CYNICS may ask, why don’t people follow the advice of numerous proverbs and maxims of forethought available for centuries? Instead, they conclude that these are only used after some rightful venture has gone “horribly wrong.” When, for instance, a person gambles and loses all they have, including their house, why did they not remember the old Scottish proverb which declares “willful waste leads to woeful want?” But didn’t the gambler know this well-worn saying from earlier years? However, what good, then, did it do? Are the maxims of morality useless because people disregard them? For Christians and Jews, the Book of Proverbs is a great example. Yet, what about other religions and philosophers?

Firdausi (934-1020 AD) was a Persian poet of the first rank in the long history of the Persian civilization. He wrote one of the greatest national epics in world literature. Firdausi was born in northeast Tus province, some twelve miles northeast of present-day Mashed (1000 kn east of Tehran). Firdausi was the pen name of the poet. His name and that of his father, according to al-Bundari, was Mansur ben Hasan. Firdausi’s family was of old Persian gentry stock. Here’s what he wrote:

“In no wise ask about the faults of others, for he who reports the faults of others will report yours also.”

It sounds very familiar to the teaching of Jesus, who said, “Don’t judge others, and God will not judge you. If you judge others, you will be judged the same way you judge them.”[1]

It does look like Firdausi did have some knowledge of what was taught by the prophet Obadiah[2] and the Messiah Jesus.

[1] Matthew 7:1-2

[2] Obadiah 1:15