The Most Famous

WRITERS from Iran

This page contains a list of the greatest Iranian Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 7,302 Writers, 56 of which were born in Iran. This makes Iran the birth place of the 21st most number of Writers behind Austria, and Egypt.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Iranian Writers of all time. This list of famous Iranian Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Iranian Writers.

1. Ismail I (1487 - 1524)

With an HPI of 77.01, Ismail I is the most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 67 different languages on wikipedia.

Ismail I (Persian: اسماعیل یکم, romanized: Ismāʿīl; 14 July 1487 – 23 May 1524) was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires. The rule of Ismail I is one of the most vital in the history of Iran. Before his accession in 1501, Iran, since its conquest by the Arabs eight-and-a-half centuries earlier, had not existed as a unified country under native Iranian rule. Although many Iranian dynasties rose to power amidst this whole period, it was only under the Buyids that a vast part of Iran properly returned to Iranian rule (945–1055). The dynasty founded by Ismail I would rule for over two centuries, being one of the greatest Iranian empires and at its height being amongst the most powerful empires of its time, ruling all of present-day Iran, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Armenia, most of Georgia, the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of modern-day Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It also reasserted the Iranian identity in large parts of Greater Iran. The legacy of the Safavid Empire was also the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", its architectural innovations, and patronage for fine arts. One of his first actions was the proclamation of the Twelver denomination of Shia Islam as the official religion of his newly-founded Persian Empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam, which had major consequences for the ensuing history of Iran. He caused sectarian tensions in the Middle East when he destroyed the tombs of the Abbasid caliphs, the Sunni Imam Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man, and the Sufi Muslim ascetic Abdul Qadir Gilani in 1508. Ismail I was also a prolific poet who under the pen name Khaṭāʾī (Arabic: خطائي, lit. 'the wrongful') contributed greatly to the literary development of the Azerbaijani language. He also contributed to Persian literature, though few of his Persian writings survive.

2. Abu Nuwas (762 - 814)

With an HPI of 76.91, Abu Nuwas is the 2nd most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 133 different languages.

Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī (variant: Al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī 'Abd al-Awal al-Ṣabāḥ, Abū 'Alī (أَبُو عَلِي اَلْحَسَنْ بْنْ هَانِئْ بْنْ عَبْدِ اَلْأَوَّلْ بْنْ اَلصَّبَاحِ اَلْحُكْمِيِّ اَلْمِذْحَجِي), known as Abū Nuwās al-Salamī (أبو نواس السلمي) or just Abū Nuwās (أبو نواس, Abū Nuwās); c. 756 – c. 814) was a classical Arabic poet, and the foremost representative of the modern (muhdath) poetry that developed during the first years of Abbasid Caliphate. He also entered the folkloric tradition, appearing several times in One Thousand and One Nights.

3. Hafez (1325 - 1389)

With an HPI of 75.26, Hafez is the 3rd most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 120 different languages.

Khājeh Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمس‌‌الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی), known by his pen name Hafez (حافظ, Ḥāfeẓ, 'the memorizer; the (safe) keeper'; 1325–1390) or Hafiz, was a Persian lyric poet whose collected works are regarded by many Iranians as one of the highest pinnacles of Persian literature. His works are often found in the homes of Persian speakers, who learn his poems by heart and use them as everyday proverbs and sayings. His life and poems have become the subjects of much analysis, commentary, and interpretation, influencing post-14th century Persian writing more than any other Persian author. Hafez is best known for his Divān, a collection of his surviving poems probably compiled after his death. His works can be described as "antinomian" and with the medieval use of the term "theosophical"; the term "theosophy" in the 13th and 14th centuries was used to indicate mystical work by "authors only inspired by the holy books" (as distinguished from theology). Hafez primarily wrote in the literary genre of lyric poetry or ghazals, which is the ideal style for expressing the ecstasy of divine inspiration in the mystical form of love poems. He was a Sufi. Themes of his ghazals include the beloved, faith and exposing hypocrisy. In his ghazals, he deals with love, wine and taverns, all presenting religious ecstasy and freedom from restraint, whether in actual worldly release or in the voice of the lover His influence on Persian speakers appears in divination by his poems (Persian: فال حافظ, romanized: fāl-e hāfez, somewhat similar to the Roman tradition of Sortes Vergilianae) and in the frequent use of his poems in Persian traditional music, visual art and Persian calligraphy. His tomb is located in his birthplace of Shiraz. Adaptations, imitations and translations of his poems exist in all major languages.

