Children of Adam

Recently, I was in Iran, the land of mystics, poets and spiritual luminaries. It produced masters of spiritual intellect and Sufi wisdom like Sheikh Saadi Shirazi, Shams Tabrizi, Imam Ghazzali, Sheikh Balkhi, Mulla Sadra, Maruf Karkhi, Abu al-Hassan alKharaqani, Abu Bakr Shibli and Attar Nishapuri among others. They enriched our spiritual vision and built a composite and pluralistic culture imbued in Islamic mysticism, which spread not only in Iran but in the wider world as well. Each of them was a salik, a widely travelled seeker in pursuit of self-realisation that led to broader understanding of the ultimate reality of the creator. In the process of their spiritual discoveries, these seekers produced gems of Islamic mysticism, the world’s greatest Sufi masterpieces.

While travelling in the historical cities of Iran such as Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz, I recalled what I was taught in my childhood days in Indian Sufi semi- naries in the textbooks written by the Islamic mystics and Persian poets. They beautifully explored the universal values and ultimate truths of the mankind. One such exploration was penned down by a famous Persian poet and Sufi philosopher Sheikh Saadi, who hailed from Shiraz.

He collected his inspiring spiritual discoveries in his two books popularly known as Gulistan (the Rose Garden) and Boostan (the Orchard) which later became part of the Sufi textbooks.

One mystical maxim in Gulistan that inspires one and all is entitled Bani Adam, which means: The Sufi anecdote of Bani Adam has such a great appeal in itself that it has been celebrated by the United Nations too.

It has been aptly translated into English: “All human beings are members of one frame, Since all, at first, from the same essence came. When time afflicts a limb with pain The other limbs at rest cannot remain. If thou feel not for other’s misery A human being is no name for thee.”