Tomb of Ferdowsi

Listen for a moment. The traffic of Mashhad has faded behind you, and in its place you hear water running along narrow channels, the scrape of shoes on pale stone, and perhaps a voice somewhere reciting poetry. The air here in Tus feels wider and drier than in the city. Ahead of you, a white cube of stone rises above a long reflecting pool, square and solid against the sky.

This is the Tomb of Ferdowsi, the resting place of the poet who wrote the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings. For many Iranians, this is not simply a monument. It is closer to a place of pilgrimage for the Persian language itself. You may notice families here, students, older men in quiet conversation. Many of them know lines of his verse by heart, and some will speak them aloud as they walk.

So who was Ferdowsi? He was born in this region of Khorasan, in northeastern Iran, in the tenth century. He came from a family of landowners, and he spent decades on one enormous project. He gathered the old stories of Iran, its myths, its heroes, and its ancient kings, and he shaped them into a single epic poem. He finished it in the early eleventh century, after roughly thirty years of work.

The scale of the Shahnameh is hard to picture. It runs to around fifty thousand couplets, which makes it one of the longest poems ever written by a single author. It begins with the creation of the world and the first mythical kings. It moves through the great hero Rostam and his battles. And it ends with the fall of the last Persian empire before the arrival of Islam, in the seventh century.

Here is the detail that surprises many visitors. Ferdowsi wrote at a time when Arabic was the language of learning and religion across much of the region. He chose to write in Persian, and he used remarkably few Arabic words. Because of this, many Iranians credit him with keeping their language alive. A line often quoted from the poem says that he brought the Persians back to life through Persian. You will find that idea repeated all around this garden.

The story of his final years is famous, though much of it belongs to legend. According to a popular tale, the poet dedicated his epic to Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, a powerful ruler of the time. The sultan had promised a coin in gold for every couplet. Legend has it that he sent silver instead, and the insulted poet gave the money away. Years later, the story goes, the sultan regretted it and sent the gold... but the camels arrived at one city gate just as Ferdowsi's funeral left by another.

There is another tradition connected to this very ground. An early account says that a local cleric refused to allow the poet's burial in the Muslim cemetery. So, according to this account, Ferdowsi was buried inside his own garden, here in Tus. Whether every detail is true or not, the idea is moving. The poet lies in the soil of the place where he lived and wrote, and not in a grand city cemetery.

For centuries, the grave was modest, and at times it was almost forgotten. The building in front of you is modern. A mausoleum was first built here in the 1930s, for celebrations that marked one thousand years since the poet's birth. That structure had problems with its foundations. In the 1960s, the Iranian architect Hooshang Seyhoun redesigned and rebuilt the monument, and much of what you see today comes from that rebuilding.

Now look closely at the shape. It is a stepped platform topped by a solid block, and the design is intentional. It recalls the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, in southern Iran. Cyrus founded the Achaemenid Empire, the first great Persian empire, about two and a half thousand years ago. By borrowing that ancient form, the builders connected the poet to the deep history of the kings he wrote about.

Walk around the monument and look at the white stone walls. They carry verses from the Shahnameh, carved in flowing Persian script. Near the top you may see the winged figure known as the Faravahar. It is an ancient symbol from Iran's pre-Islamic past, a human figure set within outspread wings. On a bright day, the white surfaces reflect so much light that you may want sunglasses as you circle the building.

Here is the second surprise, and many visitors walk past it. Go down into the chamber beneath the monument, where the grave itself lies. The walls of this lower space are covered with carved stone reliefs. They show scenes from the epic. Look for Rostam, the great hero, in battle with demons and dragons. Look also for scenes from the tragic story of Rostam and his son Sohrab, who meet as enemies without knowing each other.

Back in the open air, take your time in the garden. Long paths of stone lead between rows of trees and lines of water. There is a statue of the poet in the grounds, seated with a calm and thoughtful face. Nearby, a small museum holds objects connected to the region and to the history of the Shahnameh. Beyond the garden lie the remains of old Tus, a city that was once an important centre in Khorasan, long before modern Mashhad grew so large.

Before you leave, stand for a moment at the edge of the reflecting pool. Look at the white cube doubled in the still water. Listen again for the water in the channels, and for any voice reciting a line of verse. A thousand years ago, a man worked here for three decades on stories of kings and heroes. As you walk back down the path, you are moving through his garden... and through the language that he chose to save.