Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi (), more commonly known as Sanai, was a poet from Ghazni. He lived his life in the Ghaznavid Empire, also encompassing present day Afghanistan. He was born in 1080 and died between 1131 and 1141.[C.E. Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids, 108.]
Life
Sanai was a
Sunni Muslim,
[Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia from the Earliest Times Until Firdawsh, 543 pp., Adamant Media Corporation, 2002, , (see p.437)] connected with the court of the
Ghaznavid Bahram-shah who ruled 1117 – 1157.
[Ghulam Abbas Dalal, Ethics in Persian Poetry. (Abhinav Publications, 1995), 95.]
Works
He wrote an enormous quantity of mystical verse, of which
The Walled Garden of Truth or
The Hadiqat al Haqiqa (حدیقه الحقیقه و شریعه الطریقه) is his master work and the first Persian mystical epic of Sufism. Dedicated to Bahram Shah, the work expresses the poet's ideas on God, love, philosophy and reason.
["Sanāʾī." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 Jul. 2008 .]
For almost 900 years The Walled Garden of Truth has been consistently read as a classic and employed as a Sufi textbook. According to Major T. Stephenson: "Sanai’s fame has always rested on his Hadiqa; it is the best known and in the East by far the most esteemed of his works; it is in virtue of this work that he forms one of the great trio of Sufi teachers — Sanai, Attar, Jalaluddin Rumi." Sanai taught that lust, greed and emotional excitement stood between humankind and divine knowledge, which was the only true reality ( haqq). Love ( ishq) and a social conscience are for him the foundation of religion; mankind is asleep, living in a desolate world. To Sanai common religion was only habit and ritual.
Sanai's poetry had a tremendous influence upon Persian literature. He is considered the first poet to use the qasidah (ode), ghazal (lyric), and the masnavi (rhymed couplet) to express the philosophical, mystical and ethical ideas of Sufism.
Influence and legacy
Poetic influence
Rumi acknowledged Sanai and
Attar Neyshapuri as his two great inspirations, saying, "
Attar Neyshapuri is the soul and Sanai its two eyes, I came after Sanai and Attar."
The Walled Garden of Truth was also a model for
Nizami Ganjavi's
Makhzan al-Asrar (Treasury of Secrets).
The Ḥadiqat al-ḥaqiqa is not only one of the first of a long line of Persian didactical maṯnawis, it is also one of the most popular works of its kind as the great number of copies made throughout the centuries attest. Its great impact on Persian literature is evidenced by the numerous citations from the poem occurring in mystical as well as profane works. It has been taken as a model by several other poets, including Neẓāmi, ʿAṭṭār, Rumi, Awḥadi, and Jāmi.
"
Modern cultural references
There is a reference to Hakim Sanai's poetry near the end of the 2017 film
The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro. In the final scene of the movie, the narrator recites a few verses of poetry without specific attribution, although there is a reference in the film's credit sequence to "Adapted works by Hakim Sanai." Researching for the Library of Congress blog
From the Catbird Seat, Peter Armenti confirmed with the assistance of
Catbird blog readers that the poem spoken at the end of
The Shape of Water is del Toro's adaptation of Priya Hemenway's translation of an original poem by Hakim Sanai. Hemenway's translation appears in
The Book of Everything: Journey of the Heart’s Desire : Hakim Sanai’s Walled Garden of Truth (2002).
Quotations
Sanai's poetry stresses the possibility of an "awakening":
His means for this awakening is surrender to God, his poetry has been called "The essential fragrance of the path of love". He hits out at human hypocrisy and folly:[Osho, Unio Mystica, Vol 1, Chapter 1, Rajneesh Foundation International]
See also
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List of Persian poets and authors
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Persian literature
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Rumi
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Nizami Ganjavi
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Attar of Nishapur
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Notable Sanai researchers:
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Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani
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Mohammad Taghi Modarres Razavi
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Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi
Notes
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"Hadiqat al-Haqiqa wa Shari'at al-Tariqa" In Encyclopædia Iranica by J.T.P. De Bruijn [1]
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E.G. Browne. Literary History of Persia. (Four volumes, 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing). 1998.
-
Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. 1968 .
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Bo Utas, A Persian Sufi Poem: Vocabulary and terminology. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, Curzon Press, 1977.
Further reading
