There are several programs to commemorate the world-famous Persian poet Sa’di. President Hassan Rouhani will attend the ceremony in Shiraz on April 20 and 21 to speak about the poet.

Among the programs are appreciating a number of Sa’di experts.

Meanwhile, a number of Iranian and Tajik literati are to gather at the Tajikistan Academy Theater of Lakhuti in Dushanbe today to commemorate Sa’di.

The guests are to discuss Sa’di’s role in the development of Persian literature in Tajikistan, the Iranian cultural attaché’s office in Dushanbe said in a press release on Friday.

Scholars attended a seminar in Tehran on Sa’di and prominent French poet and novelist Victor Hugo.

Tehran’s Book City Institute hosted a meeting on Sa’di and Hugo (1802-1885) in on April 18 and 19.

Director of the Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, delivered a keynote speech at the event.

Iranian literati, including Mir Jalaleddin Kazzazi, Ahmad Samiei Gilani, Fatemeh Eshqi, Tahmoures Sajedi, Fereydoun Majlesi, Asghar Nouri and French scholar Jean-Marc Hovasse spoke about the two prominent poets at the event.

The event was organized jointly by Sa’di Foundation in Tehran and Iran’s cultural office in France, as well as the Paris Diderot University to commemorate Sa’di National Day.

Victor Hugo is considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers.

Iranian carpet on UN wall

Also on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recounted the story of an Iranian carpet adorned with a famous poem by Sa’di on a wall of the United Nations headquarters.

According to IFP, in a note posted on his Instagram page to mark Sa’di National Day (April 21) ahead of the event, Zarif told the story of the Iranian carpet as follows:

“Perhaps, the story of hanging the precious Iranian carpet which is adorned with the Sa’di’s most famous poem titled ‘Human Beings’ on UN’s wall is interesting for my friends.

“Almost all of us have read it at school that this famous poem is written above the portal of the UN. In 1982, when I first traveled to the US and visited the United Nations headquarters, I searched the building’s every nook and cranny but I could not find the poem. Later in 1988, when I was in Geneva [Switzerland] to take part in the negotiations on the UN’s Security Council Resolution 598, again, I failed to find the poem written anywhere in the European headquarters. I even asked some of my friends and more experienced people if they had seen the poem written anywhere in the buildings of the UN’s headquarters, but received a negative response.

“In 2004, during the period (2002–2007) I served as Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, I was informed that Mohammad Seirafian, one of the most famous carpet traders of the central Iranian province of Isfahan, had had a precious carpet, with a length and width of five meters, woven, at the center of which Sa’di’s poem had been sewn with golden thread. He had voiced willingness to offer the carpet to the UN as gift providing that they place or hang it up somewhere appropriate.

“Given the dimensions of the carpet, it was difficult to find a suitable wall to hang it up on. There were only a few walls at the UN headquarters suitable for the purpose. One was the wall on which the big 6X4 carpet given to the UN as a gift by Mohammad Mosaddeq, Iran’s prime minister during 1951-1953, was hung up and the other was that of the hall in which representatives held their talks. A Chinese carpet, nevertheless, was hung up on the latter.

“Given the large number of the gifts presented to the UN and inadequate room for all of them, I, inevitably, had to enter into negotiations with the then UN Secretary General [Kofi Annan] to convince him to hang up the carpet on a suitable wall as a symbol for the idea of the Dialogue Among Civilizations, put forward by the then Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. Interestingly, the year 2001 was named after Mr. Khatami’s idea at his proposal.

“In my later follow-ups, I was faced with a proposal by the UN to hang up the carpet on the wall adorned by the carpet presented by Mosaddeq and replace it with his gift, but I turned down the offer.

“A little bit later, I learned that they intended to detach the Chinese carpet from the wall and wash it. The surface of the wall on which the Chinese carpet was hung up, had enough room for two carpets. However, the Chinese one was hung up right at its canter. Nevertheless, with the assistance and thanks to the constant follow-ups of one my good colleagues at the representative office, we eventually managed to hang up the carpet ornamented with Sa’di’s poem next to the Chinese one, as you can see in the photo.

“In addition, we had Sa’di’s poem translated beautifully into English and wrote it on a plate pinned on the wall next to the carpet so that viewers could both enjoy the beauty of the Iranian art and further know about the sublime, elevated and deep humanitarian concepts of the Iranian culture.

“And finally Sa’di’s poem found its way into the UN.”

The translation of the poem reads as follows:

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you have no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain.

Born in Shiraz in 1194 CE, Sa’di Shirazi, is known as a Sufi master, mystic and metaphysicist in the history of Persian literature. He was conferred the title ‘Master of Prose and Poetry’ in view of his proficiency in Persian literature, IRNA wrote.

Sa’di is best-known for his ‘Bustan’ (The Orchard) and ‘Golestan’ (The Rose Garden) which present a peculiar blend of human kindness and cynicism, humor, and resignation in the form of stories and personal anecdotes.

The poet is also known worldwide for one of his aphorisms, ‘Human beings are members of a whole — in creation of one essence and soul’ which adorns the entrance to the Hall of Nations of the United Nations building in New York.

Saadi day celebrated in Shiraz

The post World-famous Persian poet Sa’di to be commemorated appeared first on IRAN This Way.

Saadi distinguished between the spiritual and the practical or mundane aspects of life. In his Bustan, for example, spiritual Saadi uses the mundane world as a spring board to propel himself beyond the earthly realms. The images in Bustan are delicate in nature and soothing. In the Gulistan, 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 Sheikh preaching in the Khanqah experiences a totally different world than the merchant passing through a town. The unique thing about Saadi is that he embodies both the Sufi Sheikh and the travelling merchant. They are, as he himself puts it, two almond kernels in the same shell.

Who is Saadi Shirazi?
Saadi Shirazi, Sheikh Mosleh al-Din,  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 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 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.

Famous quotes by Saadi
A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity until he has tasted adversity.

I fear God and next to God I mostly fear them that fear him not.

The best loved by God are those that are rich, yet have the humility of the poor, and those that are poor and have the magnanimity of the rich.

Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend.

Whoever acquires knowledge but does not practice it is as one who ploughs but does not sow.

The rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together.

O wise man, wash your hands of that friend who associates with your enemies.

Whatever is produced in haste goes hastily to waste.

How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice.

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