Middle East NE P155b 50000 r 2019 UNC | purple/green | twin arches

Issuer: BMJEI
Colors: Purple and green on golden tan, some peach and light blue in designs, white
Front: religious/political leader in purple
Back: twin square arches at the entrance to the university in the capital, poem by Ferdowsi "Capable is he who is wise; Knowledge makes the old heart young"
Watermark: religious/political leader
Signatures: AH, FD

Who was Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi (c. 940–1020) was the poet who gave this civilization its great national epic, the Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”), a monumental work of around 50,000 couplets recounting the mythical, legendary, and early historical past of this culture from the creation of the world to the fall of the last pre-Islamic dynasty.

He is unique not just in scale, but intention. When Arabic dominated elite culture, he deliberately composed almost entirely in the local language, preserving vocabulary, mythic memory, and narrative forms that might otherwise have dissolved. The Shahnameh is filled with kings, heroes, betrayals, cosmic justice, and tragic grandeur—figures like Rostam, Sohrab, and Zahhak are as archetypal as anything in Homer or the Mahabharata.

His moral universe prized justice over power, fate over arrogance, and ethical kingship over brute force. Over centuries, the Shahnameh became a cultural backbone: memorized, illustrated, recited aloud, and used as a touchstone of language, identity, and continuity across enormous political change.

If Hafez is the poet of inward ambiguity and spiritual intoxication, Ferdowsi is the architect of memory—the one who ensured a civilization could still recognize itself when looking backward.