4. Mansur Al-Hallaj (858 - 922)

With an HPI of 72.47, Mansur Al-Hallaj is the 4th most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Mansour al-Hallaj (Arabic: ابو المغيث الحسين بن منصور الحلاج, romanized: Abū 'l-Muġīth al-Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj) or Mansour Hallaj (Persian: منصور حلاج, romanized: Mansūr-e Hallāj) (c. 858 – 26 March 922) (Hijri c. 244 AH – 309 AH) was a Persian mystic, poet, and teacher of Sufism. He is best known for his saying: "I am the Truth" (Ana'l-Ḥaqq), which many saw as a claim to divinity, while others interpreted it as an instance of annihilation of the ego, allowing God to speak through him. Al-Hallaj gained a wide following as a preacher before he became implicated in power struggles of the Abbasid court and was executed after a long period of confinement on religious and political charges. Although most of his Sufi contemporaries disapproved of his actions, Hallaj later became a major figure in the Sufi tradition. Al-Hallaj was born around 858 in Pars Province of the Abbasid Empire to a cotton-carder (Hallaj means "cotton-carder" in Arabic) in an Arabized town called al-Bayḍā'. His grandfather was a Zoroastrian magus. His father moved to a town in Wasit famous for its school of Quran reciters. Al-Hallaj memorized the Qur'an before he was 12 years old and would often retreat from worldly pursuits to join other mystics in study at the school of Sahl al-Tustari. During this period al-Hallaj lost his ability to speak Persian and later wrote exclusively in Arabic. Al-Hallaj was a Sunni Muslim. When he was twenty, al-Hallaj moved to Basra, where he married and received his Sufi habit from 'Amr Makkī, although his lifelong and monogamous marriage later provoked jealousy and opposition from the latter. Through his brother-in-law, al-Hallaj found himself in contact with a Zaydi Shi'i clan that supported the Zanj Rebellion. Al-Hallaj later went to Baghdad to consult the famous Sufi teacher Junayd of Baghdad, but he was tired of the conflict that existed between his father-in-law and 'Amr Makkī and he set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca, against the advice of Junayd, as soon as the Zanj Rebellion was crushed. In Mecca he made a vow to remain for one year in the courtyard of the sanctuary in fasting and total silence. When he returned from Mecca, he laid down the Sufi tunic and adopted a "lay habit" in order to be able to preach more freely. At that time a number of Sunnis, including former Christians who would later become viziers at the Abbasid court, became his disciples, but other Sufis were scandalized, while some Muʿtazilis and Shias who held high posts in the government accused him of deception and incited the mob against him. Al-Hallaj left for eastern Iran and remained there for five years, preaching in the Arab colonies and fortified monasteries that housed volunteer fighters in the jihad, after which he was able to return and install his family in Baghdad. Al-Hallaj made his second pilgrimage to Mecca with four hundred disciples, where some Sufis, his former friends, accused him of sorcery and making a pact with the jinn. Afterwards he set out on a long voyage that took him to India and Turkestan beyond the frontiers of Islamic lands. About 290/902 he returned to Mecca for his final pilgrimage clad in an Indian loin-cloth and a patched garment over his shoulders. There he prayed to God to be made despised and rejected, so that God alone might grant grace to Himself through His servant's lips. After returning to his family in Baghdad, al-Hallaj began making proclamations that aroused popular emotion and caused anxiety among the educated classes. These included avowing his burning love of God and his desire to "die accursed for the Community", and statements such as "O Muslims, save me from God" ... "God has made my blood lawful to you: kill me". It was at that time that al-Hallaj is said to have pronounced his famous shath "I am the Truth". He was denounced at the court, but a Shafi'i jurist refused to condemn him, stating that spiritual inspiration was beyond his jurisdiction. Al-Hallaj's preaching had by now inspired a movement for moral and political reform in Baghdad. In 296/908 Sunni reformers made an unsuccessful attempt to depose the underage caliph al-Muqtadir. When he was restored, his Shi'i vizier unleashed anti-Hanbali repressions which prompted al-Hallaj to flee Baghdad, but three years later