Rudaki was a poet, singer, and musician who is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. A court poet under the Samanids, he reportedly composed more than 180,000 verses, yet only a small portion of his work has survived, most notably parts of his versification of the Kalīla wa-Dimna, an Arabic translation of Panchatantra. 859 – 941; died at about 82. Alive at the same time as Alfred the Great, Farabi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, Al-Kindi, and Charles the Bald. Wiki link