Talk:Saadi Shirazi/Archive 1

Archive 1

A few of comments:

1. The banner says “a wikiProject related to the Muslim scholars. note:the project includes non-Muslim scholars. “, What is the point in putting non-Muslim Scholars in a Muslim Scholars article? Isn’t that a contradiction?

2. (1184 - 1283/1291?)? Did he live 100-110 years?

3. The Farsi poem and its English translation is only half of the poem and the most important part is missing.

It goes like this “ تو که از محنت دیگران بیغمی، نشاید که نامت نهند ادمی ”, which more or less says “Those who do not care about the suffering of the mankind, are not worthy of being called human”. 82.70.40.190

Misperception of Persian Litterature

I think the paragraph below which shows very little knowledge of the persian language in general, should be removed. Besides among the two pseudo-sources, one is biased because of the agenda it is defending, and the second is dubious, knowing that that guy may be accepted by some westerners as a persian litterature scholar, his work shows that he has repeatedly tagged persian poets and their foreign translators as homoerotic for lack of a better word. I leave the message for couple of days and then i will remove the following:

Saadi's work has been translated by a number of major Western poets, most of whom were not deterred by the "transparently homoerotic" [1] tone of much of his work. According to Wayne Dynes, "English translators even in the tamer episodes of the Gulistan turn boys into girls and change anecdotes about pederasty into tales of heterosexual Iove." (Asian Homosexuality p.66) 207.253.110.210 03:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Nikipedia

The previous post was left for more than a week. If you wanted to discuss it you had enough time. It was removed. I don't know Who put it again but I will remove it until a disscusion concludes. If you want to discuss it joint us.207.253.110.64 02:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Hyacinths

I first became interested in this poet from this translation from "Garden of Roses":

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,

And from thy slender store

Two loaves alone to thee are left,

Sell one, and with the dole,

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

It is very well-known and very beautiful and I believe that excerpt should be included in the article. However, I don't know the name of the translator. Any objections to including it under "Quotes" section? Typing monkey 07:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Typing monkey, I have no objection whatsoever, so please include it in the text and add beneath it such thing at "Translated by ?", or "Translator to be determined"; hopefully someone who knows the translator will fill the gap. Incidentally, Saadi's Golestan (i.e. "Garden of Roses" - actually it should have been "Garden of Flowers"; evidently, not all flowers are Roses) was translated, in the nineteenth century, by Richard Francis Burton; this may help you to find out the translator of the above verse. You may also wish to consult the following text on the webpage of Iran Chamber Society: Saadi Shirazi, Sheikh Mosleh al-Din; here the translations of both Bustan ("The Orchard") and Golestan can be downloaded for free. Kind regards, --BF 09:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

PS) The following page gives a fairly complete list of all major translations of Saadi's works: [1]. Here are some relevant names: James Dumoulin, Francis Gladwin, Edward B. Eastwick, Sir Edwin Arnold, A. Hart Edwards, Reynold A. Nicholson, A. J. Arberry, Edward Rehatsek, G. M. Wickens, R. P. Anderson, Omar Ali-Shah, and Mohammad Kazem Kamran. Using these names you should be able to find the name of the translator at issue through a search on Amazon.com (it allows one to search inside texts). I have just searched, the above verse does not occur in Richard Francis Burton's translation. --BF 09:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for pointing me to those resources. I want to be sure I am attributing it correctly before adding it to the article - I've found this poem (or a variation) attributed to several different people as I've been searching for the proper source, it may be apocryphal. It's still lovely. I'll keep searching. Typing monkey 06:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You are most welcome! Incidentally, you may consider to send an e-mail to, for instance, Professor Iraj Bashiri and ask his view on the origin of the above translation; he is at University of Minnesota, so that you should be able to find his e-mail address from the address directory of University's web-page. Kind regards, --BF 09:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Problem with text

In the section His Works, the text discusses his style and then goes directly into a discussion of western translations without any transition. Should there be an introductory sentence and a section break entitled "Western reception" or something?--FeanorStar7 11:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC) saadi is the most famus poet in iran. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.154.61.109 (talk) 12:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Wisdom of Saadi - book cover.jpeg

Image:Wisdom of Saadi - book cover.jpeg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 23:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Shoes and Feet

looking up the old proverb, I found this link: http://www.heartlandlibraries.org/news&clues/archive/S2002/columns.html

but the link it links to at Virginia Tech is no longer available to use as a valid source. I was wondering if it was accurate and if anyone had another source. --MartinezMD (talk) 23:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Name

Dear Wikipedia, Saadi (poet}, is not a proper name when his official name is Saadi Shirazi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.182.112.162 (talk) 15:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Obama and Saadi?

