Alison, you wrote:
>>I guess what's striking is his rationality, as opposed to the mystic, who
in his intoxication drops all his roses and is unable to communicate what he
has experienced.<<
I don't remember if I wrote this in any of my posts when we were talking
about the ghazal, but there is a story that Rumi--who lived about the same
time as Saadi and who absolutely represents the mystical/charismatic side of
Sufi Islam--refused to talk to Saadi when they met because Saadi represented
precisely the more rational side. And there is throughout Saadi's work, at
least as much as I've read so far, a fairly impassioned critique of
mysticism for its own sake--and I am not saying this is what Rumi stood for,
but it is what Saadi argues against--as a practice that is ultimately
worthless because it is divorced from the actual world in which people live,
and the point of gaining knowledge and understanding, including the oneness
with god that is the ultimate goal of Sufi practice, is first to do good in
this world. And it's interesting that both Saadi's great works, the Gulistan
and the Bustan take their titles from the notion of garden, the first a rose
garden and the second an herb garden, like one you would have in your
backyard and that you would take herbs from for cooking and such. Anyway,
just some more ruminations.
And I am off to translate--
Richard
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