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Sa�di of Shiraz (1221) taken out of his poems
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Taken from: A.J.J.J. Arberry: Classical Persian Literature.
And many other books
�.
The fire of Morning fell on cindery Night,
And in a moment all the world was bright.
As though mid Negro swarms in Zanzibar
Stepped sudden forth a bleu-eyed fair Tatar,
For all your efforts the branch of the willow will not blossom, nor will a bath make the Zangi white.
(describing a black man embracing a white woman) so tightly he�d taken her within his hold, that you might think the day was covered by the night. (when the black man releases the women) The baleful cloud from o�er the garden passed, that egg appeared from underneath the crow.
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At that time the desire of the negro was libidinous, his lust overcame him, his love leapt up and he took of the seal of her virginity��(Gulistan)
Resolved to bestow Egypt upon the meanest of his slaves, Harun al-Rashid gave it to a stupid negro� whom he made governor of Egypt but his intellect and discrimination were so limited that when�.Egyptian agriculturalists complained �.that they had sown cotton � and that an untimely rain had destroyed it he replied; You ought to have sown wool.
How well the brocader's apprentice said when he portrayed the anka, the elephant and the giraffes, From my hand there came not one form (surat) the pattern (naksh) of which the Teacher from above had not first depicted.
Sa'd�'s travels were very extensive. He visited Balkh, Ghazna, the Panj�l Somnath, Gujerat, Yemen, the Hij�z and other parts of Arabia, Abyssinia, Syria, especially Damascus and Baalbekk (Ba'labakk), North Africa, and Asia Minor.