he was arrested, brought back, and put in prison, where he remained for nine years. The conditions of al-Hallaj's confinement varied depending on the relative sway his opponents and supporters held at the court, but he was finally condemned to death in 922 on the charge of being a Qarmatian rebel who wished to destroy the Kaaba, because he had said "the important thing is to proceed seven times around the Kaaba of one's heart." According to another report, the pretext was his recommendation to build local replicas of the Kaaba for those who are unable to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The queen-mother interceded with the caliph who initially revoked the execution order, but the intrigues of the vizier finally moved him to approve it. On 23 Dhu 'l-Qa'da (25 March) trumpets announced his execution the next day. The words he spoke during the last night in his cell are collected in Akhbar al-Hallaj. Thousands of people witnessed his execution on the banks of the Tigris River. He was first punched in the face by his executioner, then lashed until unconscious, and then decapitated or hanged. Witnesses reported that al-Hallaj's last words under torture were "all that matters for the ecstatic is that the Unique should reduce him to Unity", after which he recited the Quranic verse 42:18. His body was doused in oil and set alight, and his ashes were then scattered into the river. A cenotaph was "quickly" built on the site of his execution, and "drew pilgrims for a millennium" until being swept away by a Tigris flood during the 1920s. Some question whether al-Hallaj was executed for religious reasons as has been commonly assumed. According to Carl W. Ernst, the legal notion of blasphemy was not clearly defined in Islamic law and statements of this kind were treated inconsistently by legal authorities. In practice, since apostasy was subsumed under the category of zandaqa, which reflected the Zoroastrian legacy of viewing heresy as a political crime, they were prosecuted only when it was politically convenient. Sadakat Kadri points out that "it was far from conventional to punish heresy in the tenth century," and it is thought he would have been spared execution except that the vizier of caliph al-Muqtadir wished to discredit "certain figures who had associated themselves" with al-Hallaj. (Previously al-Hallaj had been punished for talking about being at one with God by being shaved, pilloried and beaten with the flat of a sword, not executed because the Shafi'ite judge had ruled that his words were not "proof of disbelief.") Al-Hallaj addressed himself to popular audiences encouraging them to find God inside their own souls, which earned him the title of "the carder of innermost souls" (ḥallāj al-asrār). He preached without the traditional Sufi habit and used language familiar to the local Shi'i population. This may have given the impression that he was a Qarmatian missionary rather than a Sufi. His prayer to God to make him lost and despised can be regarded as typical for a Sufi seeking annihilation in God, although Louis Massignon has interpreted it as an expression of a desire to sacrifice himself as atonement on behalf of all Muslims. When al-Hallaj returned to Baghdad from his last pilgrimage to Mecca, he built a model of the Kaaba in his home for private worship. Al-Hallaj was popularly credited with numerous supernatural acts. He was said to have "lit four hundred oil lamps in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre with his finger and extinguished an eternal flame in a Zoroastrian fire temple with the tug of a sleeve." Among other Sufis, al-Hallaj was an anomaly. Many Sufi masters felt that it was inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet al-Hallaj openly did so in his writings and through his teachings. This was exacerbated by occasions when he would fall into trances which he attributed to being in the presence of God. Hallaj was also accused of ḥulūl "incarnationism", the basis of which charge seems to be a disputed verse in which the author proclaims mystical union in terms of two spirits in one body. This position was criticized for not affirming union and unity strongly enough; there are two spirits left whereas the Sufi fana' texts speak of utter annihilation and annihilation in annihilation (the annihilation of the consciousness of annihilation), with only one actor, the deity, left. Saer El-Jaichi has argued "that in speaking of