Saadi Shirazi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (June 2014) (Learn how and when to
remove this template message)

Muslih-ud-Din Mushrif ibn-Abdullah Shirazi

Saadi in a Rose garden, from a Mughal manuscript of his

work Gulistan, c. 1645

Born 1210[1]

Shiraz, Iran

Died 1291 or 1292[1]

Shiraz
 School Persian poetry, Persian literature

Main interests Poetry, Mysticism, Logic, Ethics, Sufism

Ab-Muhammad Muslih al-Dn bin Abdallh Shrz[2] (Persian: ) ,

better known by his pen-name Saadi ( Sa d( Saadi (helpinfo))), also known as Saadi of
Shiraz ( Saadi Shirazi), was one of the major Persian poets and literary men of the
medieval period. He is not only famous in Persian-speaking countries, but has been quoted in
western sources as well. He is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of
his social and moral thoughts. Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest poets of the
classical literary tradition, earning him the nickname "Master of Speech" or "The Master" among
Persian scholars.[1]

Contents
[hide]

1Biography
2Works
o 2.1Bani Adam
3Legacy and poetic style
4Mausoleum
5See also
6Notes
7References
8External links

Biography[edit]
Born in Shiraz, Iran, c. 1210, his father died when he was a child. He narrates memories of going out
with his father as a child during festivities.
In his youth, Saadi experienced poverty and hardship and left his native town for Baghdad to pursue
a better education. As a young man he enrolled at the Nizamiyya University, where he studied
in Islamic sciences, law, governance, history, Arabic literature, and Islamic theology.
The unsettled conditions following the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm and Iran led him to wander for
thirty years abroad through Anatolia (where he visited the Port of Adana and
near Konya met ghazi landlords), Syria (where he mentions the famine in Damascus), Egypt (where
he describes its music, bazaars, clerics and elites), and Iraq (where he visits the port of Basra and
the Tigris river). In his writings he mentions the qadis, muftis of Al-Azhar, the grand bazaar, music
and art. At Halab, Saadi joins a group of Sufis who had fought arduous battles against
the Crusaders. Saadi was captured by Crusaders at Acre where he spent seven years as a slave
digging trenches outside its fortress. He was later released after the Mamluks paid ransom for
Muslim prisoners being held in Crusader dungeons.
Saadi visited Jerusalem and then set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.[3] It is believed that
he may have also visited Oman and other lands in the south of the Arabian Peninsula.
Because of the Mongol invasions he was forced to live in desolate areas and met caravans fearing
for their lives on once-lively silk trade routes. Saadi lived in isolated refugee camps where he met
bandits, Imams, men who formerly owned great wealth or commanded armies, intellectuals, and
ordinary people. While Mongol and European sources (such as Marco Polo) gravitated to the
potentates and courtly life of Ilkhanate rule, Saadi mingled with the ordinary survivors of the war-torn
region. He sat in remote tea houses late into the night and exchanged views with merchants,
farmers, preachers, wayfarers, thieves, and Sufi mendicants. For twenty years or more, he
continued the same schedule of preaching, advising, and learning, honing his sermons to reflect the
wisdom and foibles of his people. Saadi's works reflect upon the lives of ordinary Iranians suffering
displacement, agony and conflict during the turbulent times of the Mongol invasion.

Saadi Shirazi is welcomed by a youth from Kashgar during a forum in Bukhara.

