(AD c. 1184–1291; AH 579–689)
Mushariffudin bin Muslihuddin Abdullah is more popularly known as Sheikh Sa’di or Sa’di Shirazi. According to a famous rhyme often quoted by lovers of Persian literature, Sa’di ranks with Anwari and Firdausi as one of the three ‘Prophets of Poetry’. He is undoubtedly one of the most popular poets of Persian literature and enjoys a reputation unmatched by any other Persian writer, not only in Iran but wherever Persian is spoken or cultivated.
Born around 1184, Sa’di was orphaned at an early age and was sent to Baghdad to study at the famous Nizamiyya College. It was here that he came under the influence of the famous Sufi Sheikh Shihabuddin Suharwardi (d. 1234). Sa’di’s stay in Baghdad lasted until 1226. For the next thirty years he travelled extensively in Islamic lands, including Syria, India, the Hejaz and Central Asian countries, finally returning to Shiraz in 1256 and settling there.
In 1257/8 he composed his most famous books, the Bustan (The Orchard) and Gulistan (The Rose Garden). For more than eight centuries since their composition, they have been the first classics that a student of Persian studies, while Sa’di’s ghazals are loved by all who value Persian poetry. Sa’di wrote in a variety of poetic styles and forms, as well as prose. He is buried in Shiraz.
It’s best that man
To God proclaims
His errors and shortcomings,
For no man has the capacity
To count His countless blessings.
I sit on the throne of the heart;
That is the style of my poverty!
I am dust on my Beloved’s path;
That is my elevated state!
No need to visit the mosque for me;
Your eyebrow is a prayer arch for me.
Sa’di, why this pilgrim’s garb?
Why, indeed, this ritual of hajj?
Look at my Beloved’s face;
That is the true worshipper’s place!
In Love there are no days or nights,
For lovers it is all the same.
The musicians have gone, yet the Sufis listen;
In Love there is a beginning but no end.
Each has a name for his Beloved,
But for me my Beloved is nameless.
Sa’di, if you destroy an idol,
Then destroy the idol of the Self.
In the company of the Wine-maker
Happy Sufis did I see, lost and drunk.
Lovers truthful,
With the promise of the Beloved drunk,
The Lover is drunk, the Beloved drunk;
In their own secret they are drunk.
The Guide is drunk, the Leader is drunk;
With this mystery the Sheikh is drunk.
The puritan I saw in the tavern drunk;
The garden, the people, the bazaar, all drunk.
Each I saw is unrestrained, oblivious;
The crow, the flowers, drunk,
The garden and the bowers, drunk.
The king is drunk with wealth, the poor
With poverty,
The beautiful with their beauty,
And the Lovers with the hope of union, drunk.