Saadi

(c. 1213 - c. 1291)

Born around the turn of the thirteenth century to a family of religious scholars said to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad, Saadi studied at the nezamiyeh in Baghdad. After the Mongol invasion of Persia he wandered through Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq for thirty years, returning to Shiraz in 1256. In the two years that followed his return, he wrote the Gulistan, a collection of stories and personal anecdotes, and the Bustan, a verse work on Muslim virtues.