Page "Shahnameh" Paragraph 8

According to one account of the sources, a Persian named Dehqan in the court of King Anushehrawan Dadgar had composed a voluminous book in prose form, known as Khoday Nameh.

After the fall of the Iranian Empire, Khoday Nameh came into the possession of King Yaqub Lais and then the Samani king Nuh ordered the poet Daqiqi to complete it, but Daqiqi was killed by his slave.

Firdousi obtained the book through a friend and it was brought to the notice of Sultan Mahmud Ghazni.

The Sultan was making a collection of ancient chronicles of Persia and ordered Ferdowsi to complete the book.