the unity with the divine in terms of ḥulūl, Hallaj does not mean the fusion (or, mingling) of the divine and human substances." Rather, he has in mind "a heightened sense of awareness that culminates in the fulfillment of a spiritual – super-sensory – vision of God’s presence." Edward Said succinctly described al-Hallaj as "quasi-Christlike." There are conflicting reports about his most famous shaṭḥ, أنا الحق Anā l-Ḥaqq "I am The Truth, " which was taken to mean that he was claiming to be God, since al-Ḥaqq "the Truth" is one of the names of God in Islam. While meditating, he uttered انا الحق The earliest report, coming from a hostile account of Basra grammarians, states that he said it in the mosque of al-Mansur, while testimonies that emerged decades later claimed that it was said in private during consultations with Junayd Baghdadi. Even though this utterance has become inseparably associated with his execution in the popular imagination, owing in part to its inclusion in his biography by Attar of Nishapur, the historical issues surrounding his execution are far more complex. In another controversial statement, al-Hallaj claimed "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God, " and similarly he would point to his cloak and say, ما في جبتي إلا الله Mā fī jubbatī illā l-Lāh "There is nothing in my cloak but God." He also wrote: In the 11th volume of Ibn Kathir's book al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, it is said that al-Hallaj used to deceive people by putting on plays with his hired men under the guise of spiritual healing, and extorting money from them by cunning and secret, and it is also stated that, he came to India to learn and practice Indian magic. Ibn Kathir also said in the book, "Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami Amr ibn Uthman said on the authority of al-Makki: He said: "I was walking with al-Hallaj in some streets of Makkah and I read the Qur'an. I was reciting, and he heard my recitation. And said: I can recite the same (recitation), so I left him". Narrated by Ibn Kathir, Abu Zari al-Tabari said, I heard Abu Ya'qub al-Aqta say: I gave my daughter in marriage to al-Husayn al-Hallaj when I saw his good conduct and diligence, and after a short time it became clear to me that He is a deceitful sorcerer, a hateful infidel. Ibn Kathir also said, "Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Razi said: I heard Amr ibn Uthman cursing him and saying: If I could have killed him, I would have killed him with my own hands. I said to him: What did the Shaykh get on him? He Said: "I read a verse of the Book of Allah and He said: I can compose like it and speak like it." Ibn Kathir also said, and Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri mentioned in his letter in the chapter on preserving the hearts of the sheikhs: Amr bin Uthman entered the house of al-Hallaj when he was in Makkah, he (Hallaj) was writing something on paper and he (Amr) said to him : What is it? He (Hallaj) said: It is against the Qur'an. He said: Then he prayed for him and then he was not successful. Hallaj denied that Abu Ya'qub al-Aqta married him to his daughter. Al-Hallaj's principal works, all written in Arabic, included: Twenty-seven Riwāyāt (stories or narratives) collected by his disciples in about 290/902. Kitāb al-Tawāsīn, a series of eleven short works. Poems collected in Dīwān al-Hallāj. Pronouncements including those of his last night collected in Akhbār al-Hallāj. His best known written work is the Book of al-Tawasin (كتاب الطواسين), in which he used line diagrams and symbols to help him convey mystical experiences that he could not express in words. Ṭawāsīn is the broken plural of the word ṭā-sīn which spells out the letters ṭā (ط) and sīn (س) placed for unknown reasons at the start of some surahs in the Quran. The chapters vary in length and subject. Chapter 1 is an homage to Muhammad, for example, while Chapters 4 and 5 are treatments of his legendary ascent to Mi'raj. Chapter 6 is the longest of the chapters and is devoted to a dialogue of Satan (Iblis) and God, where Satan refuses to bow to Adam, although God asks him to do so. Satan's monotheistic claim—that he refused to bow before any other than God even at the risk of eternal rejection and torment—is combined with the lyrical language of the love-mad lover from the Majnun tradition, the lover whose loyalty is so total that there is no path for him to any "other than" the