Saadi Shirazi, Sheikh Mosleh al-Din

Saadi was born in Shiraz around 1200. He died in

Shiraz around 1292. He lost his father in early
childhood. With the help of his uncle, Saadi completed
his early education in Shiraz. Later he was sent to
study in Baghdad at the renowned Nezamiyeh College,
where he acquired the traditional learning of Islam.

The unsettled conditions following the Mongol
invasion of Persia led him to wander abroad through
Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. He also refers in his
work to travels in India and Central Asia. Saadi is very
much like Marco Polo who traveled in the region from
1271 to 1294. There is a difference, however, between
the two. While Marco Polo gravitated to the potentates and the good life, Saadi
mingled with the ordinary survivors of the Mongol holocaust. He sat in remote
teahouses late into the night and exchanged views with merchants, farmers,
preachers, wayfarers, thieves, and Sufi mendicants. For twenty years or more, he
continued the same schedule of preaching, advising, learning, honing his sermons,
and polishing them into gems illuminating the wisdom and foibles of his people.

When he reappeared in his native Shiraz he was an elderly man. Shiraz, under Atabak
Abubakr Sa'd ibn Zangy (1231-60) was enjoying an era of relative tranquility. Saadi
was not only welcomed to the city but was respected highly by the ruler and
enumerated among the greats of the province. In response, Saadi took his nom de
plume from the name of the local prince, Sa'd ibn Zangi, and composed some of his
most delightful panegyrics as an initial gesture of gratitude in praise of the ruling
house and placed them at the beginning of his Bostan. He seems to have spent the
rest of his life in Shiraz.

His best known works are the Bostan (The Orchard) and the Golestan (The Rose
Garden). The Bostan is entirely in verse (epic metre) and consists of stories aptly

A poem by Saadi Shirazi
illustrating the standard virtues recommended to Muslims (justice, liberality,
modesty, contentment) as well as of reflections on the behaviour of dervishes and
their ecstatic practices. The Golestan is mainly in prose and contains stories and
personal anecdotes. The text is interspersed with a variety of short poems,
containing aphorisms, advice, and humorous reflections. Saadi demonstrates a
profound awareness of the absurdity of human existence. The fate of those who
depend on the changeable moods of kings is contrasted with the freedom of the
dervishes.

For Western students the Bostan and Golestan
have a special attraction; but Saadi is also
remembered as a great panegyrist and lyricist,
the author of a number of masterly general
odes portraying human experience, and also
of particular odes such as the lament on the
fall of Baghdad after the Mongol invasion in
1258. His lyrics are to be found in Ghazaliyat
("Lyrics") and his odes in Qasa'id ("Odes"). He
is also known for a number of works in Arabic. The peculiar blend of human kindness
and cynicism, humour, and resignation displayed in Saadi's works, together with a
tendency to avoid the hard dilemma, make him, to many, the most typical and
lovable writer in the world of Iranian culture.

Saadi distinguished between the spiritual and the practical or mundane aspects of
life. In his Bostan, for example, spiritual Saadi uses the mundane world as a spring
board to propel himself beyond the earthly realms. The images in Bostan are delicate
in nature and soothing. In the Golestan, on the other hand, mundane Saadi lowers
the spiritual to touch the heart of his fellow wayfarers. Here the images are graphic
and, thanks to Saadi's dexterity, remain concrete in the reader's mind. Realistically,
too, there is a ring of truth in the division. The Shaykh preaching in the Khaniqah
experiences a totally different world than the merchant passing through a town. The
unique thing about Saadi is that he embodies both the Sufi Shaykh and the traveling
merchant. They are, as he himself puts it, two almond kernels in the same shell.

Saadi's prose style, described as "simple but impossible to imitate" flows quite
naturally and effortlessly. Its simplicity, however, is grounded in a semantic web

Tomb of Saadi in Shiraz
consisting of synonymy, homophony, and oxymoron buttressed by internal rhythm
and external rhyme. Iranian authors over the years have failed to imitate its style in
their own language, how can foreigners translate it into their own language, no
matter what language?

