians, the newspaper reported. “The news of young Iranian genius and math professor Maryam Mirzakhani’s passing has brought a deep pang of sorrow to me and all Iranians who are proud of their eminent and distinguished scientists,” Zarif posted in Farsi on his Instagram account.
Maryam Mirzakhani could be private and retiring, but she was also indomitable and energetic, especially at the blackboard. According to Roya Beheshti, an algebraic geometer at Washington University in St. Louis, and a lifelong friend—the two talked math, read math, and did math, sometimes competitively, for several years growing up—Mirzakhani’s passion was evident early on. “Maryam’s work was driven by a certain pure joy,” Beheshti told me. “A lot of people have been saying how humble she was, and that’s true. She was very humble. She was also really, really ambitious. From the very beginning, from a very young age, it was clear that she had very big goals.” When Maryam Mirzakhani was in sixth grade, in Tehran, a teacher discouraged her interest in mathematics, noting that she was not particularly talented, not at the top of the class. A quarter century later, in 2014, she became the first woman (and the first Iranian) to win the Fields Medal, math’s highest honor.
Mirzakhani took pride in the accolades, but they were not her main concern. When her doctoral adviser, Harvard’s Curtis McMullen, delivered the Fields Medal laudation on her work, at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians, in Seoul, Mirzakhani sat in the front row with her daughter and her husband, the Stanford computer scientist Jan Vondrák. Looking out into the audience, McMullen noticed that Mirzakhani wasn’t paying full attention to her moment of glory, instead allowing herself to be distracted by a very excited Anahita. “Some scientists and mathematicians engage in a problem to go beyond what other people have done; they measure themselves against others,” McMullen told me. “Maryam was not like that. She would engage directly with the scientific challenge, with the mathematics, no matter how hard it was, and really go deep into the heart of the matter.”
The Princeton mathematician Manjul Bhargava, who also won a Fields in 2014, said that Mirzakhani “was a master of curved spaces.” As he explained in an e-mail, “Everyone knows that the shortest distance between two points on a flat surface is a straight line. But if the surface is curved—for example, the surface of a ball or a doughnut—then the shortest distance. . . will also be along a curved path, and can thus be more complicated. Maryam proved many amazing theorems about such shortest paths—called ‘geodesics’—on curved surfaces, among many other remarkable results in geometry and beyond.”
Bhargava and Mirzakhani met at Harvard as doctoral students, but they only ever solved one problem together. It was at the I.C.M. meeting in Seoul, where they collected their Fields medals, along with Artur Avila and Martin Hairer. The presenters apparently hadn’t realized that the medals were engraved with the recipients’ names, and they doled them out incorrectly. “I received Martin’s, who received Maryam’s, who received Artur’s, who received mine,” Bhargava said. “An unlikely scenario, even if the medals were distributed randomly.” The mathematicians had a real-life combinatorial problem in their hands. “After the ceremony, it was very busy, and there was little chance for all four of us, or even say three of us, to be in the same place simultaneously,” Bhargava explained. “Also, due to constant photo shoots, we each needed a medal with us at all times so that we could fulfill our duties and pose with one when asked.” When Mirzakhani and Bhargava ran into each other, they laughed and tried to figure out the optimal path toward a solution. What to do, standing there, Bhargava with Hairer’s medal, and Mirzakhani with Avila’s?
Avila, who has dual appointments at the French National Center for Scientific Research, in Paris, and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics in Rio de Janeiro, first met Mirzakhani in 1995, when as teens they both won gold at the thirty-sixth International Mathematical Olympiad, in Toronto. Over the years, their research interests converged on the dynamics of billiards. In 2010, Avila learned that Mirzakhani had proved, together with the University of Chicago’s Alex Eskin, the so-called magic-wand theorem. “Upon hearing about this result, and knowing her earlier work, I was certain that she would be a front-runner for the Fields medals to be given in 2014, so much so that I did not expect to have much of a chance,” Avila told me. And then there they were in Seoul, with Mirzakhani in possession of Avila’s medal. Meanwhile, Hairer, of the University of Warwick, was doing the rounds with Mirzakhani’s medal, though before that day they had never met. His first impression, he told me, was of “a very modest person, who certainly wasn’t seeking publicity and who didn’t particularly enjoy the whole media circus she was subjected to.”
Maryam Mirzakhani had first received news of the Fields Medal in an e-mail from the Duke mathematician Ingrid Daubechies, then president of the International Mathematics Union, which adjudicates and awards the prize. At first, Mirzakhani assumed someone was playing a joke; she ignored Daubechies’s note. When the two finally spoke, Maryam Mirzakhani was pleased, of course, but she was concerned that, having just undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer, she wouldn’t be well enough to attend. Plus, as the first female Fields medalist, she was wary of being hounded by the press. Once it became clear that Mirzakhani would come, Daubechies and a number of other distinguished women mathematicians devised a plan to insulate her. “There were six of us,” Daubechies told me. “We called ourselves the M.M. Shield.” Whenever Maryam Mirzakhani was in public, two women were always near; one would intercept any hovering journalists and offer herself as an interlocutor, and the other would facilitate Mirzakhani’s escape. “We felt, as a community, we should really help,” Daubechies said. “We wanted to help her celebrate. It was so unfair—here she was, and sick.”
Despite her illness, Bhargava said, Maryam Mirzakhani “was still producing some of her most amazing mathematics just these last few years.” She had an “uncanny intuition” about difficult geometric problems, even if they might require decades of work. Still, though she took the long view of mathematics, she wasn’t above more mundane and immediate concerns. When she and Bhargava brainstormed about their predicament in Seoul, they worked out that the easiest way to untangle the medals was for each of them to perform two trades. “Maryam and I exchanged our medals; then Maryam waited to run into Martin to exchange medals with him, while I waited to run into Artur to exchange medals with him,” Bhargava said. Then he offered a more mathy explanation for the solution to the four-medal mix-up:
A four-cycle cannot be expressed as the composition of fewer than three transpositions, or “swaps.” Therefore, since exchanging our medals resulted in a permutation that was the composition of two swaps, it was clearly making progress (two swaps is better than three); moreover, those last two swaps could now be carried out in parallel, making it better than any other possible solution. We had this amusing mathematical conversation very quickly, exchanged medals, and then ran off to our next obligations.
