User:HistoryofIran/Saadi Shirazi

Saadi Shirazi
Imaginary depiction of Saadi Shirazi by Hossein Behzad
Born	1209/10 Shiraz, Fars, Salghurid kingdom
Died	1291/92 Shiraz, Fars, Ilkhanate
Resting place	Tomb of Saadi
Occupation	Poet
Language	Persian Arabic
Notable works	Bustan Gulistan

Saadi Shirazi (Persian: سعدی شیرازی) was a 13th-century poet, who composed works in his native Persian, as well as some in Arabic. Regarded as one of the greatest poets of Persian literature, his poetry and fame extended throughout the Persian-speaking world, such as Anatolia and India.

Born in Shiraz in c. 1210, there is little certainty concerning Saadi's life. He left the city in 1223/24, embarking on a journey for over 30 years in different parts of the Islamic world. By the time he returned in 1257, he had seemingly already achieved fame and esteem as a poet. Keen to restore his connections to the ruling Salghurid dynasty, he quickly composed his two best-known books, the Bustan and Gulistan. However, the Salghurid dynasty did not last long after this, eventually being vassalized and then abolished by the rising Mongol Ilkhanate. Saadi continued to write under his new suzerains, dedicating poems to both the Ilkhanate rulers and their Persian administrators. This included the two Juvayni brothers, Shams al-Din Juvayni and Ata-Malik Juvayni, who are honored in some of the most prominent ghazals (amatory poem or ode) by Saadi. In 1291 or 1292, Saadi died in Shiraz, where he was buried.

Background and name

Saadi Shirazi's birth date is uncertain; most scholars consider him to have been born in 1209 or 1210. He was from the city of Shiraz, the provincial capital of the Fars province. Since 1148, the province been under the rule of the Salghurids, a Persianate dynasty of Turkoman origin.

There is little certainty concerning Saadi's life. Although his own writings, particularly the Bustan and Gulistan, contain many supposedly autobiographical memories, many of these are historically unlikely and are likely made up or cast in the first person for rhetorical effect. Even the earliest references to him in external literature differ in crucial details. Even his real name is uncertain. In sources, his entire name—which consists of his given name, honorific (laqab), agnomen (kunya), and patronymic—is spelled in several differing ways.

The oldest known source to mention his full name is the Talḵiṣ al-majmaʿ al-ādāb fi moʿjam al-alqāb ("Summary of the gathering of refinements concerning the lexicon of honorifics") by Ibn al-Fuwati (died 1323). In a letter dated 1262, he asked Saadi for samples of his Arabic poetry and mentioned his full name as "Muslih al-Din Abu Muhammad Abd-Allah ibn Musharrif." The Iranian scholar Saeed Nafisi favoured this version of his full name. However, the majority of other academics favour the information found in the early manuscripts of Saadi's writings. For instance, the British Iranologist Edward Granville Browne used a text from 1328 to argue that Saadi's full name was "Musharrif al-Din ibn Muslih al-Din Abd-Allah". The majority of subsequent Western academics, including Arthur John Arberry, Jan Rypka, and R. Davis, include "Abd-Allah" in Saadi's patronymic, hence "Abu Abd-Allah Musharrif al-Din Muslih".

The Iranian scholar Zabihollah Safa came to the conclusion that "Muslih" was Saadi's given name and gives his full name as "Abu Muhammad Musharrif al-Din Muslih ibn Abd-Allah ibn Musharrif" based on the preface to one of the oldest surviving compilations of Saadi's collected works, which was created by his fellow townsman Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr Bisotun in 1326. In his book Nafahat al-Uns, the Persian poet Jami (died 1492) provides virtually the same version of the name. This version is also supported by the Iranologist Paul E. Losensky.

His pen name "Saadi" is unambiguous as it appears frequently in his work and acts as his signature in all of his ghazals (amatory poem or ode). However, there are doubts over where it came from. Since two members of the Salghurid dynasty named "Sa'd" ruled for most of Saadi's life, it is likely that the inspiration for the name came from his allegiance to them. The Iranian scholar Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob argues that "Sa'd" or "Banu Sa'd" was also the name of the dynasty itself, hence Saadi's adoption of the name, which demonstrated his loyalty to them.

Biography

Education and travels

Saadi appears to have received his early education from his father, who also instilled in him lifelong tolerance values. During Saadi's adolescence, his father died, thus leaving him an orphan. Probably around 1223/24, when Sa'd I was briefly deposed by Ghiyath al-Din Pirshah, Saadi, still a teenager, left for Baghdad to continue his education there. Ibn al-Jawzi, a Hanbalite scholar, was one of Saadi's teachers while he was a fellowship student at the Nizamiyyah school in Baghdad.

The Iranian scholar Badiozzaman Forouzanfar has found notable parallels between Saadi's teachings and those of Sufi master Shihab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi, suggesting that they were possibly associated. After completing his studies, Saadi spent a considerable amount of time traveling across the Islamic world. According to first-hand reports, he killed an temple priest in India and was captured by the Crusaders in Syria. According to Losensky; "Despite efforts of scholars such as H. Massé and J. A. Boyle, the effort to re-create an exact itinerary of his travels from his works is misguided." The Iranologist Homa Katouzian examined the data and came to the conclusion that while Saadi was probably in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and the Arabian Peninsula, it was unlikely that he ever made it as far east as Khorasan, India, or Kashgar.

