Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi Tusi (940 – 1020Ad) was born into a family of Iranian landowners (dehqans) in 940 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, which is located in the present-day Khorasan Razavi Province of northeastern Iran.
Iranians are very much indebted to Ferdowsi as he preserved the Farsi language from annihilation and gave it an independent identity. Abulqasem Ferdowsi, who lived more than a millennium ago, made a strenuous effort to keep this sweet language in the face of other languages and did his best to use as many Farsi words as possible in his magnum opus, Shahnameh (the Book of King).
The vast Iranian territory over the course of history has experienced a lot of ups and downs. To highlight the genuine Iranian culture, Ferdowsi revived the ethnic heroes and ancient Iranian civilization and managed to revive the sense of defending the country in many people.
Ferdowsi should be considered as one of the Iranian national heroes, a great poet who breathed a new life in the body of Farsi language, and according to Dr. Abolfazl Khatibi, "through the past experience and Ferdowsi's great endeavor, Farsi language was stabilized, and by writing Shahnameh, he succeeded to preserve Farsi language against the influence of foreign words and keep the syntax and norms of Farsi language from the harm of anomalies. Hence, Farsi language owes its development to Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and that is why the name of Ferdowsi is interlinked to the durability of the Farsi language."
Today, Ferdowsi's tomb is one of the tourist attractions in Iran. Millions of visitors from various provinces of Iran come to see the tomb every year. Foreign dignitaries, tourists, and other Persian-speaking people from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East also visit the site.
The tomb edifice is inspired by the tomb of Cyrus the great and is cubic in shape some of whose profiles show inscriptions of Ferdowsi's poems taken the book of kings.
Today is the National Commemoration Day of the great Iranian epic poet Ferdowsi. Every year, a number of literati and scholars from around the world gather at the mausoleum on May 15 to commemorate the great Persian.