Mirzakhani stayed for a couple of days at the congress but, as she and Daubechies had planned, left before delivering her lecture, which was scheduled toward the end of the proceedings. That morning, Daubechies said, “people looked for her, but she was gone.”
Avicenna was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age. Of the 450 works he is known to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing – a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine – a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650. In 1973, Avicenna’s Canon Of Medicine was reprinted in New York. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna’s corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics and poetry. Early Life Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was born in 980 A.D. at Afshana near Bukhara. The young Bu Ali received his early education in Bukhara, and by the age of ten had become well versed in the study of the Quran and various sciences. He started studying philosophy by reading various Greek, Muslim and other books on this subject and learnt logic and some other subjects from Abu Abdallah Natili, a famous philosopher of the time. While still young, he attained such a degree of expertise in medicine that his renown spread far and wide. At the age of 17, he was fortunate in curing Nooh Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhhara, of an illness in which all the well-known physicians had given up hope. On his recovery, the King wished to reward him, but the young physician only desired permission to use his uniquely stocked library. On his father's death, Bu Ali left Bukhara and traveled to Jurjan where Khawarizm Shah welcomed him. There, he met his famous contemporary Abu Raihan al-Biruni. Later he moved to Ray
Avicenna was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age. Of the 450 works he is known to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing – a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine – a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650.
In 1973, Avicenna’s Canon Of Medicine was reprinted in New York. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna’s corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics and poetry.
Early Life
Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was born in 980 A.D. at Afshana near Bukhara. The young Bu Ali received his early education in Bukhara, and by the age of ten had become well versed in the study of the Quran and various sciences. He started studying philosophy by reading various Greek, Muslim and other books on this subject and learnt logic and some other subjects from Abu Abdallah Natili, a famous philosopher of the time.
While still young, he attained such a degree of expertise in medicine that his renown spread far and wide. At the age of 17, he was fortunate in curing Nooh Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhhara, of an illness in which all the well-known physicians had given up hope. On his recovery, the King wished to reward him, but the young physician only desired permission to use his uniquely stocked library.
On his father’s death, Bu Ali left Bukhara and traveled to Jurjan where Khawarizm Shah welcomed him. There, he met his famous contemporary Abu Raihan al-Biruni. Later he moved to Ray and then to Hamadan, where he wrote his famous book Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb. Here he treated Shams al-Daulah, the King of Hamadan, for severe colic. From Hamadan, he moved to Isfahan, where he completed many of his monumental writings. Nevertheless, he continued travelling and the excessive mental exertion as well as political turmoil spoilt his health. Finally, he returned to Hamadan where he died in 1037 A.D.
Avicenna Stories
Stories are attributed to Avicenna. It is known that he examined his patients remotely, by a thread or string that was between the community of people and his home. People tried to test him, put a cat under a woman’s veil and put thread’s head in cat’s leg. Abu Ali wrote a prescription according to the habit and when they opened it, they saw that they should give it five soft meats and two mice to eliminate the cause. There are many treatments in many chronicles and traumatic conditions that Avicenna guessed by looking at the patient and thought of the pale face, which, for example, dies in a few hours or minutes.
Books and Contributions
He was the most famous physician, philosopher, encyclopedist, mathematician and astronomer of his time. His major contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the “Canon” in the West. The Qanun fi al-Tibb is an immense encyclopedia of medicine extending over a million words. It surveyed the entire medical knowledge available from ancient and Muslim sources. Due to its systematic approach, “formal perfection as well as its intrinsic value, The Qanun superseded Razi’s Hawi, Ali Ibn Abbas’s Maliki, and even the works of Galen, and remained supreme for six centuries”. In addition to bringing together the then available knowledge, the book is rich with the author’s original contribution.
His important original contribution includes such advances as recognition of the contagious nature of phthisis and tuberculosis; distribution of diseases by water and soil, and interaction between psychology and health. In addition to describing pharmacological methods, the book described 760 drugs and became the most authentic materia medica of the era. He was also the first to describe meningitis and made rich contributions to anatomy, gynecology and child health.
His philosophical encyclopaedia Kitab al-Shifa was a monu- mental work, embodying a vast field of knowledge from philosophy to science. He classified the entire field as follows: theoretical knowledge: physics, mathematics and metaphysics; and practical knowledge: ethics, economics and politics. His philosophy synthesizes Aristotelian tradition, Neoplatonic influences and Muslim theology.
Ibn Sina also contributed to mathematics, physics, music and other fields. He explained the “casting out of nines” and its application to the verification of squares and cubes. He made several astronomical observations, and devised a contrivance similar to the vernier, to increase the precision of instrumental readings. In physics, his contribution comprised the study of different forms of energy, heat, light and mechanical, and such concepts as force, vacuum and infinity. He made the important observation that if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by the luminous source, the speed of light must be finite. He propounded an interconnection between time and motion, and also made investigations on specific gravity and used an air thermometer.
In the field of music, his contribution was an improvement over Farabi’s work and was far ahead of knowledge prevailing else- where on the subject. Doubling with the fourth and fifth was a ‘great’ step towards the harmonic system and doubling with the third seems to have also been allowed.
Ibn Sina observed that in the series of consonances represented by (n + 1)/n, the ear is unable to distinguish them when n = 45. In the field of chemistry, he did not believe in the possibility of chemical transmutation because, in his opinion, the metals differed in a fundamental sense. These views were radically opposed to those prevailing at the time. His treatise on minerals was one of the “main” sources of geology of the Christian encyclopaedists of the thirteenth century. Besides Shifa his well-known treatises in philosophy are al-Najat and Isharat.
The Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet Omar Khayyam (1048-ca. 1132) made important contributions to mathematics, but his chief claim to fame, at least in the last 100 years, has been as the author of a collection of quatrains, the "Rubaiyat." His treatise on algebra (On Proofs for Problems Concerning Algebra) includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. As a scholar, he is most notable for his work on cubic equations and his calendar reform. Early Life Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, philosopher, poet and astronomer born in 1048 in Nishapur (modern day Iran). He obtained his early education from a scholar named Sheikh Mohammad Mansuri and later from one of the most renowned scholars of khorasan province. He started his career with teaching algebra and geometry. In his spare evening time, Khayyam also fulfilled his duties as advisor to Malik Shah I and the nights were dedicated to astronomical studies and the Jalali calendar. After the murder of Malik Shah, he was no longer required as advisor so he decided to fulfill his religious duties and thus went for performing his Hajj pilgrimage. After his return he got the job of the court astrologer and he was granted permission to return to Nishapur where he taught medicine, astronomy and his passion which was mathematics. Astronomical and Mathematical Works Khayyam’s most famous works include his highly influential mathematical treatise called ‘Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra’ which he completed in 1070. This treatise highlighted the basic algebraic principles that were ultimately shifted to Europe. He laid the foundation of the Pascal’s triangle with his work on triangular array of binomial coefficients. In 1077 another major work was written by Khayyam namely ‘Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis’ meaning ‘Explanations of the
The Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet Omar Khayyam (1048-ca. 1132) made important contributions to mathematics, but his chief claim to fame, at least in the last 100 years, has been as the author of a collection of quatrains, the “Rubaiyat.”
His treatise on algebra (On Proofs for Problems Concerning Algebra) includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. As a scholar, he is most notable for his work on cubic equations and his calendar reform.
Early Life
Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, philosopher, poet and astronomer born in 1048 in Nishapur (modern day Iran). He obtained his early education from a scholar named Sheikh Mohammad Mansuri and later from one of the most renowned scholars of khorasan province. He started his career with teaching algebra and geometry. In his spare evening time, Khayyam also fulfilled his duties as advisor to Malik Shah I and the nights were dedicated to astronomical studies and the Jalali calendar.
After the murder of Malik Shah, he was no longer required as advisor so he decided to fulfill his religious duties and thus went for performing his Hajj pilgrimage. After his return he got the job of the court astrologer and he was granted permission to return to Nishapur where he taught medicine, astronomy and his passion which was mathematics.
Astronomical and Mathematical Works
Khayyam’s most famous works include his highly influential mathematical treatise called ‘Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra’ which he completed in 1070. This treatise highlighted the basic algebraic principles that were ultimately shifted to Europe. He laid the foundation of the Pascal’s triangle with his work on triangular array of binomial coefficients. In 1077 another major work was written by Khayyam namely ‘Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis’ meaning ‘Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid’. It was published in English as “On the Difficulties of Euclid’s Definitions. In this book he contributed to non-euclidean geometry even though this was not his original plan. It is said that Omar Khayyam was originally trying to prove the parallels postulate when he proven the properties of figures in the non-euclidean geometry.
His geometrical work consisted of his efforts on the theory of proportion and geometrical algebra topics such as cubic equations. Khayyam was the first mathematician to consider the ‘Saccheri quadrilateral’ in the 11th century. It was mentioned in his book the ‘Explanations of the difficulties in the postulates of Euclid’. It wasn’t until 6 centuries later when another mathematician, Giordano Vitale made further advances on Khayyam’s theory. Other books by Khayyam include his book named ‘Problems of Arithmetic’, a book on music and algebra.
Khayyam, like the other Persian mathematicians of the time was also an astronomer. The Sultan Jalal ud Din Malik Shah Saljuqi requested him to build an observatory with a team of scientists. He was part of the team that made several reforms to the Iranian calendar which was made the official Persian calendar to be followed by the Sultan on March 15th 1079. The Jalali Calendar became the base for other calendars and is also known to be more accurate than the Gregorian calendar.
Omar Khayyam as a Poet
Omer Khayyam is the writer of more than a thousand ‘Rubaiyat’ or verses. He rose to fame as a poet through the translations of Edward Fitzgerald in 1859 known as ‘Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’. His poetry is also translated to other languages other than English.
There is a manuscript tradition attributing poetry, mostly in the form of quatrains (rubaiyat) to Omar Khayyam. There are more than 100 manuscripts containing such poetry, but all of them are comparatively late, the earliest such source that can be dated with confidence was written in 1460, and the bulk dates to the 17th to 19th centuries. Bodleian MS. Ouseley 140, a manuscript written in Shiraz in 1460, contains 158 quatrains on 47 folia. The manuscript belonged to William Ouseley (1767-1842) and was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1844.
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Hasan Tusi born in year 570 in Tus, died 653 in Baghdad, Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi. He was Poet, Philosopher, Theologian, Faqih, Astronomer, Scientist, Thinkers, Iranian mathematician and astronomer of Seventh century. His sobriquet is “Abu Ja'far” and he was famous for such titles: “Nasir Uddin”, “researcher Tusi”, “Master of human ” and “eunuch”. Scientific activities He has revived again Mashaei philosophy tradition that was ebbing after Ibn Sina. He was gathered set of votes and Shiite theological views in the book of “Tajrid Alatqad” (Prophethood Subject ). He made Maraqeh Observatory and made a library near that and it was about forty thousand book covers inside this library. He was nurturing students (Like Qutb al-Din Shirazi) and gathering Iranian scientists was the factor of transfer civilization and Iran Knowledge before the Mongol to the future. He is one of the developers of trigonometry. In the 16th century, his Trigonometry books were translated into French. Biography Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi is one of the best known and most influential Figures in the history of currents of the Islamic intellectual. He learned religious and rational sciences under the opinion of his father and logic and natural the wisdom under the opinion of his uncle. He completed his studies in Neyshabur. He was found famous as an outstanding scientist in Neyshahbur either. He was busy with his scientific works near Nasereddin and Mohtasham Quhistan at the time of Mongol invasion to Iran. In this time, he wrote Naseri Ethics. After some time, he moved to the Ismailis in the castle of Alamut, but after the onslaught of Mongol Hulegu and end the reign of the Ismailis Hulegu constructed Nasir Uddin as his minister and consultant, as far as he helped Hulegu to the overthrow of the
Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Hasan Tusi born in year 570 in Tus, died 653 in Baghdad, Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi. He was Poet, Philosopher, Theologian, Faqih, Astronomer, Scientist, Thinkers, Iranian mathematician and astronomer of Seventh century. His sobriquet is “Abu Ja’far” and he was famous for such titles: “Nasir Uddin”, “researcher Tusi”, “Master of human ” and “eunuch”.
