In

In 411/1019-1020, after long years of ill health and poverty, Ferdosi died at the age of eighty-one.  Some Moslem fanatic prevented his burial in the Moslem cemetery of Tus, reasoning that he had devoted his life to the elevation and immortalization of ancient Iranians, and was therefore not a true Moslem.  He was buried in his garden located inside the town of Tabaran near Razan Gate, a few miles northeast of the present day Tus and a short distance from the village of Bazh, where he was born.  It was said that Arslan Jazeb built a domed mausoleum upon Ferdosi’s tomb.

At one point, Ferdosi’s mausoleum was destroyed to supply construction material for rebuilding the citadel of Tus.  It was restored under the just king, Ghazan Khan.  However, soon after his death, Ferdosi’s tomb became a national and religious shrine.  Dowlatshah testifies that it was a place of pilgrimage in 892/1487.   A century later, Shushtari wrote: “in spite of the ruin of Tus generally and the destruction of the building by the order of Obayd-Allah Khan the Uzbek, his [Ferdosi’s] shrine is nowadays defined and known; people from all realms, particularly the Emami Shiite, make pilgrimages to it.  The present writer [Shushtari] has also had the honor of visiting it”.  With the rise of the Qajars, the tomb was neglected.  In 1236/1822 only a little domed building had remained.   In 1858, even that had vanished.  Local peasants reported that Ferdosi’s tombstone had been removed and reused in the walls of a public bath.

Toward the end of the last century, Asaf-al-Dowleh, then governor of Khorasan, cleared the mound around the site of the tomb and built a brick structure over it.  A generation later, at the behest of nationalists, led by M. T. Bahar and Arbab Kaykhosrow Shahrokh, the Iranian government investigated the tomb and confirmed its attribution to Ferdosi.  A new mausoleum was built on it and a new marble tombstone placed therein.

Source: Ferdowsi, A Critical Biography, by A. Shapur Shahbazi, Published by Mazda Pulishers, 1991 Dr. Jalil Doostkhah's critique on above book, Iranshenasi, Vol. VIII, No. 4, Winter 1997