The Gulistan of Shaikh Sa'di Shirazi

Thirteenth-century Persian poet, Shaikh Sa'di Shirazi's classic twin-volume Gulistan (Rose Garden) and Bostan (The Orchard) offer anecdotes (hikayats) in prose and poetry comprising words of wisdom, including political advice on responsibilities of rulers and examples of good or bad governance. Written in a period of political flux caused by violent emergence of Changez Khan's Mongol hordes, which created widespread anxieties and horrendous bloodbath, Sa'di's work provides valuable insights on a whole gamut of themes and issues relevant even in modern times. Politically, good work is remembered in posterity and history, bad is mocked and forgotten.

There has been a wide admiration for Shaikh Sa'di and his literary masterpieces in India since his own lifetime, the tumultuous thirteenth century, when poets like Amir Khusrau and Amir Hasan Sijzi proudly followed his style. The lasting appreciation for Sa'di continues with publication of translations of his work, including this reprint of a late-nineteenth-century English translation of Gulistan by Major R.P. Anderson. This book will be of much interest to scholars of Persian language and literature, norms of comportment and political ideals in medieval and early modern Iran, Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent.

Major R.P. Anderson served in the Lucknow Garrison of the English East India Company during the siege of 1857.

Raziuddin Aquil teaches medieval and early modern history in the University of Delhi.