Return to Shiraz

Folio depicting Saadi Shirazi (seated left) and the Salghurid ruler Abu Bakr ibn Sa'd (seated right). Made in Mughal India, dated 1602

After nearly 30 years of travel, Saadi returned to Shiraz in 1257, and it appears that he was already well-known and well-respected as a poet. This reputation must have come from the widespread publication of his ghazals. He was keen to restore his connections to the Salghurid dynasty, as evidenced by the speed with which the Bustan and Gulistan were published and their dedications. In a short ode, Saadi says he was inspired to go back to Shiraz by the establishment of peace and prosperity established by the Salghurid ruler Abu Bakr ibn Sa'd (r. 1226–1260). However, the Salghurid kingdom did not last long after Saadi came back. In 1256/57, Abu Bakr acknowledged the Mongol Empire as his suzerain. Abu Bakr died in 1260, and was succeeded by his eldest son Sa'd II, who died 12 days later. Their death is the subject of various elegies by Saadi. The ruler after this was Sa'd II's 12-year old son Muhammad I ibn Sa'd, who ruled under the supervision of his mother Tarkhan Khatun. Saadi praises both of them in his poems.

The Salghurid dynasty crumbled apart fast due to progressively escalating pressure by the Mongol Empire. Following Muhammad I's death, two of Abu Bakr's nephews were installed on the Salghurid throne. Saadi composed three poems honoring the second of them, Saljuk Shah ibn Salghur, during his brief five-month reign in 1263. Following an impulsive and alcohol-influenced uprising by Saljuk Shah ibn Salghur, the Mongols killed him, formally handing over power to Abish Khatun, Sa'd II's youngest daughter. However, Shiraz was effectively incorporated under Mongol rule through her forced marriage to Möngke Temür, the son of the ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate, Hulagu Khan (r. 1256–1265). One of Saadis poems was most likely dedicated to Abish Khatun.

Saadi did not seem to have supported the rise of the Mongol Empire. He composed two qasidas (odes)—one in Arabic and the other in Persian—which grieved over the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate and the death of the last caliph al-Musta'sim (r. 1242–1258) in 1258 during the Mongol attack on Baghdad. In spite of this, Saadi composed a poem in honor of the transition of authority from the Salghurids to the Mongols, and his writings include a number of poems with similar dedications to both the Mongol rulers and their Persian administrators.

Amir Ankyanu, one of the most prominent of these, was the governor of Shiraz from 1268 to 1272. Saadi wrote four qasidas and the prose treatise Dar tarbiat-e yaki az moluk to him. According to Losensky; "None of these works can be considered panegyrics in the usual sense of the word, since they consist mostly of counsel and warnings concerning the proper conduct of rulers." The poems Saadi wrote to Shams al-Din Husayn Alakani, the longtime chief of the chancery in Shiraz, are less cautionary in tone. Shams al-Din Juvayni, the principal finance minister of the Ilkhanate, had assigned him to this position. Along with his brother Ata-Malik Juvayni, the author of Tarikh-i Jahangushay, Shams al-Din Juvayni is honored in some of the most prominent ghazals by Saadi. Saadi's encounter with the two Juvayni brothers and the Ilkhanate ruler Abaqa (r. 1265–1282) at Tabriz, which took place on his way back from a pilgrimage to Mecca, is the subject of two treatises that are frequently found in his collected works (although they were not written by him). A collection of qit'a (monorhyme poetry) poems named the Sahebiya in honor of Shams al-Din Juvayni is also present in a few of Saadi's earlier writings.

Death and burial place

A brief qasida to Majd-al-Din Rumi—who worked as an administrative officer in Shiraz under the Ilkhanate ruler Arghun (r. 1284–1291) between 1287 and 1289—is seemingly the last dateable poetry by Saadi. A few years later, Saadi died in Shiraz. 1291–1299 are the dates of death given by early sources. Nafisi came to the conclusion that Saadi passed away on 9 December 1292 after carefully examining the available data. Safa, drawing from the Tarikh-i guzida written in 1330 by Hamdallah Mustawfi—which is the earliest surviving reliable narrative—as well as other sources from the 14th century, concludes that Saadi died a year earlier, between 25 November and 22 December 1291. The benefit of this earlier date is that it helps explain why chronicles differ on the death date of Saadi. Because Saadi passed away in the last month of the year, commemorative chronicles may had honored the year of his death or the year after, at the end of the 40-day mourning period. Losensky therefore puts his death date as either 1291 or 1292.

The German cartographer and explorer Carsten Niebuhr visited the tomb of Saadi in 1765, writing that "This building is very dilapidated, and will likely collapse unless some rich Mohammedan takes pity on it and has it repaired." A few years later, the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779) ordered renovations to the tomb; he had an iron railing created around the gravestone and a brick and plaster structure created over the grave.

