Ferdowsi completes the Shahnameh

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After thirty-three years of patient versification, the Persian poet finished sixty thousand couplets retelling Iran's kings and heroes from creation to the Arab conquest. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni reportedly underpaid him. The Book of Kings became the foundation of modern Persian literary identity for all generations to follow, preserving the myths and language of pre-Islamic Iran at a time when Arabic threatened to swallow Persian culture entirely.