By Syma Sayyah, Tehran
Text Source:
Iran Chamber
Society
The world honors Saadi today by
gracing the entrance to the Hall of Nations in New
York with this call for breaking all
barriers:
Of one
Essence is the human race,
Thusly has Creation put the Base;
One Limb
impacted is sufficient,
For all Others to feel the Mace.
Saadi was born in Shiraz
around 1200. He died in Shiraz around 1292. He lost his father in
early childhood. With the help of his uncle, Saadi completed his early education
in Shiraz. Later he was sent to study in
Baghdad at the renowned
Nezamiyeh College, where he acquired the traditional
learning of Islam.
The unsettled conditions
following the Mongol invasion of Persia led him to wander abroad through
Anatolia, Syria,
Egypt, and
Iraq. He also refers in his work to
travels in India and Central Asia. Saadi is very much like Marco Polo
who traveled in the region from 1271 to 1294. There is a difference, however,
between the two. While Marco Polo gravitated to the potentates and the good
life, Saadi mingled with the ordinary survivors of the Mongol holocaust. He sat
in remote teahouses 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, learning, honing
his sermons, and polishing them into gems illuminating the wisdom and foibles of
his people.
When he reappeared in his
native Shiraz he was an elderly man.
Shiraz, under Atabak Abubakr Sa'd ibn
Zangy (1231-60) was enjoying an era of relative tranquility. Saadi was not only
welcomed to the city but was respected highly by the ruler and enumerated 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, and composed some of his most
delightful panegyrics as an initial gesture of gratitude in praise of the ruling
house and placed them at the beginning of his Bostan. He seems to have spent the
rest of his life in Shiraz.
His best known works are
the Bostan (The Orchard) and the Golestan (The Rose Garden). The Bostan is
entirely in verse (epic metre) and consists of stories aptly illustrating the
standard virtues recommended to Muslims (justice, liberality, modesty,
contentment) as well as of reflections on the behaviour of dervishes and their
ecstatic practices. The Golestan is mainly in prose and contains stories and
personal anecdotes. The text is interspersed with a variety of short poems,
containing aphorisms, advice, and humorous reflections. Saadi demonstrates a
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.
Read more, and download PDF files of
Saadi’s Bostan and Golestan at Iran Chamber
Society
Selections from Bostan
Concerning humility
A story of Sultan
Bayazid Bastami
When Bayazid was
coming from his bath one morning during the Eid festival, someone unwittingly
emptied a tray of ashes from a window upon his head. With his face and turban al
bespattered, he rubbed his hands in gratitude and said, “I am in truth worthy of
the fires of hell. Why should I be angered by a few ashes?”
The great do not
regard themselves; look not for the godliness in a self-conceited man. Eminence
does not consist in outward show and vaunting words, nor dignity in hauteur and
pretension.
On the Day of Judgment
thou wilt see in Paradise him who sought truth
and rejected vain pretension.
He who is headstrong
and obdurate falleth headlong; if thou desire greatness, abandon pride.
Patience under oppression
A story illustrating
the noble-mindedness men
A dog bit the leg of a
hermit with such violence that venom dropped from its teeth, and the poor man
could not sleep all night through pain.
His little daughter
chided him, saying, “Hast thou not teeth as well?”
The unfortunate parent
wept and then smilingly replied, “Dear child! Although I was stronger than the
dog, I restrained my anger. Should I receive a sword-blow on the head, I could
not apply my teeth to the legs of a dog.”
One can revenge
oneself upon the mean, but a man cannot act like a dog.
Selection from
Golestan
The Manners of Kings
Story 6
It is narrated that
one of the kings of Persia had stretched forth his tyrannical hand to the
possessions of his subjects and had begun to oppress them so violently that in
consequence of his fraudulent extortions they dispersed in the world and chose
exile on account of the affliction entailed by his violence. When the population
had diminished, the prosperity of the country suffered, the treasury remained
empty and on every side enemies committed violence.
Who desires succour in
the day of calamity,
Say to him: ‘Be
generous in times of prosperity.’
The slave with a ring
in his ear, if not cherished will depart.
Be kind because then a
stranger will become thy slave.
One day the Shahnamah
was read in his assembly, the subject being the ruin of the dominion of Zohak
and the reign of Feridun. The vezier asked the king how it came to pass that
Feridun, who possessed neither treasure nor land nor a retinue, established
himself upon the throne. He replied: ‘As thou hast heard, the population
enthusiastically gathered around him and supported him so that he attained
royalty.’ The vezier said: ‘As the gathering around of the population is the
cause of royalty, then why dispersest thou the population? Perhaps thou hast no
desire for royalty?’
It is best to cherish
the army as thy life
Because a sultan
reigns by means of his troops.
The king asked: ‘What
is the reason for the gathering around of the troops and the population?’ He
replied: ‘A padshah must practise justice that they may gather around him and
clemency that they may dwell in safety under the shadow of his government; but
thou possessest neither of these qualities.’
A tyrannic man cannot
be a sultan
As a wolf cannot be a
shepherd.
A padshah who
establishes oppression
Destroys the basis of
the wall of his own reign.
The king, displeased
with the advice of his censorious vezier, sent him to prison. Shortly afterwards
the sons of the king’s uncle rose in rebellion, desirous of recovering the
kingdom of their father. The population, which had been reduced to the last
extremity by the king’s oppression and scattered, now assembled around them and
supported them, till he lost control of the government and they took possession
of it.
A padshah who allows his subjects to
be oppressed
Will in his day of calamity become a
violent foe.
Be at peace with subjects and sit
safe from attacks of foes
Because his subjects are the army of
a just shahanshah.
... Payvand News - 10/10/05 ... --