beloved. This passage explores the issues of mystical knowledge (ma'rifa) when it contradicts God's commands for although Iblis was disobeying God's commands, he was following God's will. His refusal is due, others argue, to a misconceived idea of God's uniqueness and because of his refusal to abandon himself to God in love. Hallaj criticizes the staleness of his adoration (Mason, 51-3). Al-Hallaj stated in this book: Few figures in Islam provoked as much debate among classical commentators as al-Hallaj. The controversy cut across doctrinal categories. In virtually every major current of juridical and theological thought (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i Hanbali, Maturidi, Ash'ari, and also Shia Jafari) one finds his detractors and others who accepted his legacy completely or justified his statements with some excuse. His admirers among philosophers included Ibn Tufayl, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra. Although the majority of early Sufi teachers condemned him, he was almost unanimously canonized by later generations of Sufis. The principal Sufi interpretation of the shathiyat which took the form of "I am" sayings contrasted the permanence (baqā) of God with the mystical annihilation (fanā) of the individual ego, which made it possible for God to speak through the individual. Some Sufi authors claimed that such utterances were misquotations or attributed them to immaturity, madness or intoxication, while others regarded them as authentic expressions of spiritual states, even profoundest experience of divine realities, which should not be manifested to the unworthy. Some of them, including al-Ghazali, showed ambivalence about their apparently blasphemous nature while admiring the spiritual status of their authors. Rumi wrote: "When the pen (of authority) is in the hand of a traitor, unquestionably Mansur is on a gibbet" The supporters of Mansur have interpreted his statement as meaning, "God has emptied me of everything but Himself. " According to them, Mansur never denied God's oneness and was a strict monotheist. However, he believed that the actions of man, when performed in total accordance with God's pleasure, lead to a blissful unification with Him. Malayalam author Vaikom Muhammad Basheer draws parallel between "Anā al-Ḥaqq" and Aham Brahmasmi, the Upanishad Mahāvākya which means 'I am Brahman' (the Ultimate Reality in Hinduism). Basheer uses this term to intend God is found within one's 'self'. There was a belief among European historians that al-Hallaj was secretly a Christian, until the French scholar Louis Massignon presented his legacy in the context of Islamic mysticism in his four-volume work La Passion de Husayn ibn Mansûr Hallâj. Hallaj is highly revered by Yezidis, who composed a few religious hymns devoted to him. Elements of his views expressed in Kitab al-Tawasin can be found in their religion. Arabic literature List of Persian poets and authors Sufism Hasan of Basra Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Aham Brahmasmi Anal Haq Kadri, Sadakat (2012). Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia ... Macmillan. ISBN 9780099523277. Massignon, Louis (1982). The Passion of al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated by Herbert Mason. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691019193. Rodziewicz, Artur (2022). The Mystery of Essence and the Essence of Mystery: Yezidi and Yaresan Cosmogonies in the Light of the Kitab al-Tawasin Macmillan. ISBN 978-981-16-6444-1. In English: [1] The Tawasin of Mansur al-Hallaj in English translation] Selected poetry by al-Hallaj in English translation Doctrine of Al-Hallaj by Al-Qushayri Archived May 25, 2006, at the Wayback Machine Articles at Poet Seers al-Hallaj at the Internet Medieval Source Book In other languages: Rhythmic prose and poetry by Al-Hallaj recited in Arabic Kitâb al tawâsîn edited and annotated by Louis Massignon (in Arabic and French) (includes Persian translation and commentary by Ruzbihan Baqli). Louis Massignon (1922) La passion d'Al Hosayn-ibn-Mansour al-Hallaj, vol. 2 (in French) Akhbar al-Hallaj (in Arabic) Collected Works of Mansur Hallaj in Persian translation Archived December 22, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Diwan of Mansur Hallaj in Persian translation Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Diwan of Mansur Hallaj in Urdu Translation Archived December 22, 2015, at the Wayback Machine