Scientific activities
He has revived again Mashaei philosophy tradition that was ebbing after Ibn Sina. He was gathered set of votes and Shiite theological views in the book of “Tajrid Alatqad” (Prophethood Subject ). He made Maraqeh Observatory and made a library near that and it was about forty thousand book covers inside this library. He was nurturing students (Like Qutb al-Din Shirazi) and gathering Iranian scientists was the factor of transfer civilization and Iran Knowledge before the Mongol to the future.
He is one of the developers of trigonometry. In the 16th century, his Trigonometry books were translated into French.
Biography
Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi is one of the best known and most influential Figures in the history of currents of the Islamic intellectual. He learned religious and rational sciences under the opinion of his father and logic and natural the wisdom under the opinion of his uncle. He completed his studies in Neyshabur. He was found famous as an outstanding scientist in Neyshahbur either. He was busy with his scientific works near Nasereddin and Mohtasham Quhistan at the time of Mongol invasion to Iran. In this time, he wrote Naseri Ethics. After some time, he moved to the Ismailis in the castle of Alamut, but after the onslaught of Mongol Hulegu and end the reign of the Ismailis Hulegu constructed Nasir Uddin as his minister and consultant, as far as he helped Hulegu to the overthrow of the Abbasid and strike to Baghdad.
Khajeh Nasiroddin Tusi was buried in Kazemain.
The birthplace and birth
There is conflict about birth place of Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi, some books and sources know his father as the elders and scholars of Qom but in some sources knows Jahroud village of Saveh as the birth place of him that he went with his family for pilgrimage of the Eighth Shi’a Imam to Mashhad and after pilgrimage, when they came back because of the illness of his spouse, they took up house in one of the Neighbourhood’s of Tus. He was born there when his family was living there. His father named him Mohammad.
Education
The days of childhood and adolescence of Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi was spent in Tus. He was in these days after reading and writing, Quran reading, Arabic, and Persian rules taught meanings and express and hadith near his father. After that base on the speaking of his father he went near his uncle that he was the famous scientists in mathematics, Hekmat, and logic, so he paid to learn these sciences. Then with the guide of his father he went to one of the famous scholars in mathematics and studied but a little time after that he decided to have a trip. The people say he told to his father that I taught to whatever that I know and he asks me (father) something that I have no answer for them!
After a while, the uncle of his father whom he had special expertise in the science of men, Elements, and Hadith came to the Tus and Khajeh studied many things from him. Though he couldn’t learn any new thing from him. But his lots of intelligence and talent provoked amazement and wonder of the master’s in the way that he recommended him for improved his science immigrate to the Neishabur.He put the clothes of religious scholars by the hands of his professor. After that, he was honored with the title of Nasir Uddin by his professor. After that Khajeh went to the Neishabur and with the recommendation of the uncle of his father went to the Serajyeh school and for the period of a year educated near Serajedin Qomry that he was one of the great masters of the Fiqh course and principles in that school. After that in Presence of professor Fariduddin Damad, one of the students of (Imam Fakhre Razi) learns the book of “Allusions of Ibn Sina”. After topics, numerous scientific of Fariduddin with Khajeh, his interest, and extraordinary talent, appeared in compare with gaining knowledge and Fariduddin introduce him to one of the students of Fakhreh Razi. Thus he could learn the book of “Law of Ibn Sina” completely and well near “Qotbeddin Mesry Shafi’I”. In addition to the above books, he gets the benefit of the presence famous mystic of that land “Attar Neyshabouri” (died 627). Khajeh in which was the owner of the valuable Sciences and was always looking to earn more Science and Technology, after studying with Neishabur scientists went to the Rey and be familiar with the great scientist “Burhanuddin Qazvini”. After that, he decided to went to Isfahan, but in the middle of the way after getting familiar with “Meysam Bin Ali Meysam Bohrani” with his invitation and with the intent of using of Isfahani Khajeh lesson went to the Qom.
After Qom Kahejeh went to the Isfahan and then went to the Iraq. He learned Fiqh from the presence of the Edris and Zohre Heli student Mesry Mazani and in the year of 619 AH. received permission of telling the story from his master. As written for the time Khajeh learned Fiqh from Hilli and in front of Hilli learned Hekmat from Khajeh. “Kamaloddin Mosli” was living in Iraq Mosel city was one of the other science that khajeh learned Astronomy and mathematics from him, And so the Tusi researcher passed the education time. After many years being far from the home and family, he decided to went to the Khorasan.
Influences and exclusively monuments
A 60 kilometers crater in the Southern Hemisphere of the Moon has been named Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi. Also, an asteroid was discovered by Russian astronomer in 1979 that called Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi.
Tehran university and also Shamkhay Observatory in Azerbaijan has the name of Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi.
In 2013 ad. Google base, on the occasion of 812 years of Birth of Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi put a picture of him on the website and it was accessible in The Arabian countries. Base on the B.B.C. This site emphasized that he had Iranian ancestry that has the reflections in the Arabic countries.
In Iran fifth of March is the day of birth of Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi called engineer day.
Effects
His life was founded by two ethical and scientific goals. Khajeh Nasir Uddin Tusi in most fields of science and philosophy has writings of treatises and compilations that most of them are in the Arabic language. But 25 percent of his writings are in the Persian language. Nasir Uddin, unlike Ibn Sina, didn’t try to translate the Arabic words to Persian and change the Arabic expressions to the Persian expression and used common words of his time for writing his Persian effects. The most famous effects of him are contained: “Asas Al Eqtebas” and “Akhlaqe Naseri”.
