Saadi, aka Saadi Shirazi, was born in Shiraz, Iran, in the thirteenth century. He was famous not only for his prose and his poetry but also for his long journeys. He wandered from country to country and wrote about both the spiritual and the practical aspects of life.
Because I had spent most of the first decade of my life traveling, when I returned to Iran at the age of ten, friends and relatives called me "Saadi's Daughter" -- also hinting that my father traveled... and perhaps their way of telling us they had missed us.
In my first draft of Languages & Life Lessons, my introduction started with this translation of a poem by Saadi:
in creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
the name of human you cannot retain."
I changed my introduction because I definitely wanted to include Ferdowsi -- whose poems I recited as a child -- but didn't want to overwhelm readers with Persian literature in the first few pages.
...
Now read it again.