5. Ferdowsi (940 - 1020)

With an HPI of 72.03, Ferdowsi is the 5th most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 100 different languages.

Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی; 940 – 1019/1025), also Firdawsi or Ferdowsi (فردوسی), was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single poet, and the greatest epic of Persian-speaking countries. Ferdowsi is celebrated as one of the most influential figures of Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature.

6. Shams Tabrizi (1185 - 1248)

With an HPI of 71.84, Shams Tabrizi is the 6th most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Shams-i Tabrīzī (Persian: شمس تبریزی) or Shams al-Din Mohammad (1185–1248) was a Persian Shafi'ite poet, who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi's poetic collection, in particular Diwan-i Shams-i Tabrīzī. Tradition holds that Shams taught Rumi in seclusion in Konya for a period of forty days, before fleeing for Damascus. The tomb of Shams-i Tabrīzī was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

7. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201 - 1274)

With an HPI of 71.79, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi is the 7th most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 62 different languages.

Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi (1201 – 1274), also known as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (Arabic: نصیر الدین الطوسی; Persian: نصیر الدین طوسی) or simply as (al-)Tusi, was a Persian polymath, architect, philosopher, physician, scientist, and theologian. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was a well published author, writing on subjects of math, engineering, prose, and mysticism. Additionally, al-Tusi made several scientific advancements. In astronomy, al-Tusi created very accurate tables of planetary motion, an updated planetary model, and critiques of Ptolemaic astronomy. He also made strides in logic, mathematics but especially trigonometry, biology, and chemistry. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi left behind a great legacy as well. Tusi is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of medieval Islam, since he is often considered the creator of trigonometry as a mathematical discipline in its own right. The Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) considered Tusi to be the greatest of the later Persian scholars. There is also reason to believe that he may have influenced Copernican heliocentrism.

8. Saadi Shirazi (1210 - 1291)

With an HPI of 71.38, Saadi Shirazi is the 8th most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 77 different languages.

Saadi Shīrāzī, better known by his pen name Saadi (; Persian: سعدی, romanized: , IPA: [sæʔˈdiː]), also known as Sadi of Shiraz (سعدی شیرازی, Saʿdī Shīrāzī; born 1210; died 1291 or 1292), was a Persian poet and prose writer of the medieval period. He is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts. Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest poets of the classical literary tradition, earning him the nickname "The Master of Speech" or "The Wordsmith" (استاد سخن ostâd-e soxan) or simply "Master" (استاد ostâd) among Persian scholars. He has been quoted in the Western traditions as well. His book, Bustan has been ranked as one of the 100 greatest books of all time by The Guardian.

9. Jami (1414 - 1492)

With an HPI of 70.98, Jami is the 9th most famous Iranian Writer. His biography has been translated into 62 different languages.

Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī (Persian: نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی; 7 November 1414 – 9 November 1492), also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as Jami or Djāmī and in Turkey as Molla Cami, was a Sunni poet who is known for his achievements as a prolific scholar and writer of mystical Sufi literature. He was primarily a prominent poet-theologian of the school of Ibn Arabi and a Khwājagānī Sũfī, recognized for his eloquence and for his analysis of the metaphysics of mercy. His most famous poetic works are Haft Awrang, Tuhfat al-Ahrar, Layla wa Majnun, Fatihat al-Shabab, Lawa'ih, Al-Durrah al-Fakhirah. Jami belonged to the Naqshbandi Sufi order.

10. Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013)

With an HPI of 69.39, Doris Lessing is the 10th most famous Iranian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 106 different languages.

Doris May Lessing (née Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remained until moving in 1949 to London, England. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–1969), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983). Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, at age 87. In 2001 Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008 The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

People

Pantheon has 61 people classified as Iranian writers born between 724 and 1976. Of these 61, 10 (16.39%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Iranian writers include Kader Abdolah, Azar Nafisi, and Cassandra Clare. The most famous deceased Iranian writers include Ismail I, Abu Nuwas, and Hafez. As of April 2024, 6 new Iranian writers have been added to Pantheon including Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh, Saib Tabrizi, and Ibn Bibi.