Dr. Mahmoud Hesabi born on February-1903 and died in August-1992. His real name is Mahmoud khan Mirza Hesabi but he is known as professor Hesaby. He was Physicist, Senator, Minister of Education and founder of the Physics University in Iran. Biography Mahmoud Hesaby was born in Tehran from Tafreshi Mother and Father. He was spent first four years of his childhood life in Tehran and was beginning his primary education in seven years old in Beirut with poverty and ordeals of being away from the homeland in the French priest school. At the same time, he was learned Persian literature and Religious education from his mother. He memorized the Quran and Hafez. He had also complete nobles on Boustan, Golestan Saadi, Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Masnavi of Rumi books and Deputy Farahani Characteristics information. Hesaby were very well familiar with poetry and traditional music of Iran and classical music of West. He was skilled at playing the violin and piano. He achieved success in several sports fields, like achieving Lifeguard certification in swimming in adolescence in Beirut. He died in Geneva Hospitals of University. His family tomb is located in Tafresh city. Also, the department of Transportation of the Islamic Republic of Iran put the name of doctor Hesaby on one of fleet ships of itself. Education Began his secondary education was at the beginning of I World War and holidays of French-language schools of Beirut. Hence he studied for two years at home. After that, he continued his education in the American College of Beirut. In seventeen years old he was Bachelor of literature and at nineteen years old he received the bachelor of Biology. After that, he was graduated from the civil Engineering of the French university in Beirut. In this time, with employment in planning and construction of
Dr. Mahmoud Hesabi born on February-1903 and died in August-1992. His real name is Mahmoud khan Mirza Hesabi but he is known as professor Hesaby. He was Physicist, Senator, Minister of Education and founder of the Physics University in Iran.
Biography
Mahmoud Hesaby was born in Tehran from Tafreshi Mother and Father. He was spent first four years of his childhood life in Tehran and was beginning his primary education in seven years old in Beirut with poverty and ordeals of being away from the homeland in the French priest school. At the same time, he was learned Persian literature and Religious education from his mother. He memorized the Quran and Hafez. He had also complete nobles on Boustan, Golestan Saadi, Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Masnavi of Rumi books and Deputy Farahani Characteristics information. Hesaby were very well familiar with poetry and traditional music of Iran and classical music of West. He was skilled at playing the violin and piano. He achieved success in several sports fields, like achieving Lifeguard certification in swimming in adolescence in Beirut. He died in Geneva Hospitals of University. His family tomb is located in Tafresh city. Also, the department of Transportation of the Islamic Republic of Iran put the name of doctor Hesaby on one of fleet ships of itself.
Education
Began his secondary education was at the beginning of I World War and holidays of French-language schools of Beirut. Hence he studied for two years at home. After that, he continued his education in the American College of Beirut. In seventeen years old he was Bachelor of literature and at nineteen years old he received the bachelor of Biology. After that, he was graduated from the civil Engineering of the French university in Beirut. In this time, with employment in planning and construction of highways, he has helped the supplement of the family income.
He was also paid college education in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy.
He was educated and researched at the Sorbonne universities of French. In the 1927 year at the age of twenty 25, he gave his encyclopedia of Physics, with a thesis entitled “photoelectric cells are more sensitive”, and he gave many awards either.
Bachelor of Literature from the American University of Beirut
Bachelor of Civil Engineering from the French University of Beirut
Bachelor of mathematics, astronomy, and biology from American University of Beirut
Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of Paris
Bachelor of Mining Engineering from Mines ParisTech of Paris
D. in physics from the Sorbonne university in France
Political positions
He was appointed as Senator of Iran in the first period, the second and third senate of Iran. He was also education Minister of the cabinet of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in years 1951-1952.
Social and Job activities
Although he had the situation to continue his education in the abroad but he came back to Iran and paid to the establishment of modern science and the establishment of normal school, higher learning institution, Technical faculties, and sciences at Tehran University, writing dozens of books, pamphlets, launch, establishment of modern physics and engineering.
Scientific and Administrative Proceedings
The first technical mapping and specialized of Iran country (Bandar Lengeh way to the Bushehr)
The first modern road construction and scientific of Iran (The way of Tehran to Shemshak)
Established the first nomadic schools of Iran
Established the excellent normal school( higher learning institution)
Making the first radio of Iran
launch the first transmitting antenna in Iran
launch the first Seismology Centre in Iran
Launch first Atomic Reactor of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
Launch the first Radiology device in Iran
Calculate and determine of official time of Iran
Established the first private hospital in Iran, with the name of Goharshad hospital
Create forums of the Persian language and being in the establishment of Iranian Academy
Compiling the statute of established scheme of Tehran University
Established Technical Faculty of Tehran University
The establishment of Faculty of Science in Tehran university
The establishment of supreme council of intellectual
The establishment of the central part of making Lens of Applied Optics in Faculty of Science in Tehran University
The establishment of acoustic section in the university and measuring the distances of Iranian music steps in the scientific method
The establishment of Association of Iranian music and center of Music Researches
The establishment and a new educational program for elementary and high school
The establishment of Tehran University Geophysics Institute
The establishment of Atomic Research Center of Tehran University
The establishment of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
The establishment of the first modern observatory in Iran
The establishment of the modern center of chase satellites in Shiraz
Participation in the establishment of the center of Asadabad in Hamadan Telecommunications
The establishment of Research Committee in Iran space
Creating the first Meteorological stations of Iran (The building of high learning institution in gallery of Tehran University.)
