Saadi

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Saadi (right) suggests that his friend write the rose garden . Mughal miniature after Saadi's introduction, ca 1645.
Saadi's tomb in Shiraz
Different view of Saadi's tomb

Saadi or Sa'di ( Persian سعدی, DMG Sa'dī ; * around 1210; † around 1292), with his full name Abu Moḥammad Mošarref ad-Din Moṣleḥ bin ʿAbd-Allāh bin Mošarref Širāzi , was an outstanding Persian poet and mystic . He is particularly known for his two works Bustān and Golestān . Saadi came from Shiraz , where he also spent many years of his life. His mausoleum there is still popular today .

life and work

Overall, Saadi's life is not very well known. Even the correct form of his name cannot be reconstructed with certainty. "Saadi" was a stage name ( Tachallus ) that he gave himself with reference to one of the Salghurid rulers of Shiraz.

There are various details for the year of his birth. It is likely that he was born around 1210. As a young man he went to Baghdad, where he studied at the very recognized Nezamiyya, an Islamic college (madrasa). After his time in Baghdad, Saadi went on extensive journeys. It is certain that he traveled to Syria and Palestine, including the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq; it is doubtful whether it made it as far as eastern Iran and India. Around 1257 he returned to Shiraz. There he wrote the Bustān (Scent Garden) and the Golestān (Rose Garden), the two works for which he is best known to posterity, in quick succession. In Iran in particular, the Golestān is still very popular and is so well known that it is quoted from all walks of life.

Besides these two major works Saadi also has doctrinal writings and a collection of interspersed with verses prose - stories (usually " Dīwān called") written. Saadi's oeuvre can partly be assigned to the genre of the prince mirrors, but also includes funny and sometimes suggestively crude episodes and verses. Influences from Sufism can also be identified.

Some of his writings are subject to censorship to this day because of their solid language; his kolliyāt were published in full as a lithograph in the Qadjar period, but there is still no complete critical edition.

Saadi had a great influence on the later Persian literature, but was also received outside of Iran. For example, the Ottoman court poet Hayâlî was strongly influenced by Saadi's poems in his youth.

Saadi was first known in Europe through André du Ryer's French translation of Golestan (1634). It was translated into German in 1846 by Karl Heinrich Graf , among others .

Work overview

  • "Bustan" (scented garden)
  • "Golestān" ("The Rose Garden")
  • "Persian and Arabic Qasids" (elegies)
  • “Ghazaliat” (lyric poems), which is divided into four volumes
  • "Tardschi'band" (poems consisting of two rhyming half-verses )
  • "Qata'at" (pieces of poetry)
  • "Roba'iat" (Roba'i, quatrain)
  • "Mofradat" (single verse consisting of two half verses)
  • "Suknameh" (funeral poem)
  • "Molamma'at wa Mosallasat" (bilingual Arabic-Persian poems)

Examples

If one of the people acts foolishly
, contempt falls equally on great and small.
Often a single ox in the pasture can
destroy a whole herd.

I hate the company of friends who
always show me my bad things as good,
see only merit and preference in faults, show
the thorn as jasmine and as rose.
Far better outrageous, cheeky enemies, who
openly show me my mistakes.

Another famous poem is posted in the hall of the United Nations building in New York.

See also

Literature, editions of works and translations

Web links

Commons : Saadi  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Saadi  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Saʿdī. In: Encyclopædia Iranica
  2. ↑ Persian ابو محمّد مُشرف الدين مُصلح بن عبدالله بن مسرّف سعدى شيرازى, also only Persian مصلح الدين سعدى, DMG Moṣleḥ ad-Dīn-e Sa'dī with the honorary title Šaiḫ .
  3. ↑ On the sentiments of the dervishes
  4. ↑ On the benefits of silence
personal data
SURNAME Saadi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sa'adi; Mosharraf od-Din Abdullah; سعدی (Persian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian poet and mystic
DATE OF BIRTH around 1190
PLACE OF BIRTH Shiraz
DATE OF DEATH 1283 or 1291
Place of death Shiraz