In which way is Obama's mention of a poem by Saadi significant? Saadi is a much greater figure don't bring him down.31.57.221.253 (talk) 13:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, I've removed the Obama material. It's something like quoting George W. Bush in an article on Albert Camus. Or citing Hitler in an Article on Hegel.70.26.54.194 (talk) 03:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Ubuntu?

Saadi is well known for his aphorisms, the most famous of which, Bani Adam, in a delicate way shows the essence of Ubuntu

Why use of the term Ubuntu and not human beings (as social beings or set of social relations)? Although it captures the meaning of Saadi's poem, I don't think it is necessary to use this term, especially since it was coined in the late 20th century, centuries after Saadi's poem was written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 19:42, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Biography - description inconsistency

Saadi died 1291 or 1292. But he "traveled through war wrecked regions from 1271 to 1294. Maybe somebody could be able to correct this inconsistent sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calinlukas (talk • contribs) 13:12, 28 June 2014‎ (UTC)

You're right, I've removed the statement altogether. A closer inspection reveals that quite a bit of this content is closely paraphrased from this page on iranchamber.com. Notice that they directly mention "Saadi is very much like Marco Polo who traveled in the region from 1271 to 1294." They are clearly referring to Polo and not Saadi, the original contributor who used this text made it look like the opposite. Most of the accessible sources mention he died around 1291–1292.

I found this page a bit confusing especially the first two sections. A rewrite to address this WP:PARAPHRASE issue and improve the flow would be good. Sincerely, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

PS: Check the details in this report comparing this page and the Iranchamber article -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:30, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

@Ugog Nizdast: Thank you for the edit and the information. That's a useful website. I've gone through the article and made a number of edits. I wanted to ask you about something. The long quote from Saadi ends in mid-sentence early in the quote. Is there any way to fix that? CorinneSD (talk) 21:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC) (discussion continued to the section below -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:49, 1 July 2014 (UTC))

Bashiri's quotation

Ugog, I am Sorayyab and I work with Dr. Iraj Bashiri who is at the University of Minnesota. There was a paragraph on the Saadi Shirazi page written by him that explained the style of Saadi's Gulistan as well as a sample of Saadi's incomparable style that was removed. Since it is the unique contribution of Saadi referenced in almost all discussions of his work, it is imperitive that it be included in this article. I suggest that a new section entitled "Saadi's Style" be added right after "Works" so that this crucial reference is retained. If you and your editors have further questions, please feel free to contact Professor Bashiri at bashi001@umn.edu. Sincerely, Sorayyab (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

If you work with him, then you have a conflict of interest. I only removed the lengthy quotation because it probably belongs to Wikiquote rather than this page. Sorry but if Bashiri's works are as important as you say they are, then that can be mentioned in a few sentences citing a reliable third party source rather than putting his lengthy translation on this biographical article. At most I think it can be in the External links section of this or maybe in the Gulistan of Sa'di page. Best, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 09:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Quotations from his works

(discussion continued from the section above -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:49, 1 July 2014 (UTC))

It's in the "Works" section. The first two paragraphs are:

"In Isfahan I had a friend who was warlike, spirited, and shrewd. His hands and dagger were forever stained with blood. The hearts of his enemies were consumed by fear of him; even the tigers stood in awe of him. In battle he was like a sparrow among locusts; but in combat,

"after long I met him: O tiger-seizer!" I exclaimed, "what has made thee decrepit like an old fox?"

It's the "but in combat," that looks like it was cut off in mid-sentence. Is "after long I met him" supposed to follow "but in combat" directly? It doesn't sound like it should. Perhaps some lines were left out? CorinneSD (talk) 21:36, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Turns out a lot has been left out. This was added in March 2010 and someone added a reference later linking to sacred-texts.com. Check it and look for the heading "STORY OF A SOLDIER OF ISFAHAN", the wording is slightly different. Here it says, "Of the Mongols he writes: " but all I see is a lengthy anecdote about some soldier who talks about the battle of Tartary...not actual direct reference by him about Mongols. What do you think of the relevance of this big quotation? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:21, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I read that section about the soldier from Isfahan. Before deciding whether to retain or delete that long quote (and, if retain, whether to include the missing part), I'd like to ask you about some things that are puzzling me. In the first paragraph in "Works", it says that the Bostan (I don't know why it is spelled with an "o" when it is pronounced "Bustan", and why "Gulistan" wouldn't also have an "o". I'm pretty sure the vowel sound in the first syllable of both words is the same. But that's another issue.) was verse. However, that long quote is written in prose. (Also, there is nothing saying it is from the Bostan/Bustan either before or after that long quote, except for the reference.) And later, it says the Gulistan was mainly prose, and yet the translated quotes are in verse. I find that puzzling.