Establish Statutes and the establishment of the National Institute of Standards
Establish regulations Iran textile mills and a treatise on how government support growth of this industry
Establish industrial research unit of Saqdaea (Research and Technology in electronics, physics, optics physics, artificial intelligence)
Launch the first water mill to generate electricity (generators) in the country
Create the first experimental workshops in Applied Sciences in Iran
Created the first basic science laboratories in Iran
Establish Saqdaea industrial research unit
Formation and chaired of Research Committee in Iran 1360
Awards and Honors
1349- Received the title of “Distinguished Professor of Tehran University
1365- Conducting of conferences annual Physics in 1365 in Iran in honor of Mahmoud Hesaby
French sign of Legion of Honor in France
Doctor Hesabi museum
Just a little bit after the death of doctor Hesaby in 1993, his house comes to be a museum in which his Personal items, Scientific and educational documents, Emblems, Acknowledgments, Old photos, the text of speeches, writings has been exhibited inside it. His house is located in the place that in the past it was called Hesaby crossroads.
Discussion about the Scientific and cultural status
After his dying exaggerated stories about the special works and his academic standing and his connections by scientists such as Albert Einstein has been published in the Iranian media which has been criticized by someone.Some of these discussions are contained as follow:
Cooperation and his relationship with Albert Einstein
Their common article
He was the only Iranian student of Albert Einstein
Being greatest Iranian physicist
Scientific man of the year
Having a modern and proven theory of physics
Simultaneous study
Expertise in various fields
Also, his opinion about the women and refusing to grant a scholarship to Alnush Teryan had discussions for itself. Some of the academics such as Reza Mansouri, Mehdi Zareh, and Zia Movahed dispraise exaggerate about him. Someone else such as Mehdi Golshani in addition of having many dispraise of exaggerations about him and of course dispraises harsh criticism, knew him as a thoughtful physicist.
Naser Moqabeli assistant professor and also the assistant of doctor Mahmoud Hesaby, that he considered his services in progress and updating the scientific sphere of Iran very valuable. He also knows it correct to trying to keep his memory in our mind.
Iraj Hesaby the son of Dr. Hesaby has rejected these criticisms. He said in his interview that his father has no picture with Mr. Albert Einstein.
Effects
His extant works in the fields of Physics, Persian language, and cultural research includes 21 books and paper.
The most effects of him are as follow:
High school physics books1939.
The book in the interpretation of Duber waves in six theses, Tehran University 1946.
Continuous particle Paper, in the journal academy of sciences of America in 1947.
The theoretical paper is to prove that charged particles have more mass and it was by light in compare with Electron, Report of publication of American Physical Society in 1948.
Article the model of infinite widespread particles, the journal of Physics France in 1957.
E-optical physics of Tehran University in 1961.
Treatise on the theory of infinite widespread particles.
Persian affixes and Gashvazhe (Prefix. and Suffix) 1989.
Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi (c.940-1020) was a Persian poet and the author of the immortal epic of Shahnameh (“book of kings”) which is the world's longest epic poem that created by a single poet, and the national epic of 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 that widely regarded as the greatest poet in the Persian language . He was called "The Lord of the Word" and "The Savior of Persian Language". Name Except for his kunya and his laqab , 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,that the most common one being Ḥakīm ("philosopher"). Based on this, his full name is given in Persian sources as / 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. Family Ferdowsi was born into a family of Iranian landowners in 940 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, currently in the Razavi Khorasan Province of northeastern Iran. Little is known about Ferdowsi's early life. The poet had a wife, who was probably literate and came from the same dehqan class. He had a son, who died aged 37, and was mourned by the poet in an elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh. The Muslim conquests of the 7th century had been a watershed in Iranian history, bringing the new religion of Islam, submitting Iranians to the rule of the Arab caliphate and promoting Arabic culture and language at the expense of Persian. By the late 9th century, the power of the caliphate had weakened and local Iranian
Abu l-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi (c.940-1020) was a Persian poet and the author of the immortal epic of Shahnameh (“book of kings”) which is the world’s longest epic poem that created by a single poet, and the national epic of 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 that widely regarded as the greatest poet in the Persian language . He was called “The Lord of the Word” and “The Savior of Persian Language”.
Name
Except for his kunya and his laqab , 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,that the most common one being Ḥakīm (“philosopher”). Based on this, his full name is given in Persian sources as / 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.
Family
Ferdowsi was born into a family of Iranian landowners in 940 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, currently in the Razavi Khorasan Province of northeastern Iran. Little is known about Ferdowsi’s early life. The poet had a wife, who was probably literate and came from the same dehqan class. He had a son, who died aged 37, and was mourned by the poet in an elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh.
The Muslim conquests of the 7th century had been a watershed in Iranian history, bringing the new religion of Islam, submitting Iranians to the rule of the Arab caliphate and promoting Arabic culture and language at the expense of Persian. By the late 9th century, the power of the caliphate had weakened and local Iranian dynasties emerged. Ferdowsi grew up in Tus, a city under the control of one of these dynasties, the Samanids, who claimed descent from the Sassanid general Bahram Chobin.
The Samanid bureaucracy used the New Persian language rather than Arabic and the Samanid elite had a great interest in pre-Islamic Iran and its traditions and commissioned translations of Pahlavi (Middle Persian) texts into New Persian . Abu Mansur Muhammad, a dehqan and governor of Tus, had ordered his minister Abu Mansur Mamari to invite several local scholars to compile a prose Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”), which was completed in 1010CE. Although it no longer survives, Ferdowsi used it as one of the sources of his epic. Samanid rulers were patrons of such important Persian poets as Rudaki and Daqiqi. Ferdowsi followed in the footsteps of these writers. Details about Ferdowsi’s education are lacking. Judging by the Shahnameh, there is no evidence he knew either Arabic or Pahlavi. Although New Persian was permeated by Arabic vocabulary by Ferdowsi’s time, there are relatively few Arabic loan words in the Shahnameh. This may have been a deliberate strategy by the poet. He died in 1020 A.D. in the Tus, Iran, Iran (Persia) in the same city that he was born in.
Life as a poet
Maybe Ferdowsi wrote some early poems which they haven’t survived. Around 977 Ferdowsi began work on the Shahnameh , he intending it as a continuation of the work of his fellow poet Daqiqi who he was slave. Like Daqiqi, Ferdowsi employes the prose Shahnameh of Abd-al-Razaq as a source. Ferdowsi received generous patronagefrom the Samanid prince and completed the first version of the Shahnameh in 994. Ferdowsi continued the work on the poem after Samanid toppled in the late 990 s and rewriting the section of praise Qaznavi Mahmoud. Mahmoud’s attitude to Ferdowsi and how well he rewarded the poet are matters which have long been subject to dispute and have formed the basis of legends about the poet and his patron.