The world honors Saadi today by gracing the entrance to the Hall of Nations in New
York with this call for breaking all barriers:

Of one Essence is the human race,
Thusly has Creation put the Base;
One Limb impacted is sufficient,
For all Others to feel the Mace.
- See more at:
http://www.iranchamber.com/literature/saadi/saadi.php#sthash.KTfek970.dpuf

Hafez Shirazi, Khajeh Shamseddin Mohammad


Khajeh Shamseddin Mohammad Hafez
Shirazi was born 1319 CE in Shiraz in South-
Central Iran.

In his childhood he had memorized the Koran by
listening to his father's recitations of it, therefore
he gained the title of Hafez (a title given to those
who had memorized the Koran by heart. It is
claimed that Hafez had done this in fourteen
different ways). He also had memorized many of
the works of his hero, Saadi, as wells as Attar,
Rumi and Nizami.

His father who was a coal merchant died, leaving

Hafez
A work of Mahmoud Farshchian
him and his mother with much debt. Hafez and his mother went to live with his
uncle. He left day school to work in a drapery shop and later in a bakery.

While still working at the bakery, Hafez delivered bread to a wealthy quarter of town
and saw Shakh-e Nabat, a young woman of incredible beauty. Many of his poems are
addressed to Shakh-e Nabat.

In pursuit of reaching his beloved, Hafez kept a forty day and night vigil at the tomb
of Baba Kohi. After successfully attaining this, he met Attar (is not Attar Neishabouri)
and became his disciple.

Hafez became a poet of the court of Abu Ishak. Gained much fame and influence in
Shiraz. This was the phase of "Spiritual Romanticism" in his poetry.

Mobarez Mozaffar captured Shiraz, and among his various deeds, he ousted Hafez
from his position of teacher of Koranic studies at the college. At this time he wrote
his protest poems.

Shah Shja took his tyrant father as prisoner, and re-instated Hafez as a teacher at the
college. He began his phase of subtle spirituality in his poetry.

Hafez was falling out of favor with Shah Shoja. He fled Shiraz for his safety, and went
into self-imposed exile in Esfahan. His poems mainly talk of his longing for Shiraz, for
Shakh-e Nabat, and for his spiritual Master, Attar. Some years later by invitation of
Shah Shoja, he ended his exile and returned to Shiraz. He was re-instated to his post
at the College.

Longing to be united with his Creator, at the age
of 60 he began a forty day and night vigil by
sitting in a circle that he had drawn himself. On
the morn of the fortieth day of his vigil, which
was also on the fortieth anniversary of meeting
his Master Attar, he went to his Master, and
upon drinking a cup of wine that Attar gave him,
he attained Cosmic Consciousness or God-
Realization. In this phase, up to the death, he
composed more than half of his ghazals., and
continued to teach his small circle of disciples.
His poetry at this time, talk with the authority of
a Master who is united with God.

Hafez died at the age of 70 (1389 CE) in Shiraz. Hafez's body was buried in Musalla
Gardens, along the banks of Roknabad river in Shiraz, which is now called Hafezieh.

He left some 500 Ghazals, 42 Rubaiyees, and a few Ghaseedeh's, composed over a
period of 50 years. Hafez only composed when he was divinely inspired, and
therefore he averaged only about 10 Ghazals per year. His focus was to write poetry
worthy of the Beloved.

Hafez did not compile his poetry. Mohammad Golandaam, who also wrote a preface
to his compilation, completed it in 1410 CE, some 21-22 years after Hafez's death.
Also another person who compiled Hafiz's poetry was one of his young disciples
Sayyid Kasim-e Anvar, who collected 569 Ghazals attributed to Hafiz. He died in 1431
CE some 42-43 years after Hafiz's death. - See more at:
http://www.iranchamber.com/literature/hafez/hafez.php#sthash.SZ2uMfDD.dpuf

Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz