{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.2", "endpoint": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/index.json" }, "work": { "slug": "saadi-gulistan", "name": "Gulistan (Saadi)", "stream": "persian", "epoch_reflected": "persian", "epoch_written": "greco-latin", "form": "didactic prose with embedded verse", "tradition": "Islamic mysticism (Sufi)", "author": "Saadi of Shiraz", "year_approx": 1258, "note": "Saadi of Shiraz's 1258 *Gulistan* (Rose Garden) — didactic prose anecdotes with embedded verse, on kings, dervishes, contentment, love, youth and age, and the conduct of life. The most-read Persian book for six centuries. Sir Edwin Arnold's 1899 translation.", "books_slug": "saadi--the-gulistan", "books_slugs": null, "has_project_translation": false, "steiner_loci": [] }, "parents": [ { "slug": "sufism", "name": "Sufi Poets", "url": "/sources/sufism/" } ], "translation": { "title": null, "author": null, "source": null }, "chapters": [ { "num": 1, "slug": "00-introductory", "title": "Introductory", "words": 3807, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/00-introductory/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/00-introductory.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Introductory — translator's preface and Saadi's autobiographical opening", "blurb": "Editor's introduction together with Saadi's own opening preface — the famous tale of the *Gulistan*'s composition (the night he sat in a friend's garden in Shiraz, plucked a rose for his beloved, and conceived the book whose title means *The Rose-Garden*). The frame for the eight chapters that follow." }, { "num": 2, "slug": "01-chapter-i-the-manners-of-kings", "title": "Chapter I: The Manners of Kings", "words": 11221, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/01-chapter-i-the-manners-of-kings/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/01-chapter-i-the-manners-of-kings.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "I. The Manners of Kings — the *mirror for princes*", "blurb": "The classical Persian *mirror for princes*. Anecdotes of just and unjust kings; the virtues a sovereign requires; the dangers of flattery; the obligations of mercy. Drawn from the political history of the Persianate Islamic world, distilled into proverbial moral counsel." }, { "num": 3, "slug": "02-chapter-ii-the-morals-of-dervishes", "title": "Chapter II: The Morals of Dervishes", "words": 8758, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/02-chapter-ii-the-morals-of-dervishes/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/02-chapter-ii-the-morals-of-dervishes.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "II. The Morals of Dervishes — the Sufi ethics", "blurb": "On the inward morals of the wandering dervishes. Renunciation, contentment with little, the discipline of poverty as freedom. The chapter that places the Sufi mendicant alongside the king of the first chapter — the two complementary figures of the Persianate moral imagination." }, { "num": 4, "slug": "03-chapter-iii-the-excellence-of-contentment", "title": "Chapter III: The Excellence of Contentment", "words": 7368, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/03-chapter-iii-the-excellence-of-contentment/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/03-chapter-iii-the-excellence-of-contentment.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "III. The Excellence of Contentment — *qanā'ah*", "blurb": "On *qanā'ah* — the virtue of being content with what one has. The Sufi ethics of *less*: less possessed, less needed, less anxious. Many tales illustrating how the contented poor man enjoys what the discontented rich man cannot." }, { "num": 5, "slug": "04-chapter-iv-the-advantages-of-silence", "title": "Chapter IV: The Advantages of Silence", "words": 1645, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/04-chapter-iv-the-advantages-of-silence/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/04-chapter-iv-the-advantages-of-silence.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "IV. The Advantages of Silence — *khamoshī*", "blurb": "On silence and the discipline of speech. The tales gather around the recurring proverb that he who speaks ill-advisedly damages himself; he who keeps silent at the right moment saves himself. The Persian wisdom-tradition's high estimation of considered silence." }, { "num": 6, "slug": "05-chapter-v-love-and-youth", "title": "Chapter V: Love and Youth", "words": 6145, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/05-chapter-v-love-and-youth/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/05-chapter-v-love-and-youth.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "V. Love and Youth — the erotic-mystic vocabulary", "blurb": "On love — both human and divine, since in the Sufi register the two cannot be cleanly separated. Tales of the *'āshiq* (lover) and the *ma'shūq* (beloved); the wine, the eyes, the locks of hair that are also and equally signs of the divine. The Persian erotic-mystical vocabulary inaugurated." }, { "num": 7, "slug": "06-chapter-vi-of-weakness-and-old-age", "title": "Chapter VI: Of Weakness and Old Age", "words": 1957, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/06-chapter-vi-of-weakness-and-old-age/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/06-chapter-vi-of-weakness-and-old-age.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "VI. Weakness and Old Age — the candour of the aging master", "blurb": "On old age and its frailties — written by Saadi himself in his eighth decade. The candour with which the master acknowledges that the senses fail, that desire outlives capacity, that wisdom comes too late. The chapter's compassionate humour about the human comedy of aging." }, { "num": 8, "slug": "07-chapter-vii-the-influence-of-education", "title": "Chapter VII: The Influence of Education", "words": 6301, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/07-chapter-vii-the-influence-of-education/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/07-chapter-vii-the-influence-of-education.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "VII. The Influence of Education", "blurb": "On the formative power of education and upbringing. The seed that the *murabbī* (teacher) plants in the disciple; the irreversible mark of early formation; the limits of what can be undone in adult life. The Sufi-Confucian convergence on the dignity of pedagogy." }, { "num": 9, "slug": "08-chapter-viii-the-duties-of-society", "title": "Chapter VIII: The Duties of Society", "words": 7284, "url": "/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/08-chapter-viii-the-duties-of-society/", "api": "/api/sources/sufism/saadi-gulistan/08-chapter-viii-the-duties-of-society.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "VIII. The Duties of Society — *adab* and social comportment", "blurb": "The closing chapter on *adab* — the courteous comportment that is the visible signature of inward formation. Manners as the outward fruit of inward virtue; their cultivation as itself part of the spiritual path; tales illustrating their absence and its consequences in social life." } ] }