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Court painters of Herat, 1427, 'A lady offers a cool drink to the poet Sa'di' (detail), Prince Baysunghur's Rose Garden (Gulistan) by Sa`di, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Per 119.36, CC BY 4.0 · Detail of the poet Saadi from the painting 'A lady offers a cool drink to the poet Sa'di', a full-page miniature in Prince Baysunghur's copy of the Gulistan (Rose Garden), made at the Timurid court in Herat and dated 830 AH / 1427, about 135 years after his death; Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Per 119.36 (verso). The library's own record titles the scene 'A lady offers a cool drink to the poet Sa'di' and describes the poet of the anecdote; the individual painters of the manuscript (Amir Khalil, Khwaja Ghiyathuddin, Khwaja Ata and Mawlana Shihab) are not matched to specific paintings by the library. This is a later, imagined depiction of a figure within a narrative scene, not a likeness from life, and it is shown as a detail of that scene (the lady in the doorway is cropped away). It was taken from the library's public IIIF image at full resolution: the original painting-folio image is 4,773 x 7,749 pixels, the cropped region used is 700 x 1,500 pixels, and it was downscaled once to 560 x 1,200 pixels; nothing was upscaled. Rights basis: the painting is a 2D work from 1427 and is in the public domain by age everywhere; the Chester Beatty Library's live Copyright page states that digital images of its collection objects are released under CC BY 4.0 unless otherwise listed, and the Per 119.36 record lists only the library as owner with no separate restriction. Caveats recorded honestly: the library's item pages are behind an anti-bot challenge, so the record was read through its public IIIF manifest; an older library strategy document mentioned a non-commercial licence, which the current Copyright page supersedes; the credit to the library is given as the CC BY 4.0 licence asks. · Public domain (1427 painting; reproduction released by the Chester Beatty Library under CC BY 4.0)
poet · Medieval
Saadi Shirazi
1210–1291
Known For
literarycultural
Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.
Key Achievements
One of the greatest figures in classical Persian literature, he completed the Bustan (The Orchard, 1257), a verse collection of ethical tales, and the Gulistan (The Rose Garden, 1258), mainly prose with inserted poems, the two works for which he is best known.
He was also a celebrated lyric poet and writer of odes, whose ghazals and qasidas, a mirror-for-princes treatise, prose pieces and Arabic poems are gathered in his collected works, making him, in Britannica's words, the most widely admired writer in the world of Iranian culture.
His poetry spread across the Persian-speaking world within decades of his death: it impressed the Delhi poets Amir Khosrow and Hasan Sijzi, the Gulistan was translated into Turkish in Anatolia, and his works were taken up by European Romantic readers in the nineteenth century.
Moments That Reveal Them
After some thirty years away from Shiraz he completed the Bustan in late 1257 and the Gulistan a year later, the two dates the Encyclopaedia Iranica calls the most reliable in his biography; one is mostly verse, the other mainly prose with inserted poems.
This is consistent with a writer working comfortably across forms, though the surviving record says little about how he chose between them. Cross-Domain Range
Back in Shiraz he wrote poems for successive Salghurid and Il-khanid officials, giving counsel as well as praise, while apparently never joining the court in a formal post, and reportedly living in a Sufi hospice.
This is consistent with a poet who adjusted to changing circumstances while keeping some independence of position, though the sources do not document his reasons. Adaptability
Turning Points
As an adolescent, probably around 1223-24, he left Shiraz to continue his studies at the Nizamiyya college in Baghdad, the start of a long period of study and travel that ended with his return to Shiraz about 1257 as an already famous poet.
This is consistent with a commitment to formal learning early in life, though the account rests partly on his own works, which scholars treat cautiously. Mastery Orientation
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Sources
- Saadi (Q170302), verified live via the Wikidata API (2026-11-02): label 'Saadi', description 'Persian poet', birth dates recorded as 1210, 1213, 1175 and 1184 and death dates 1291 and 1292 (the item itself reflects the scholarly disagreement), Korean label 사디. Orientation only; not used as support for any row. The 1210 birth year used here follows the modern scholarly consensus reported by the Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Saʿdī' (full article read, about 600 words). CANONICAL SIGNIFICANCE SOURCE: Persian poet, one of the greatest figures in classical Persian literature; the Bustan (1257, verse) and the Gulistan (1258, mainly prose with inserted short poems) are his best-known works; also remembered as a great panegyrist and lyricist, with odes and ghazals, six prose treatises attributed to him and works in Arabic; 'the most widely admired writer in the world of Iranian culture'; the article stresses that his 'autobiographical' anecdotes, such as the captivity at Tripoli, are considered highly suspect and that travels to India and Central Asia cannot be confirmed.
- Paul E. Losensky, 'Saʿdi', Encyclopaedia Iranica (2000, updated 2015; full article read, about 4,300 words). Scholarly examination of the sources for his biography: little is known with certainty and the first-person anecdotes in the Bustan and Golestan are often fictionalized or cast for rhetorical effect; the two firm dates are the completion of the Bustan (1257) and Golestan (1258); a birth around 1209-10 is the modern consensus; studied in Baghdad, travelled for some thirty years, returned to Shiraz around 1257; wrote for Salghurid and Il-khanid officials, lived in contact with ruling circles but apparently never joined the court formally; his poetry spread across the Persian-speaking world and impressed Amir Khosrow and Hasan Sijzi in India and was translated into Turkish in Anatolia; the 22-section collected works (Kolliyat) in Persian and Arabic, verse and prose. CRITICAL / COUNTER-VOICE on the evidence itself.
- University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections, 'Gulistan wa Bustan (The Rose Garden and the Fruit Garden)', Languages of the East digital exhibit, manuscript MS 043 (page read in full, about 500 words). Dates the Bustan to 1257 and the Gulistan to 1258, summarizes the ten ethical chapters of the Bustan and the eight chapters of the Gulistan, describes the 1615 manuscript and notes the works' resurgence in nineteenth-century European Romantic circles. Used for orientation and the structure of the works.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition (1911), 'Sa'di' (read via Wikisource, about 1,500 words). Dated narrative life that treats his own first-person anecdotes as biography (birth about 1184, thirty years in Baghdad, a long itinerary through India and Africa, captivity by the Franks, a quarrelsome marriage). Read as a contrast to the modern Iranica and Britannica treatments; none of its biographical claims is used for any row.
- Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, record Per 119.36 'A lady offers a cool drink to the poet Sa'di, from Prince Baysunghur's Rose Garden (Gulistan) by Sa`di' (Herat, 1427), read through the library's public IIIF record, together with the library's live Copyright page stating CC BY 4.0 as the default licence for digital images of its collection objects. Used for the portrait only, not for any trait row.