Customer Reviews

The Rose Garden (The Gulistan) of Shekh Muslihu'd-Din Sadi of Shiraz

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Although the publication date says 1979, this edition is not a new translation of Sa'di's "Gulistan," but a reprint of the one made by Eastwick in 1852.

As a westerner interested in learning about other cultures, I learned about this book and wanted to read it. Some of the books from Asian writers who have read have suffered because of their patronizing approach to the writers and their cultures but that is not so in this case. Sadi's collection of moral stories admixed with his beautiful poetry is a wonderul inroduction to Sufist philosophy.
It's best to indulge in small doses as i is as powerful as poetry in any language.

While the Mathnawi of Rumi is pretty much well known to the west (sadly to some extent for the wrong reasons) and popular amongst many of the "supermarket spirituality" school of thought largely due to re-prints and miss prints of Nicholson's great translation the Gulistan and Bostan of Shaikh Said are sadly very little known.

The book in many ways is similar to the Mathnawi in that in a prose style, it is a collection of moral stories, wise words and tales. It is not something you would pick up and read from start to finish but rather refer to and contemplate upon. Anyone familiar with Eastern books of wisdom (or even say for example Aesop's Fables or Canterbury Tales) will appreciate this book.

The translation is a little dated but well done and easy to read and follow. This book was once a popular study guide in the East (at a time when wisdom was something that was favoured and cherished) It comes with a biography of Shaikh Sadi and a little background to the book. It does come with an introduction by Idrees Shah (of what value that is make up your own mind. I for one am a little tired of his 'anti Turk' introductions to books he has published with his name on the front as though he wrote them or translated them himself) The one benefit however with books published by Shah is that they are fairly cheap!