His scholastic life did not terminate until he had reached the age of thirty. Of the value of this prolonged period of study he himself was fully cognisant. “Dost thou not know,” he asks in the seventh chapter, “how Sadi attained to rank? Neither did he traverse the plains nor journey across the seas. In his youth he lived under the yoke of the wise: God granted him distinction in after-life. And it is not long before he who is submissive in obedience exercises command.” No better example of the truth of this passage could be cited than that afforded by his own case.
On leaving Baghdad, he went in company with his tutor, Abdul Qādir Gīlāni, on a pilgrimage to Mecca. This was the first of many travels extending over a period of thirty years, in the course of which he visited Europe, India, and practically every part of what are known as the Near and Middle East. A trip through Syria and Turkey is specifically mentioned in this book as inspiring the composition of the Bustān. Not wishing, as he tells us, to return empty-handed to his friends at Shiraz, he built the Palace of Wealth, and offered it to them as a gift. He does not conceal the high opinion which he himself placed upon this product of his gifted pen. The gracefully worded phrases with which he predicted the undying popularity of the Gulistān finds a parallel in the dedication of the Bustān to Atabāk Abu Bakr-bin-Sád, the illustrious monarch of Persia beneath whose protection Sadi spent the latter half of his life.
“Although not wishing to sing the praises of kings,” he writes, “I have dedicated this book to one so that perhaps the pious will say that Sadi, who surpassed all in eloquence, lived in the time of Abu Bakr Sád.” Then, addressing the king, he adds: “Happy is thy fortune that Sadi’s date coincides with thine, for as long as the moon and sun are in the skies thy memory will remain eternal in this book.” This conceit is pardonable, since it has been amply justified by time.
After the thirty years of travel, Sadi, becoming elderly, settled down in Persia, where, as has been said, he gained the favour of the ruling prince, from whom he derived not only the dignity and the more tangible advantages of the post of Poet Laureate, but his takhallus, or titular name, of Sadi. He died at the ripe age of 116, and was buried in his native city.
If the Bustān were the only monument that remained of his genius, his name would assuredly still be inscribed in the roll of the Immortals. One feature of his great intellectual faculties needs to be emphasized, and all the more so because it is apt to be overlooked. That is the increasing power which they assumed as he advanced in years, the truth of which can be understood when it is stated that he composed the Bustān at the age of 82, the Gulistān appearing twelve months later. Few, if any, instances of such sustained mental activity are to be found elsewhere in the entire world’s history of letters.
Under the several headings of the various chapters a wide range of ethical subjects is discussed, the whole forming a compendium of moral philosophy the broad principles of which must remain for all time as irrefutable as the precepts of Scriptural teaching.
Sadi’s spiritual message is not that of a visionary. His religion was an eminently practical one—he had no sympathies with the recluse and the ascetic. To fulfil one’s duties towards one’s fellow-men is to fulfil one’s duty towards the Deity. That is the root-idea of his teachings. “Religion,” he observes, “consists only in the service of the people: it does not lie in the rosary, or prayer-rug, or mendicant’s habit.”
This couplet, occurring in the opening chapter, is put into the mouth of a certain pious man whom one of the kings of Persia is said to have visited in a repentant mood for the purpose of seeking counsel. The story, like many others in the book, may or may not have any foundation in fact, “the histories of ancient kings,” which the poet frequently quotes as his authority, being rather too vague to be convincing. At the same time, the historical allusions form an interesting and instructive background to the legends and the moral precepts so abundantly interwoven among them.