The Turkic Mahmud may have been less interested in tales from Iranian history than the Samanids. The later sections of the Shahnameh have passages which speak about the Ferdowsi fluctuating moods: Some of them appears happy ,in some he complains about the old age, illness, poverty and the death of his son. A Millenary celebration was also held for the poet inviting scholars from Soviet Tajikistan, India, Armenia, and Europe such as : Germany, France, England, etc.which led to funds mainly from Parsi scholars’ donations that led to the building of a statue of the poet at his tomb site. Ferdowsi completed his epicon 8 March 1010. Virtually nothing is known with any certainly about the last decades of his life.
Tomb
For all his literary contribution Ferdowsi was not recognized during his life. It was only after his death that his poems won him admiration. For hundreds of years, his resting place was nothing more than a minor dome-shrine erected by the a Ghaznavid ruler of Khorasan , without any permanent edifice in place in the garden of his house where Ferdowsi’s daughter had originally buried him. In the beginning years of the twentieth century, Iran started to realize his critical role in defining the identity of Iran.
Ferdowsi was buried in his own garden (the cemetery of Tus )that burial there having been forbidden by a local cleric. A Qaznavid governer of Khorasan constructed a mausoleum over the grave and it became a revered site. The tomb , which had fallen into rottenness, was rebuilt by the Society for the National Heritage of Iran on the orders of Reza Shah, and has now become the equivalent of a national shrine.
This tomb was built in the early 1930s,under the Reza Shah, and uses mainly elements of Achaemenid architecture and it is complex composed of a white marble base, and a decorative edifice erected in honor of this Persian poet located in Tus, Iran, in Razavi Khorasan province. The construction of the mausoleum, as well as its aesthetic design, is a reflection of the cultural, and geopolitical status of Iran at the time.
The tomb was originally designed by the Iranian architect. The now existing design of the structure also owes mainly to Karim Taherzadeh who replaced the old dome-shaped design by Lurden into the modern cubical design that is now present. Ferdowsi’s tomb is built in the style of the Achaemenid architecture especially emulating the tomb of Cyrus the Great. There is a clear link between this choice of architectural style and the politics of Iran at the time. Four years before Reza Shah even came to power in 1922, a group of secular Iranian reformists had created the “Society for National Heritage”.
Structural Details
The basic structure of the tomb is rectangular with a large garden surrounding the structure and interacting with the structure in the Persian style of gardening known as Char-bagh . In the center of the cross created by the legs of the garden surrounding it . The edifice can be divided into a “wide chamber” that lies at the base and a cubical erection on top, with four pillars surrounding it and scenes from the epic of Shahnameh and text ornating it. The body of the poet is actually interred in the center of the rectangular wide chamber underneath the overlying four pillars cube.There are twelve (12) steps leading from the lowest point of the wide chamber all the way to the level of the cube. The wide base has a total height of 16 m. The edifice has equal dimensions of 30 m on each side. There are twelve (12) steps leading from the lowest point of the wide chamber all the way to the level of the cube. The wide base has a total height of 16 m. The edifice has equal dimensions of 30 m on each side.
The following are schematic diagrams of the aerial view of the tomb’s wide base and edifice section and their topography:
A unique feature of the design of Ferdowsi’s tomb has been its resemblance to that of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae. Cyrus’s tomb also has a rectangular structure seating atop a rectangular, gradually elevating base. This resemblance is intentional as the designer of this edifice intended to revoke the original Achaemenid style of architecture. In fact, every other facet of the edifice has a Zoroastrian symbol known as Faravahar. This is not coincidental. There are multiple applications of this in the Achaemenid architecture mainly in Persepolis in Fars province today. The “Society for National Heritage of Iran” (SNH) heavily relied on the use of Faravahar as this was the symbolic representation of ancient Iran since Achaemenid times. Many constructions in the 1930s, including the then National Bank of Iran use Faravahar which is not unexpected considering that the same architect that created Ferdowsi’s tomb also created the National Bank of Iran.
A closer look at the edifice points out that there are four columns each at the corner of the rectangular structure with two half-buried columns that protrude as deep friezes on each facet of the structure. Each frieze column has a box, followed by a two horn bull sign which is very much similar if not the exact imitation of the Persepolis column design. The columns are ornated with fluting 3/4 of the way down with the last portion spared. The overall effect is intended to create a grand gesture. The columns are as high as the edifice which is 30 meters high. Marble decorations are used to ornate the siding and the floor of the “wide base” structure as well the wall. Persian flower designs (concentric flower designs composed of a flower with seven valid pellets surrounding a central circle), and hexagonal marble designs are commonly used in the structure.
Comparison of the Persepolis columns, and the columns used in Ferdowsi’s mausoleum:
Historical Context:
Iran’s history has been closely tied to geopolitical changes that have taken place since the establishment of the Achaemenid empire in Persis all the way to the modern day Iran. Two major events are of critical importance in Iran’s history especially its literary history as it pertained to Ferdowsi: 1.Arab conquest of Persia 2. The Mongolian invasion of Persia.
Ferdowsi lived his life as a poor man constantly moving from court to court and eventually died a poor widower, having lost his only son. Tus, at one point, was an opulent city in the greater Khorasan region but it was repeatedly sacked by Oguz Turks, Mongols, and Uzbeks from the steppe. This and the growing influence of Mashad as a political and religious center within Khorasan shaped Ferdowsi’s experience and in many ways influenced his writing as Tus lost prestige. Additionally, Arabic had found prestige in lands conquered by the Arabs and there was threat ofMiddle Persian being lost in favor of Arabic. Ferdowsi’s role is critical in that using the least number of loan-words he transferred the Middle Persian (Pahlavi) into Modern Persian (Farsi). In the time frame preceding the construction of the mausoleum, nationalistic feelings in Iran were high.
