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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SAC-SAR |
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SADHU , a Hindu ascetic, corresponding to the Mahommedan fakir (q.v.). The Sadhus, who are known also as Sanyasis, Gosains and Bairagis, are of various sects, hold peculiar opinions, indulge in strange practices, and subject themselves in many cases to cruel hardships and fantastic disciplines. They range in moral standing
SA' DI (c. 1184-1292). MU$LIIi-UDDIN, or more correctly MUSHARRIF-UDDIN B. MU$LIH-UDDIN, the greatest didactic poet and the most popular writer of Persia, was born' aboutr184 (A.R. 58'o) in Shiraz. After the premature death of his father he was taken under the protection of Sa'd b. Zengi, the atabeg of Fars, who sent him to pursue his studies in the famous medresseh of Baghdad, the Nizamiyya, where he remained about thirty years (1196-1224). About 1210 (A.H. 6o6) his literary fame had spread as far as Kashgar in Turkistan, which the young poet (who in honour of his patron had assumed the name of Sa'di) visited in his twenty- sixth
pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Thence he directed his steps towards Syria and lived as a renowned sheikh for a consider-able time in Damascus, which he had once already visited. There and in Baalbek he added to his literary renown that of a first-rate pulpit orator. Specimens of his spiritual addresses are preserved in the five homilies (on the fugitiveness of human life, on faith and fear of God, on love towards God, on rest in God and on the search for God). At last, weary of Damascus, he withdrew into the desert near Jerusalem and led a solitary wandering life, till one day he was taken captive by a troop of Frankish soldiers, brought to Tripoli
ransom , and gave him his daughter in marriage. But Sa'di, unable to live with his quarrelsome wife, set out on fresh travels, first to North Africa and then through the length and breadth of Asia Minor and the adjoining countries. Not until he had passed his seventieth year did' he return to Shiraz (about 1256; A.H. 653). Finding the place of his birth tranquil and prosperous under the wise rule of Abubakr b. Sa'd, the son of his old patron (1226-1260; A.H. 623-658), the aged poet took up his permanent abode, interrupted only by repeated pilgrimages to Mecca, and devoted the remainder of his life to Sufic contemplation and poetical composition. He died at Shiraz in 1292 (A.H. 691) according to IJamdallah Mustaufi (who wrote only forty years later), or in December 1291 (A.H. 690), at the age of rro lunar years.The experience of the world gained during his travels, his intimate acquaintance with the various countries he had visited; his insight into human character, together with an inborn loftiness of thought and the purest moral standard, made it easy for Sa'di to compose in the short space of three years his two master-pieces, which have immortalized his name, the Bustan or " Fruit-garden " (1257) and the Gulistan or " Rose-garden" (1258), both dedicated to the reigning atabeg Abu Bekr. The former, also called Sa'dinama, is a kind of didactic epopee in ten chapters and double-rhymed verses, which passes in review the highest philosophical and religious questions, not seldom in the very spirit of Christianity, and abounds with sound ethical maxims and matchless gems of transcendental speculation. The latter is a prose work of a similar tendency in eight chapters, interspersedwith numerous verses and illustrated, like the Bustn, by a rich store of clever tales and charming anecdotes; it discusses more or less the same topics as the larger work, but has acquired a much greater popularity in both the East and the West, owing to its easier and more varied style, its 'attractivelessons of practical wisdom, and its numerous bons mots. But Sa'di's Diwan, or collection of lyrical poetry, far surpasses the Bustin and Gulistan, at any rate in quantity, whether in quality also is a matter of taste. Other minor works are the Arabic gaszdas, the hrst of which laments the destruction of the Arabian cahphate by the Mongols in 1258 (A.11. 656); the Persian gacidas, partly panegyrical, partly didactical; the marathi, or elegies, beginning with one on the death of Abu Bekr and ending with one on the defeat and demise
The first who collected and arranged his works was 'Ali b. Ahmad b. Bisutun (13261334; A.H 726734). The most exact information about Sa'di's life and works is found in the introduction to Dr W. Bacher's Sa'di's Aphorismen and Sinngedichte (Sahibiyyah) (Strassburg, 1879; a complete metrical translation of the epigrammatic poems), and in the same author's " Sa'di Studien," in Zeitschrift der morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, xxx. pp. 81-1o6; see also H. Ethe in W 'Geiger s Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. pp. 292-296, with Lull bibliography; and E, G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, p 525.539. Sa'di's Kulhyyat or complete works have been edited Ey Harrington (Calcutta, 1791-1795) (with an English translation of some of the prose treatises and of Daulat Shah's notice on the poet, o1 which a German version is found in Graf's Rosengarten ( Leipzig
Sprenger
Arnold
Leipzig
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