Saadi of Shiraz and the Noble Heart

Saadi Shirazi (1210–1291) was a Persian poet and writer. He is remembered for the quality of his work and for the depth of his social and…

Saadi Shirazi (1210–1291) was a Persian poet and writer. He is remembered for the quality of his work and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts.

During a prolonged time of Mongol invasions, he lived in refugee camps.

While other great poets of history lived among wealth and splendor, Saadi lived among a bustle of refugees for more than 20 years: bandits, imams, people who had lost all their prosperity, farmers, merchants, and beggars. He drank tea into the evenings and shared thoughts with late into the night and exchanged views with fellow refugees.

His greatest works were:

— Bustan, about the virtues of justice, liberality, modesty, and contentment, combined with thoughts about the mystical spirituality of Sufis who chose to live in material poverty.

— Gulistan, a collection of stories, poems, and aphorisms that humorously touch upon moral themes within the absurdity of human existence. Saadi contrasts the constraints of those who depend on the moods of royalty, with the freedom of Sufi asceticism.

All men and women are to each other
the limbs of a single body, each of us drawn
from life’s shimmering essence, God’s perfect pearl;
and when this life we share wounds one of us,
all share the hurt as if it were our own.
You, who will not feel another’s pain,
you forfeit the right to be called human.

— Aphorism “Bani Adam” from the Gulistan