Saadi mentions honey-gatherers in Azarbaijan, fearful of Mongol plunder. He finally returns to Persia
where he meets his childhood companions in Isfahan and other cities. At Khorasan Saadi befriends
a Turkic Emir named Tughral. Saadi joins him and his men on their journey to Sindh where he meets
Pir Puttur, a follower of the Persian Sufi grand master Shaikh Usman Marvandvi (11171274).[4] He
also refers in his writings about his travels with a Turkic Amir named Tughral in Sindh (Pakistan
across the Indus and Thar), India (especially Somnath, where he encounters Brahmans),
and Central Asia (where he meets the survivors of the Mongol invasion in Khwarezm). Tughral
hires Hindu sentinels. Tughral later enters service of the wealthy Delhi Sultanate, and Saadi is
invited to Delhi and later visits the Vizier of Gujarat. During his stay in Gujarat, Saadi learns more
about the Hindus and visits the large temple of Somnath, from which he flees due to an unpleasant
encounter with the Brahmans.
Saadi came back to Shiraz before 1257 CE / 655 AH (the year he finished composition of
his Bustan). Saadi has mourned in his poetry the fall of Abbasid Caliphate and Baghdad's
destruction by Mongol invaders led by Hulagu in February 1258.
When he reappeared in his native Shiraz, he might have been in his late forties. Shiraz,
under Atabak Abubakr Sa'd ibn Zangy (123160), the Salghurid ruler of Fars, was enjoying an era of
relative tranquility. Saadi was not only welcomed to the city but was shown great respect by the ruler
and held to be among the greats of the province. In response, Saadi took his nom de plume from the
name of the local prince, Sa'd ibn Zangi. Some of Saadi's most famous panegyrics were composed
as a gesture of gratitude in praise of the ruling house and placed at the beginning of his Bustan. The
remainder of Saadi's life seems to have been spent in Shiraz.

Works[edit]
Main articles: Bustan and Gulistan
The first page of Bustan, from a Mughal manuscript.

His best known works are Bustan (The Orchard) completed in 1257 and Gulistan (The Rose
Garden) in 1258.[5] Bostan is entirely in verse (epic metre). It consists of stories aptly illustrating the
standard virtues recommended to Muslims (justice, liberality, modesty, contentment) and reflections
on the behavior of dervishes and their ecstatic practices. Gulistan is mainly in prose and contains
stories and personal anecdotes. The text is interspersed with a variety of short poems which contain
aphorisms, advice, and humorous reflections, demonstrating Saadi's profound awareness of the
absurdity of human existence. The fate of those who depend on the changeable moods of kings is
contrasted with the freedom of the dervishes.[5]
Regarding the importance of professions Saadi writes:
O darlings of your fathers, learn the trade because property and riches of the world are not to
be relied upon; also silver and gold are an occasion of danger because either a thief may
steal them at once or the owner spend them gradually; but a profession is a living fountain
and permanent wealth; and although a professional man may lose riches, it does not matter
because a profession is itself wealth and wherever you go you will enjoy respect and sit on
high places, whereas those who have no trade will glean crumbs and see hardships.
Saadi is also remembered as a panegyrist and lyricist, the author of a number of odes portraying
human experience, and also of particular odes such as the lament on the fall of Baghdad after
the Mongol invasion in 1258. His lyrics are found in Ghazaliyat (Lyrics) and his odes
in Qasa'id (Odes). He is also known for a number of works in Arabic.
In the Bustan, Saadi writes of a man who relates his time in battle with the Mongols:[6]
In Isfahan I had a friend who was warlike, spirited, and shrewd....after long I met him: "O tiger-
seizer!" I exclaimed, "what has made thee decrepit like an old fox?"
He laughed and said: "Since the days of war against the Mongols, I have expelled the thoughts
of fighting from my head. Then did I see the earth arrayed with spears like a forest of reeds. I
raised like smoke the dust of conflict; but when Fortune does not favour, of what avail is fury? I
am one who, in combat, could take with a spear a ring from the palm of the hand; but, as my star
did not befriend me, they encircled me as with a ring. I seized the opportunity of flight, for only a
fool strives with Fate. How could my helmet and cuirass aid me when my bright star favoured me
not? When the key of victory is not in the hand, no one can break open the door of conquest
with his arms.
The enemy were a pack of leopards, and as strong as elephants. The heads of the heroes were
encased in iron, as were also the hoofs of the horses. We urged on our Arab steeds like a cloud,
and when the two armies encountered each other thou wouldst have said they had struck the
sky down to the earth. From the raining of arrows, that descended like hail, the storm of death
arose in every corner. Not one of our troops came out of the battle but his cuirass was soaked
with blood. Not that our swords were bluntit was the vengeance of stars of ill fortune.
Overpowered, we surrendered, like a fish which, though protected by scales, is caught by the
hook in the bait. Since Fortune averted her face, useless was our shield against