Rudaki Statue - Rudaki Garden, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Abu Abdollah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki (858 - ca. 941), was a Persian poet, and is regarded as the first great literary genius of the Modern Persian, who composed poems in the "New Persian" alphabet. Rudaki is considered as a founder of Persian classical literature.

He was born in 858 in Rudak (Panjrud), a village located in Panjakent, Tajikistan. Even though most of his biographers assert that he was completely blind, some early biographers are silent about this or do not mention him as being born blind. His accurate knowledge and description of colors, as evident in his poetry, renders this assertion very doubtful. He was the court poet to the Samanid ruler Nasr II (914–943) in Bukhara, although he eventually fell out of favor; his life ended in poverty.

Of the thousands verses attributed to him, only 52 qasidas, ghazals and rubais and some masnavi survived; of his epic masterpieces we have nothing beyond a few stray lines in native dictionaries. However, the most serious loss is that of his translation of Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa's Arabic version of the old Indian fable book Kalila and Dimna (Panchatantra), which he put into Persian verse at the request of his royal patron.