Abu Abdollah Jafar Rudaki, born in 858 in Rudak (Panjrud), a village located in Panjakent, located in the Samanid Empire in modern day 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 has become court poet to Nasr II in Bukhara, ruler of Khorasan and Transoxiana, the fame of his accomplishments early in his life, having reached the ear of the Samanid amir.
Rudaki had become his daily companion, amassed great wealth, and garnered high honors.
Generally regarded as the first major poet of the Islamic period, the prodigious Rudaki produces lyrics, panegyrics, and narrative poems (of which about a thousand lines survive).
It is claimed that he well deserved the title of the father of Persian literature, or the Adam or the Sultan of poets even though he had various predecessors, because he was the first who impressed upon every form of epic, lyric and didactic poetry its peculiar stamp and its individual character.
He is also said to have been the founder of the diwan, or the typical form of the complete collection of a poet's lyrical compositions in a more or less alphabetical order, which all Persian writers use even today.
He was also a very adept singer and instrumentalist (chang).
Rudaki eventually falls out of favor in 937; his life will end in poverty.