Regarding whether that long quote is relevant, the second part of it seems to describe the fighting against the invading Mongols. That line,

"Of the Mongols he writes:"

is a little confusing because the next line begins,

"In Isfahan I had a friend who was warlike, spirited, and shrewd", but it sounds like that friend was a Persian who had fought the Mongols in previous years. That introductory line, "Of the Mongols he writes", makes it seem as if this friend is a Mongol. If it is decided to keep this passage, perhaps an introductory line something like the following would be less confusing:

"In a section about the Mongols, he writes:"

We'd have to read a little more of the Bostan/Bustan to see if we could find another passage that is interesting and perhaps a little shorter.

In addition to the question of whether the long quote about the soldier from Isfahan is relevant, I wonder about the many translations of a single verse from the Gulistan. Do you think so many are needed? CorinneSD (talk) 19:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Here is Britannica's and some other legit-looking site's article about him. They both provide a good overview and we have to make do with sites like these, otherwise this feels like groping in the dark because of the lack of available history RSes. You're quite right about Bostan being verse and Gulistan of Sa'di being prose (unfortunately both the article titles don't follow consistency in naming, but I suppose we can pick one form here). You better correct the formatting.

Regarding the Mongol quote, let's just keep the last para and begin with "In Bostan, one of his verses narrate his meeting with a soldier who describes his encounter with the Mongols" (is there any better way to write this?). About the multiple translations of Bani Adam, I think we'll take the easy way out and keep only the ones which have citations (I think there are 3). The entire prologue of Gulistan can be removed, I see no reason for it be there. Full quotations from Boston and Gulistan are anyway transwikied to Wikisource and Wikiquote. Moreover, they can be elaborated more in their individual pages than here...so we need not worry. Thoughts?

The "Biography" and the "Travels" section have a lot of similar and repeated content. I'll try to remedy that later today. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 11:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@Ugog Nizdast: I followed your suggestion about deleting the first part of the long quote about the old soldier, but I kept a bit of the first paragraph just to show the contrast between the old soldier's earlier vigor and later appearance when Saadi sees him again after a long time. What do you think about the way I did that?

I deleted all the translations of the verse (why verse, I don't know, if the G is prose) from the Gulistan except the three that are sourced. I wanted to ask you where the little reference number should appear: right after the name of the translator or at the end of the translation? They are inconsistent now, and I want to make them consistent.

I don't know what you meant by your statement, above, "You better correct the formatting". Where? What formatting?

Do we need to consult someone regarding the spelling of Bostan/Bustan and Golestan/Gulestan?

I look forward to seeing your edits. CorinneSD (talk) 19:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

PS: I've now fixed the article titles for Bustan (book) and Gulistan (book). -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:11, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Doubtful information from his Autobiography

That's good. I've attempted to fix the consistency regarding the citation placement for the quotations and Bostan/Bustan. Now the first two sections have been merged together because of their repeated content. Why don't you read through this Biography section and see if you can copy-edit/improve flow? Maybe you can even compare it side-by-side with the Britannica link above and reword it. Like it says that most of his life is uncertain (especially the getting captured by Crusaders and going to India-part) because we have only his autobiography as evidence. Could you try to make the wording reflect this?

About correcting the formatting, I was referring to the prose–verse issue...does anything need to be done there? I thought prose used regular blockquotes while verses needed to be italicized too. The quotation about professions isn't referenced and I'm not sure if its from G or B (the available pdfs are rather long and the search query detected nothing, maybe I didn't do it correctly). -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 01:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• I read the article on Saadi in the encyclopedia Britannica from the link you provided above, and then looked again at the Biography section in the article. I had already worked on improving the flow of sentences in that section. Now, after reading the Britannic article, I'm wondering about something. In the Biography section of the WP article, actual known history about Saadi seems to be interwoven with details from his writings, and the Britannica article, referring to Saadi's claim that "he was held captive by the Franks and put to work in the trenches of the fortress of Tripoli (now in Lebanon), says, "however, this story, like many of his other “autobiographical” anecdotes, is considered highly suspect". Thus, we ought to be careful about presenting details from his works as accurate, historical details. I'm concerned about that interweaving I see. Is there a way to (a) separate out what is known for certain about his travels from what he writes about in his works, and (b) present both in a way that makes it clear which is certain and which is merely what he writes about. Or are you not worried about this? (Perhaps some writer has already investigated and written about all this.)

• I read in the Britannica article that the Gulistan is mainly prose but includes some poems, so the fact that poems from the Gulistan are included in the WP article should not be a problem.

• I notice in the Britannica article that both "Bustan" and "Gulistan" are spelled with "u", not "o".

• I notice that the name of the school he attended as a young man is spelled differently in the Britannica article and the WP article. Britannica has "Neẓāmīyeh College" while the WP article has "an-Nizamiyya center of knowledge". I don't know if there is anything that we need to do about this.

