Saadi Shirazi

Not only as respects man does this superstition apply, but it extends to everything in nature.

Sadi relates, in his Gulistan, of a fisherman who had caught a fish which his strength did not allow him to drag to shore.

Fearing to be drawn into the river himself, he abandoned his line, and the fish swam away with the bait in his mouth.

His companions mocked him, and he replied, what could i do this animal escaped because his last hour fixed by fate was not yet come fate governs all and a fisherman cannot overcome it more than another nor can he catch fish if fate is against him even in the tigris the fish itself even though dry would not die if it was the will of fate to preserve its life the poet adds o man why shouldst thou fear if thy hour is not come in vain would thy enemy rush against thee with his lance in rest his arms and his feet would be tied by fate

Iran, people can easily read poems from a thousand years ago and they memorize it and they sing it or whisper it for their children, generations by generations.

So many people in Iran, They memorize Rumi and Hafez and Saadi.

It is something that we have.

As an Iranian, as someone from the Middle East, I believe that we need peace in order to think like other people.

Jami was, by most later judgments, the last of the true giants of classical Persian poetry.

He wrote in the tradition that stretched back through Rumi and Saadi and Nizami, and he was staggeringly productive, something like 87 separate books and letters over his lifetime.

He belonged to a Sufi order called the Naqshbandi.

That means he followed a particular teacher on a particular path, aimed at drawing the follower closer to God through discipline, reflection, and the guidance of someone further along the road than you are.

Running a workshop like that meant being part manager and part craftsman at once, which is a harder balance than either job alone.

Behzad had to keep dozens of specialists moving in the same direction, toward books that might not be finished for years, while never losing the eye that had gotten him the job in the first place.

And what did all of that labor produce, in Bayezad's hands specifically? He painted scenes for books of poetry, mostly by two of the same giants of the Persian tradition Jami had inherited, Saadi and Nizami.

People at work, gardens, buildings, rendered with a kind of architectural precision that lets historians today still identify which real structures in Herat he was drawing from memory.

It's very hard to find anywhere else.

So I was studying, or I was reading the books of Sheikh Saadi, Rahimahullah, his Gulistan.

I was studying or reading the books of Mawlana Rumi.

I was reading the books of Ahmad Khani, who is a Kurdish poet.

That's always been a part of the Sufi tradition.

So my favorite story is one that comes from Saadi, the Persian Sufi poet, Saadi.

King goes to him and says, pray for me.

He's like, I don't think you really want me to.