Virtue and Vitality: Saadi’s Expansive Poetics and Persian Culture
Because of this cyclical reinvention, it can be challenging to determine with veridical certainty who the man behind this crafted personality actually was. The Encyclopaedia of Islam remarks that “[w]e are left with the paradoxical situation of knowing very little about an author whose life and personality are considered to be familiar to all students of Persian literature” but whose biography remains markedly vague. Saadi’s autobiographical anecdotes throughout his artistic canon provide a rough narrative sketch, but the creative power of his imagination inevitably undermines their historicity by making it difficult to disambiguate fact and fiction. Nevertheless, the scope of his subject material presupposes a certain openness or, at the very least, acquaintance with external realities and ideas. Perhaps, that breadth motivates, in part, all of the continued interest in Saadi’s oeuvre; its comprehensive and universal undertones speak to trends of migration and political change alongside values conceived as traditional or eternal in nature. Moreover, careful scholarship into his contemporaries and their relations sheds further light on the details of his own life and work, in spite of the lingering ambiguity.
Alongside his assembled g̲h̲azals (a Middle-Eastern literary form, often translated as love poem), Saadi’s seminal contributions consist of the Bustān and the Gulistān, compiled poetic vignettes interwoven with social commentary and advice. These cultural artifacts simultaneously provide an engaging lyrical experience through his metrical craft and pertinent information in the messages they supply. Important to note, however, is that “the cumulative effect of the anecdotes in both the Bustān and the Gulistān is not that of an inflexible, internally coherent and absolute ethical system.” Saadi is not necessarily organizing a comprehensive set of maxims for how best to engage in daily life. Rather, he conjures an imaginative world of interactive possibilities, constrained by general principles and innovative formulations that establish contexts rather than pretexts for interpretation.
The realm of the culinary represents a useful case study in exploring the nuance of this orientation. At first glance, Saadi might seem to be advancing an ethic of restraint: “If thou pay less attention to thy food than to worship thou mayest become an angel.” The emphasis on careful religious devotion precludes a full and unqualified submission to material joys. But at the same time, Saadi appreciates complicating factors like class, presaging the danger of moralizing too broadly in this regard. In one story, a character asks his address to “‘give us food in change [sic] for a kiss … for that is better to a hungry man.” Saadi recognizes that there can be no higher-order values or standards of decorum without the satisfaction of basic needs throughout society. In preempting critiques to his polemic against hedonism, he offers, “When the beggar has not eaten, poisonous and baneful is one’s food.” The message emerges crystal-clear: always maintain an awareness of how wants and needs intersect in communal space.
In this light, Saadi’s modern resonance reflects the accumulated merit of prudence, politics, and poetry. Some of his most contemporarily relevant work details the empathetic connections among all humanity, such as his oft-cited piece, “Children of Adam.” While anachronistic to read in his lines a twenty-first century morality, he gestures toward a radical compassion that defies strict temporalization. In bridging the universes of then and now, interaction with Saadi’s canon situates today’s problems in the comfortable language of an embodied past.
Bibliography
Davis, R. ‘Saʿdī’. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, P.J. Bearman (Volumes X, XI, XII), Th. Bianquis (Volumes X, XI, XII), et al. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Accessed February 5, 2023. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6416.
Sephardic Temple Or Chadash Sisterhood, The Sephardic Heritage Cookbook: Ottoman, Persian, Moroccan, Egyptian Recipes and More (North Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016). ISBN-13: 9781539430636.
Shirazi, Saadi. The Bostan of Saadi. Iran Chamber Society, n.d. https://www.iranchamber.com/literature/saadi/books/bostan_saadi.pdf.
Zarrintan, Sina, Fatemeh Ranjbar, Sina Aslanabadi, and Mohammad H. Zarrintan. "Bani Adam: Saadi Shirazi (AD 1184–1283/1291) and the concept of empathy." Child's Nervous System 31, no. 8 (2014), 1211-1212. doi:10.1007/s00381-014-2517-1.