Document Type : Research Article / Original Article
Authors
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran
Abstract
Saadi's Gulistan, which contains the highest number of Persian proverbs of any single work and served as a primary educational text in Iranian maktabkhaneh (traditional schools) for centuries, played a crucial role in shaping this ethic. This article, using a grounded theory method, examined Saadi's social ethics in his book Gulistan, arriving at the concept of "social service" as the ethical type. Saadi must be considered one of the greatest architects of an "ethics of service" in Persian literature. With rare skill, he presented mystical and ethical concepts in both prose and poetry, offering them to the general public in a simple and enduring manner.
The mystical-ethical perspective on "serving the people" (khedmat-e khalq), evident in Saadi's works and the Islamic-Iranian mystical tradition, is not merely a spiritual teaching; it has had profound social and ethical impacts on the structure and dynamics of society. These impacts can be outlined in three main areas: strengthening social solidarity, reducing inequality and injustice, and shaping the collective spirit of society.
Service to the people, which has played an important role in Iranian history, has been accompanied by diverse and multifaceted cultural and structural developments, with endowments (waqf), Sufi lodges (khanqah), and religious alms (khums and zakat) being prominent examples. In Saadi's thought, serving the people creates a solidarity among members of society that is distinct from the superficial and self-interested solidarities of the modern world.
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