SHAYKH
MUSLIHUDIN SA'DI
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Those who rest not their hopes on their meeting with Us
and are pleased and satisfied with the life of this world
are those who heed not Our Signs. (Qur'an 10:7).
Once
in a flower garden in Iran, a thoughtful poet perceived
that a friend of his was exceedingly preoccupied with a
bunch of flowers and had no time to look at anything else.
The poet asked him what it was that captivated him so much
in these flowers which were sure to fade before sunset.
His friend replied by asking him what could possibly replace
the beauty of flowers. The poet said,? For people like you
who are attracted to the beauty of flowers whose life-span
is at most five or six days, I will write a book called
the Gulistan (garden of flowers) which will last indefinitely.
The name of the poet was Shaykh Muslihuddin Sa'di and he
was born in Persia in the year of 1184 AD. His father Abdullah
was a descendent of Sayyadina Ali RA and was nobleman in
the service of the court of ?Ata Beg Tughal. Sa'di lost
his parents early in his life and so he fell into poverty.
His elder brother somehow managed to keep the family by
owning a fruit shop.
Sa'di's
life consisted of three periods. Until 1226 he was busy
with his studies. From 1226 to 1256, he spent his life as
a traveller in different countries of the world. And the
last part from 1256 ?1291 he spent in Shiraz writing, contemplating
and admonishing people as a Sufi. In those days, Shiraz
was a great centre of learning and Sa'di was admitted into
a big madrasa there where he received his primary education.
Then he left for higher education in the famous Nizamiyya
Madrasa of Baghdad . He studied philosophy and science under
the able guidance of Farah Ibn al-Jawahir. Then he studied
logic, history, geography, philosophy, tafsir, hadith, fiqh,
etc. He was very religious from his boyhood and he was a
strict follower of the Shari'a. While in Bahdad he received
extensive instruction in tasawwuf (sufism) from several
Sufis that he came in contact with and became a follower
of the famous Sufi Shaykh Shihabu'd-din as-Suhrawardi (died
1234) whose influence and association had a great impact
oh him. Sa'di was a master of several languages but he wrote
only in his mother tongue, Persian, and occasionally in
Arabic.
After
the end of his studies in Baghdad he came back to Shiraz
, but found that his chief patron Sultan Ata Beg had been
killed by the Khwarizmi Sultan, Ghiyathu'd-din Isfahani.
Following this political upset the general people were subjected
to looting and exploitation by the Mongols and Turks, and
their miseries knew no bounds. Seeing their misery, he found
the situation unbearable and he left the country and decided
to go on travelling from country to country.
From
1226 - 1256, for a period of thirty years, he travelled
from Shiraz to Khurasan, to Tatar, to Balkh, to Kashghar,
Ghazna, Punjab, Somnath, Gujarat, Yemen, Hijaz, Abyssinia,
Palestine, Syria, Damascus, Ba'albek, North Africa, Asia
Minor, etc. In each of these places he stayed for months
or years, studied the people and gained many and varied
experiences. From Somnath he went to Gujarat, and then to
Punjab and then to Delhi. From Delhi he went to the Yemen
where he lost his son by his first wife. He was very upset
at this loss. From the Yemen he went to Abyssinia where
he took part in a jihad. Then he went to Makkah and performed
the Hajj. In all, he performed Hajj fourteen times on foot.
From Makkah to went to Damascus and then Ba'albek. In Damascus
and Ba'albek he started giving sermons on religion and people
gave him the title of Shaykh. His lectures and sermons were
received with great appreciation.
Then
he left for Jerusalem and for some time he hid himself in
a lonely place far from other people. At this time, he fell
into the hands of Frankish soldiers who arrested him and
sent him to Tripoli to work as an ordinary prisoner digging
ditches. He experienced how painful the life of a prisoner
was and was forced to spend some time in this inhuman life
in captivity. At last a friend of his from Aleppo got him
released on payment of a large ransom and also gave him
his daughter in marriage. However this wife was very hot-tempered
and ill-spoken. He could not bear her and had to leave Aleppo
and Asia Minor and finally ending his journeying in his
birthplace, Shiraz , in the year 1256.
In Shiraz his old patron, Sultan Ata Beg, had been succeeded
by his son Sultan Abu Bakr and his other friends he decided
to stay on permanently in Shiraz and to devote his time
to the meditation on Allah and to his writings. He was by
then an old man but very rich and mature with a wealth of
experience gained by thirty years of travel over a great
part of the world. The books he now produced were so rich
a fountain that people have been drinking ever since from
them with no sign of satiety. The Bustan and the Gulistan
have maintained their popularity right up until the present
day. At the time he was engaged in writing his Bustan and
Gulistan , he was already past eighty and his mind was at
its purest. He was above any small things or demands of
this world. He was completely devoted to his Lord portraying
Him as Jamil un Karim un Rahman ur Rahim and His Prophet
as his shafi un, qasim un Jasmin un Nasim un.
The
great contribution that Shaykh Sa'di made to the Islamic
world lies in his two great couplets, famous equally in
the Arab and non-Arab world, on the person of the Prophet,
and which are read with equal zeal and fervour by both Arabs
and non-Arabs. They are:
Balaghul ula bi-kamalihi
Kashafad-duja bi-jamalihi
Hasanath jami'u khisalihi
Sallu alayhi wa alihi
These two couplets are in the mouth of every Muslim, boy
or girl, man or woman, young or old. They are the best epithet,
the best eulogy, and the best offering that a human being
can offer to the Prophet who does not need any praises from
any of us because his Lord has promised him complete satisfaction
and has conferred on him the title of Rahmat al-alamin.
Shaykh
Sa'di died at the ripe age of 110 in the year 1291 AD in
Shiraz and was buried there, where later the poet Hafiz
was also buried. His grave bears no extraordinary monument
except an epitaph of a few couplets from his Bustan, the
first couplets of which are: O traveller! You have stepped
on my dust. Beware! You have to remember me for the sake
of the Almighty's dust. Sa'di will certainly be buried in
dust because he was like dust while he lived. (Bustan)
In
the Islamic world, particularly in the East, nobody is considered
literate and cultured if he does not quote from Sa'di. The
famous Sufi poet, Abdu'r-Rahman Jami' (14114-1492), says,
The intellectual world calls Sa'di's ghazals a salt cup,
but for centuries, the educated people of the East have
been committing to their memory Sa'di's ghazals and have
been accepting his morals and ethics as their ideal.