Poetry

Bustan

Main article: Bustan (book)

The Bustan (also known as the Saadi-nama) is a moralistic poem which consists of 4,100 masnavi couplets, which Saadi completed in 1257. According to G. Michael Wickens; "The Bustan is the best-known poem of its general kind in Persian literature and is in many ways unique."

Gulistan

Main article: Gulistan (book)

A page of a copy of the Gulistan, created by the calligrapher Mir Emad Hassani in Safavid Iran, dated 1615

The Gulistan, referred as "probably the single most influential work of prose in the Persian tradition" by the Iranologist Franklin Lewis, was completed by Saadi in 1258. It was dedicated to Abu Bakr ibn Sa'd, Sa'd II, and the vizier Fakhr al-Din Abu Bakr ibn Abi Nasr. Saadi wished that his writing might prompt readers in the future to keep the "dervishes" in mind when they pray. It seems that he did not personally show up at court to present the Gulistan because he thought it was improper given the dervishes' rank. He sometimes used the term "dervish" to denote more broadly to the impoverished or meek, even though it usually refers to a regular Sufi.

The text requires a decent command of Arabic and, while academic, is rarely difficult to understand. Although a few parts have confused copyists and sparked controversy among commentators, the text is intended for a wide readership. There is disagreement on the quality of the original Arabic lyrics woven throughout the work, but Saadi appears to have spoken the language fluently. Some Persian words appear to adhere to Arabic grammatical patterns, but Saadi writes with the assumption that the reader speaks Persian, providing translations into Persian for those Arabic portions that are necessary to follow the story.

Kulliyat

Kulliyat is the term used to refer to Saadi's collection of poetry and prose works. In 1326 and 1334, Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr Bisotun restructured sections of the Kulliyat and gave indexes to Saadi's lyric poems. However, it is likely that Saadi had earlier started the process of compiling and organizing his own body of work, although the earliest documentation of this work dates from Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr Bisotun's notes.

Legacy and assessment

The Tomb of Saadi in Shiraz, Iran

Saadi's poetry and fame extended throughout the Persian-speaking world, even to areas he most likely never visited personally. In India, his lyric poetry in particular had a profound effect on Amir Khusrau (died 1325) and Hasan Sijzi (died 1336), two of the greatest poets of Delhi in the late 12th and early 13th century. In his book Qiran us-Sa'dain, Amir Khusrau condemns himself for wanting to create poetry while Saadi was still alive, asking, "Aren't you ashamed to compose poetry in the age of Saadi—may it never grow old?"

Hasan Sijzi's concluding line in a ghazal, "Hasan has brought a flower from Saadi's Gulistan, for the true of heart are all plucking flowers from that garden," plays on the title of Saadi's book Gulistan and recognizes his worldwide effect on all loves. In Anatolia, Saif Farghani (died 1348) wrote several Persian qasidas in Saadi's honor in addition to translating his book Gulistan into Old Anatolian Turkish. Saif Farghani wrote a poem after delivering Saadi a selection of his work, in which he admits that, in his desire to win his approval, "I didn't realize that it is foolishness to send copper to a gold mine."

The Iranologist Ahmad Ashraf considers Saadi's Bustan and Gulistan to represent "one of the elements that define Iranian identity in its ethnic, cultural, and territorial totality." While Saadi hardly mentions "Iran", "Ajam", or "Tazik" in his writing or poetry, he frequently alludes to Persian concepts, beliefs, customs, and behaviors in addition to the mythology and folklore of Iran.

Sources

• Ashraf, Ahmad (2006). "Iranian identity iii. Medieval Islamic period". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume XIII/5: Iran X. Religions in Iran–Iraq V. Safavid period. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 507–522. ISBN 978-0-933273-93-1.
• Davis, R. (1995). "Saʿdī". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VIII: Ned–Sam. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.
• Lewis, Franklin (2001). "Golestān-e Saʿdi". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume XI/1: Giōni–Golšani. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 79–86. ISBN 978-0-933273-60-3.
• Losensky, Paul (2000). "Saʿdi". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
• de Nicola, Bruno (2020). "Pādshāh Khatun: An Example of Architectural, Religious, and Literary Patronage in Ilkhanid Iran". In Biran, Michal; Brack, Jonathan; Fiaschetti, Francesca (eds.). Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals. University of California Press. pp. 270–289. ISBN 978-0520298743.
• Perry, John R. (1979). Karim Khan Zand: A History of Iran, 1747–1779. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226660981.
• Rypka, Jan (1968). History of Iranian Literature. Springer Netherlands. ISBN 978-9401034814.
• Shahbazi, A. Shapur (2004). "Shiraz i. History to 1940". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
• Spuler, B. (1987). "Atābakān-e Fārs". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume II/8: Aśoka IV–Āṯār al-Wozarāʾ. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 894–896. ISBN 978-0-71009-108-6.
• Wickens, G. Michael (1990). "Būstān". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume IV/6: Burial II–Calendars II. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 573–574. ISBN 978-0-71009-129-1.