Saadi
c. 1210 to c. 1291, Shiraz
The garden and the road. Wisdom, gently offered.
About Saadi
Abu-Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi, known as Saadi, spent decades travelling before returning to Shiraz to write the two books he is remembered for.
The Bustan, finished in 1257, is in verse. The Golestan, finished the year after, alternates prose and poetry and is the book Persian children have learned from for seven centuries. Its lines on the shared body of humankind are inscribed at the United Nations.
اي نفسِ خرّمِ بادِ صبا
از برِ يار آمدهاي، مرحبا!
O joyful breath of the morning wind — you have come from the beloved; welcome!