Abu Abdollāh Rudaki (858-940 AD) is known as the ‘Father of Persian poetry’, as he was one of the earliest poets to write in the Modern Persian language. He was born in the village of Panjrud, in present-day Tajikistan, and became the court poet for Nasr II, the Amir of Bukhara and ruler of the Samanid dynasty between 914 and 943 AD. During this time he composed thousands of verses, including many قصاید qasāyed ‘odes of praise’, as well as a beautiful retranslation of the South Asian Kalileh va Demneh fables into Modern Persian.