Born in 1936 in the Iranian eastern city of Birjand, Rashed Mohassel  recived his PhD in 1974 and taught Persian language and literature for nearly 50 years in various Iranian universities, including in the cities of Ahvaz, Tabriz, Mashhad and his hometown, Birjand.
 
He was a prominent researcher of the 'Shahnameh' (Persian Book of Kings), a book of epic poems composed by the legendary Iranian poet Ferdowsi (931–1025) which is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 "distichs" or couplets (two-line verses), the 'Shahnameh' is one of the world's longest epic poems.
 
The work tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic.
 
Earlier in June, an honoring ceremony of Professor Rashed Mohassel was held under the auspices of the Iranian Association of Cultural Works and Luminaries in cooperation with the General Department of Culture and Islamic Guidance Administration of Khorasan Razavi, the Faculty of Literature and Humanities and the Center of Honorable Artifacts and Documents of Ferdowsi University in Mashhad.