There was a renewed sense of national identity partly due to the pressures felt by foreign powers including the constant Anglo-Persian political struggle especially over the issues of oil, and partly due to the inability of the Qajar dynasty from protecting Iranian lands in central Asia to the Russians and in the east to the British. Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was an important source of contention for Iranians.
The architecture of Ferdowsi’s tomb is also influenced by poet’s own personal life, reflecting a constant struggle between the poor poet and the lazy king, and adversity and hope. The Society for National Heritage in the 1930s drawing on poet’s attempt to revitalize the Persian language also attempted to revitalize Persian culture and Iranian identity through architecture. This was in many ways taken literary with Persian poems from Shahnameh etched into the white marble facets of the edifice of the poet’s mausoleum.
After the Iranian revolution, both tombs of Ferdowsi and the even mausoleum of Cyrus the Great survived the initial chaos. One of the most dangerous threats to the structure was that it would be equated with the late Pahlavi dynasty by the new regime and destroyed. It, however, was not and was instead embraced by the new local government since Ferdowsi was a devout Muslim.
Interior Design
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh inspires tales of the heroic act by protagonists fighting against their antagonists. In that sense, it is a national epic that encompasses not only fictional and literary figures but also incorporates parts of the history of pre-Islamic Iran. This has led to the interior of the edifice of Ferdowsi to reflect the same heroic scenes.
The chief architect responsible for the design of the interior of the tomb of Ferdowsi is Feraydoon Sadeghi who created deep freeze scenes using three-dimensional statues each depicting a scene from Shahnameh. Rostam, the hero of the book of Shahnameh is the focus of the majority of the scenes inside of the edifice. As Shahnameh is essentially a text, artistic recreation of its heroic scenes are multiple.Centered inside the edifice surrounding by the frieze scenes and other artistic endeavors is the tombstone of the poet. Etched on the tombstone in Farsi (Persian) is the description of Ferdowsi’s contribution to the Persian-speakers and at the end, it ends by denoting the poet’s date of birth, date of death, and the date at which the mausoleum was built.
The English translation of the content of the tomb is rough as follows:
In the name of the God who created life. This place is the resting place of he (Hakim Abul-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi) who has advanced the art of language among Persian speakers and the holder of the national epic of Iran and its national stories. His words have given a new life to Iran, and he has a place in the hearts of its people.
Legacy
Today Ferdowsi’s tomb is one of the most photographed in Iran. Millions of visitors from various provinces of Iran come to see the tomb every year. Foreign dignitaries, tourists, and other Persian-Speaking civilians from Europe, Asia, and Middle East also visit the site. The most recent was a visit from the Iraqi tourism minister in July 2013. The site has also inspired many Persian poets including Iranian poet Mehdi Akhavan-Sales who is actually physically buried not far from the tomb of Ferdowsi, in his own tomb in the grounds of Ferdowsi’s complex.
Legend
According to legend Sultan Mahmud Qaznavi offered Ferdows a gold piece for every couplet of Shahnameh. The poet agreed to receive the money as a lump sum After he completed the epic. He planned to use the money for rebuild the dykes in his native Tus. After 30 years of work he finished his masterpiece . The sultan prepared to give him 60,000 gold pieces, one for every couplet as they agreed.
However , the courtier Mahmud Qaznavi had entrusted with the money despised Ferdowsi, regarding him as a heretic, and he eplaced the gold coins with silver. He received the reward when he was in the bath house and finding it was silver not gold and he gave the money away to the bath keeper,a refreshment seller and the slave who had carried the coins. When the courtier told the sultan about Ferdowsi’s Bahaviour, he was furious and threatened to execute him. Ferdowsi fled Khorasan, having first written satire on Mahmud, and spent most of the remainder of his life in exile. Mahmud eventually learned the truth about the courtier’s deception and had him either banished or executed. By this time, the aged Ferdowsi had returned to Tus. The sultn sent him a new gift of 60,000 gold pieces, but just as the caravan bearing the money entered the gates of Tus, a funeral procession exited the gates on the opposite side:the poet had died from a heart attack.
Works
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is the most popular and influential national epic in Iran and other Persian-speaking nations that is the only surviving work by Ferdowsi regarded as indisputably genuine. Ferdowsi may have written poems earlier in his life but they no longer exist.
A narrative poem, Yūsof o Zolaykā was once attributed to him, but scholarly consensus now rejects the idea it is his. There has also been speculation about the satire Ferdowsi allegedly wrote about Mahmud of Ghazni after the sultan failed to reward him sufficiently. Nezami Aruzi, Ferdowsi’s early biographer, claimed that all but six lines had been destroyed by a well-wisher who had paid Ferdowsi a thousand dirhams for the poem. Introductions to some manuscripts of the Shahnameh include verses purporting to be the satire. Some scholars have viewed them as fabricated; others are more inclined to believe in their authenticity.
Influence
Ferdowsi is one of the undisputed giants of Persian literature and After his Shahnameh, a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity as Ferdowsi’s masterpiece.
Because of the strides he made in reviving and regenerating the Persian language and cultural traditions he has a unique place in Persian history. His works are cited as a crucial component in the persistence of the Persian language, as those works allowed much of the tongue to remain codified and intact. By his masterpiece he surpasses Nizami, Khayyám, Asadi Tusi and other seminal Persian literary figures in his impact on Persian culture and language. Many modern Iranians see him as the father of the modern Persian language.
Ferdowsi in fact was a motivation behind many future Persian figures. In 1934, Rezā Shāh set up a ceremony in Mashhad, Khorasan, celebrating a thousand years of Persian literature since the time of Ferdowsi, titled “Ferdowsi Millenary Celebration”, inviting notable European as well as Iranian scholars. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is a university established in 1949 that also takes its name from Ferdowsi. Ferdowsi’s influence in the Persian culture is explained by the Encyclopædia Britannica:
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 Dari original, is pure Persian with only the slightest admixture of Arabic.
