Abu ‘Abd Allah Ja’far ibn Muhammad Rudaki (858-941) the ‘father of Persian Poetry’ and possibly the ruba’i, was born in the village of Rudak near Samarkand. First a wandering ‘dervish’ poet/minstrel he later served at the court of the Samanids of Bokhara. Nasr ibn Ahmad summoned him to his court and he prospered there amassing great wealth. He had 200 slaves in his retinue… and 400 camels carried his belongings when he travelled. In 937 he fell out of favour at court (and was blinded at this time as some commentators suggest) after the death of the prime-minister who had supported him. His life ended in abject poverty, forgotten by the world at that time, perhaps the reason why so much of his vast output of 1,300,000 couplets, only 75 rubai’s, ghazals, qasidas and qit’as survive (most are here translated, the most published). Rudaki’s poetry is about the passage of time, old age, death, fortune’s fickleness, importance of the matters of the heart, the need to be happy.