• There is a slight discrepancy in what I quoted above from Britannica: "he was held captive by the Franks and put to work in the trenches of the fortress of Tripoli (now in Lebanon)" and what is in the Biography section of the WP article: "Saadi was captured by Crusaders at Acre where he spent seven years as a slave digging trenches outside its fortress. He was later released after the Mamluks paid ransom for Muslim prisoners being held in Crusader dungeons". Assuming "the Franks" and "Crusaders" are the same people, is "Tripoli" the same as "Acre"? CorinneSD (talk) 17:24, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

• Exactly, Brittanica says only the travelling to Central Asia, India and being held by crusaders as highly suspected information mentioned only in his autobio. It doesn't make any mention of his Mecca trip but the second link I provided in the above section, calls it doubtful. Can you manage doing this rewrite? From this page under the Biography section, what should be rewritten to show this is only this second-last para and a small segment from the second para in the article:

Saadi mentions honey-gatherers in Azerbaijan, fearful of Mongol plunder. He finally returns to Persia where he meets his childhood companions in Isfahan and other cities. At Khorasan Saadi befriends a Turkic Emir named Tughral. Saadi joins him and his men on their journey to Sindh where he meets Pir Puttur, a follower of the Persian Sufi grand master Shaikh Usman Marvandvi (1117–1274). He also refers in his writings about his travels with a Turkic Amir named Tughral in Sindh (Pakistan across the Indus and Thar), India (especially Somnath, where he encounters Brahmans), and Central Asia (where he meets the survivors of the Mongol invasion in Khwarezm). Tughral hires Hindu sentinels. Tughral later enters service of the wealthy Delhi Sultanate, and Saadi is invited to Delhi and later visits the Vizier of Gujarat. During his stay in Gujarat, Saadi learns more about the Hindus and visits the large temple of Somnath, from which he flees due to an unpleasant encounter with the Brahmans.

At Halab, Saadi joins a group of Sufis who had fought arduous battles against the Crusaders. Saadi was captured by Crusaders at Acre where he spent seven years as a slave digging trenches outside its fortress. He was later released after the Mamluks paid ransom for Muslim prisoners being held in Crusader dungeons. After the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 by Hulegu and the Ilkhanate Horde, Saadi visited Jerusalem and then set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. It is believed that he may have also visited Oman and other lands south of the Arabian Peninsula..

• Okay.
• Good, I already fixed that with this edit anyway.
• The second link also spells it as "Nezamiyeh", so I guess that's the way to go.
• From both Brittanica and the second link, I conclude those crusaders allegedly captured him at some place (Article says Acre, B says nothing, the other link says North Africa) but was forced to work at a fortress in Tripoli (both B and the link agree with this). Since we are anyway suppose to treat this with caution, we could merely just state something like He claims he was captured by the Franks and forced to work in Tripoli -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Ugog, that last suggestion is good. Regarding which parts of his writings are "suspect", you didn't read to the end of the sentence in the Britannica article:

"He refers in his work to travels in India and Central Asia, but these cannot be confirmed. He claimed that he was held captive by the Franks and put to work in the trenches of the fortress of Tripoli (now in Lebanon); however, this story, like many of his other “autobiographical” anecdotes, is considered highly suspect." [italics mine]]

This last clause does not refer only to his travels in India and Central Asia. It refers to any of his "autobiographical" anecdotes (the quotation marks around "autobiographical" suggest that they might not really be autobiographical but could be fictional or quasi-fictional).

Regarding paraphrasing that section of material you quoted, above, I think it is somewhat silly to paraphrase literature, or at least such a large chunk of literature. I think it would be better to select one or two episodes from the Bustan and/or Gulistan (perhaps prose, since there are already a few verses in the article) and quote them. They are delightful to read. A paraphrase wouldn't do them justice. Regarding what is really known about his travels, I think a brief summary of where he went would suffice. CorinneSD (talk) 16:30, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Hmm...a good point, paraphrasing (like how the article is now) doesn't seem as good as stating excerpts directly. I like your idea and would like to see these new changes. I assume you are using the pdfs of both B and G provided by one of the references in the article. Sincerely, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 18:27, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

While I await your further comments, I realize I had forgotten about this last comment of yours. I didn't know if you wanted me to choose excerpts or if you would like to do it. CorinneSD (talk) 17:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Go ahead with copyediting his Biography section by splitting the facts and the anecdotes. You'll also be better at doing the selecting the quotations part. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Maintenance tags and Bakhtiari mention

Removing the tags was fine, no need to be so strict about it. If you feel the issue is addressed, then by all means remove it. The only main problem left in this article is the sourcing part.

I undid that edit about the mention his parents and Bakhtiari people because of it being unsourced. If he was indeed that notable for it, then those few references which we have would have stated it. Till then, I citing WP:BURDEN. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 18:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

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