Persian Literature, Volume 1, Comprising The Shah Nameh | Page 4

his grave to this day is held in much honor. By others he was looked upon as a Mystic. Reading the five hundred or so authentic quatrains one asks, Which is the real Omar? Is it he who sings of wine and of pleasure, who seems to preach a life of sensual enjoyment? or is it the stern preacher, who criticises all, high and low; priest, dervish, and Mystic--yea, even God himself? I venture to say that the real Omar is both; or, rather, he is something higher than is adequately expressed in these two words. The Ecclesiastes of Persia, he was weighed down by the great questions of life and death and morality, as was he whom people so wrongly call "the great sceptic of the Bible." The "_Weltschmerz_" was his, and he fought hard within himself to find that mean way which philosophers delight in pointing out. If at times Omar does preach carpe diem, if he paint in his exuberant fancy the delights of carousing, Fitzgerald is right--he bragged more than he drank. The under-current of a serious view of life runs through all he has written; the love of the beautiful in nature--a sense of the real worth of certain things and the worthlessness of the Ego. Resignation to what is man's evident fate; doing well what every day brings to be done--this is his own answer. It was Job's--it was that of Ecclesiastes.
This same "_Weltschmerz_" is ours to-day; therefore Omar Khayyám is of us beloved. He speaks what often we do not dare to speak; one of his quatrains can be more easily quoted than some of those thoughts can be formulated. And then he is picturesque--picturesque because he is at times ambiguous. Omar seems to us to have been so many things--a believing Moslem, a pantheistic Mystic, an exact scientist (for he reformed the Persian calendar). Such many-sidedness was possible in Islam; but it gives him the advantage of appealing to many and different classes of men; each class will find that he speaks their mind and their mind only. That Omar was also tainted by Sufism there can be no doubt; and many of his most daring flights must be regarded as the results of the greater license which Mystic interpretation gave to its votaries.
By the side of Firdusi the epic poet, and Omar the philosopher, Sa'di the wise man, well deserves a place. His countrymen are accustomed to speak of him simply as "the Sheikh," much more to his real liking than the titles "The nightingale of the groves of Shiraz," or "The nightingale of a Thousand Songs," in which Oriental hyperbole expresses its appreciation. Few leaders and teachers have had the good fortune to live out their teachings in their own lives as had Sa'di. And that life was long indeed. Muharrif al-Din Abdallah Sa'di was born at Shiraz in 1184, and far exceeded the natural span of life allotted to man--for he lived to be one hundred and ten years of age--and much of the time was lived in days of stress and trouble. The Mongols were devastating in the East; the Crusaders were fighting in the West. In 1226 Sa'di himself felt the effects of the one--he was forced to leave Shiraz and grasp the wanderer's staff, and by the Crusaders he was taken captive and led away to Tripoli. But just this look into the wide world, this thorough experience of men and things, produced that serenity of being that gave him the firm hold upon life which the true teacher must always have. Of his own spiritual condition and contentment he says: "Never did I complain of my forlorn condition but on one occasion, when my feet were bare, and I had not wherewithal to shoe them. Soon after, meeting a man without feet, I was thankful for the bounty of Providence to myself, and with perfect resignation submitted to my want of shoes."
Thus attuned to the world, Sa'di escapes the depths of misanthropy as well as the transports of unbridled license and somewhat blustering swagger into which Omar at times fell. In his simplicity of heart he says very tenderly of his own work;--
"We give advice in its proper place, Spending a lifetime in the task. If it should not touch any one's ear of desire, The messenger told his tale; it is enough."
That tale is a long one. His apprenticeship was spent in Arabic Bagdad, sitting at the feet of noted scholars, and taking in knowledge not only of his own Persian Sufism, but also of the science and learning which had been gathered in the home of the Abbaside Caliphs. His journeyman-years took him all through the dominions which were under Arab influence--in Europe, the Barbary States, Egypt, Abyssinia, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor,