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Sa’di of Shiraz (1258) taken out of his poems/prose Shiraz
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Abu-Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi, known as Sadi of Shiraz, born 1210 in Shiraz; died 1291, was a major Persian poet and prose writer. He is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts. Saadi's works reflect upon the lives of ordinary Iranians suffering displacement, agony and conflict during the turbulent times of the Mongol invasion. Sa'di's best known works are Bustan (The Orchard-in verse) completed in 1257 and Gulistan (The Rose Garden-in prose) completed in 1258. The Africans he writes about are servants and slaves he met.

Taken from: A.J.J.J. Arberry: Classical Persian Literature.

 

And many other books

….

The fire of Morning fell on cindery Night,

And in a moment all the world was bright.

As though mid Negro swarms in Zanzibar

Stepped sudden forth a bleu-eyed fair Tatar,

 

For all your efforts the branch of the willow will not blossom, nor will a bath make the Zangi white.

Taken from: Morals pointed and tales adorned. Author: By Sadi, G. M. Wickens

And what did I see? A black man, long as midwinter-night.

In his embrace a girl lay, like the moon,

Into whose lips he’d sunk his teeth;

(Bilgis’ afreet [demon], you’d have said he was:

In ugliness a very model for the devil!)

So tightly he’d taken her within his hold

That you might think the day was covered by the night.

The 'admonition to good behaviour' seized my skirt:

Busy bodying became a fire and took firm hold of me;

This way and that , I sought out sticks and stones

And then cried: 'You who fear not God, lacking good-name and honour!

And so by railing and abuse, by uproar and deterrent,

I, dawnlike, parted white from black:

That baleful cloud from o'er the garden passed,

That egg appeared from underneath the crow!

At my incantation the one of demon-aspect leapt away,

But she of pari-figure by the hand now clung to me:

'Hypocritical prayer-mat spreader wearer of the darvish habit,

Man of black deeds, world-buyer, seller of the Faith!

Full many a day my heart's been gone from out my hand

By reason of this person, my soul on his account in turmoil;

Now, with my raw bonne bouche so nicely cooked,

You from my palate dash it forth all hot!'

Aloud she cried for justice, called for help:

'Compassion's overthrown, no mercy's left!

Are no more young men left to render help,

To get me justice from a man thus senile,

Who, at his age, is unashamed To touch a woman's veil,

and she unknown to him?'

So did she clamour, held fast to my skirt ,

While, for dishonour , my head within my collar stayed;

Then, in my mind's ear, my intelligence whispered

To come forth from my clothes, like garlic peeled !

Naked, from the woman I ran thence, therefore

(For better my clothes within her hand than I!);

Some time thereafter she chanced to pass me by:

'Know you me?' she said; to her I said: 'Hands off!

I at your hands forswore

Ever again to meddle around with interference.

Such things will not confront a man

Who sits intelligently at his own business;

From such a nasty situation, this counsel I’ve derived:

Henceforth to treat as unseen what I’ve seen.

Restain your tongue, if you possess intelligence, good-sence:

Speak as does Da’di, or silent remain

Taken from: https://jpl.ut.ac.ir/?_action=xml&article=64376

 

In a verses of one of his odes he uses the word Attabi garment and Attabi donkey (Zebra).

A foul checks the attabi (zebra) hundred times.

He is wearing the donkey attabi (cloth).

ابلهـــی صـــد عتابـی خارا

 گـــر بپوشــد خـری است عتّابی 

Left Sa'di in a Rose-garden wearing Attabi garments.

Taken from: The Gulistan Or Rose Garden of Sa'di By Muslih-uddin Sa'di, David Rosenbaum

 

Knowest thou not why I in foreign countries roamed about for a long time? I went away from the distress of the Turks, because I saw the world entangled like the hair of negroes; they were all human beings, but like wolves, sharp-clawed, for shedding blood.

 

Resolved to bestow Egypt upon the meanest of his slaves, Harun al-Rashid (3) gave it to a stupid negro… whom he made governor of Egypt but his intellect and discrimination were so limited that when….Egyptian agriculturalists complained ….that they had sown cotton … and that an untimely rain had destroyed it he replied; You ought to have sown wool.

 

How well the brocader's apprentice said when he portrayed the anka, the elephant and the giraffes, From my hand there came not one form (surat) the pattern (naksh) of which the Teacher from above had not first depicted.

 

Sa'dí's travels were very extensive. He visited Balkh, Ghazna, the Panjál Somnath, Gujerat, Yemen, the Hijáz and other parts of Arabia, Abyssinia, Syria, especially Damascus and Baalbekk (Ba'labakk), North Africa, and Asia Minor.

Taken from: Morals pointed and tales adorned. By Sadi, G. M. Wickens

 

Do you not see that beasts, both wild and tame, Are cast into the snare merely by greed to eat? The giraffe, which above all wild things lifts its head, Falls in the snare for eating's sake – just like a mouse.

 

Showing a giraffe, and other animals, from a scene of Salamon enthroned in his Kulliyat.

(1) Darvish: an ascetic Muslim

(2) Sakhrah: literally rock

(3) Harun al-Rashid: (763 – 809) was the fifth Abbasid Caliph.