Lo! time and space lay crouching at my feet.
Joy! Joy! When I would revel in a rapture,
I plunge into myself, and all things know.
Saadi (Shaikh-Muslah-ud-Din Saadi) was born at Shiraz, the capital of Persia, A.D. 1176.
He thus characterizes his life and his studies: “I have wandered to various regions of the world, and everywhere have I mixed freely with the inhabitants; I have gathered something in each corner; I have gleaned an ear from every harvest.” The divan of Saadi is by his countrymen reckoned to be the true Salt mine of poets. Jami calls him “the nightingale of the groves of Shiraz.”
We would call him the moral philosopher of Sufism. His writings do not contain much metaphysics.
SAADIS’ GULISTAN (or ROSE GARDEN):
Motto: The Rose may continue to bloom five or six days;
But my Rose garden is fragrant for ever.
—Shame on the man * *
Who, when the drum soundeth for departure, hath not made up his burden
Who, on the morning of his journey, is still indulging in sweet sleep.
—They asked Lockman, the wise, from whence he learnt wisdom. He answered: “From the blind; for till they have tried the ground, they plant not the foot.”
—The world, O my brother, abideth with no one.
—Ask the inhabitants of Hell, they will tell you it is Paradise.
—The sons of Adam are limbs of one another, for in their creation they are formed of one substance.
When Fortune bringeth affliction to a single member, not one of the rest remaineth without disturbance.
—Know that from God is the difference of enemy and friend, for the hearts of both are alike in His keeping.
—So long as thou art able, crush not a single heart, for a sigh has power to overturn a world.
—Not a word can be said, even in child’s play, from which an intelligent person may not gather instruction; but if a hundred chapters of wisdom were read in the hearing of a fool, to his ears it would sound as nothing but child’s play.
—Yesternight, towards morning, a warbling bird stole away my reason, my patience, my strength, and my understanding. My exclamations, by chance, reached the ear of a most intimate friend. “Never,” he said “could I believe that the voice of a bird should have such a power to disturb thy intellect!”—“It is not,” I replied, “befitting the condition of man, that a bird should be reciting its hymn of praise, and that I should be silent.”
—One day the Prophet said to Abu Huraizah: “Do not come every day, that our friendship may increase.”
A holy man has said: “With all the beauty which attends the sun, I have never heard that anyone has taken him for a friend, except in winter, when he is veiled, and therefore is loved.”
—The treasure chosen by Lokman was patience: without patience there is no such thing as wisdom.
—Were every night a night of power, the Night of Power, would lose its worth. Were every pebble a ruby, the ruby and the pebble would be of equal value.
[Quran, Chap, xcvii: Verily we sent down the Quran in the night of al Kadr.—Therein do the angels descend, and the spirit of Gabriel also, by the permission of their Lord with his decrees concerning every matter. It is peace until morning. Comp. footnote to Lane’s transl. of the Quran and our Part II: Symbols].
—How should the multitude find its way to their secret chambers, for, like the waters of life, they are hidden in darkness?
They kindle themselves the flame, which, as a moth, consumeth them; not wrapping themselves up like the silk-worm in its own web.
Seeking for the Soul’s repose on the bosom which only can give repose, their lips are still dry with thirst on the very margin of the stream:
Not that they have no power to drink the water, but that their thirst could not be quenched, even on the banks of the Nile.
“The bird of the morning only knoweth the worth of the book of the rose; for not every one who readeth the page understandeth the meaning.” (Hafiz.)