The Secret Rose Garden

Sad Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari (1288-? ) is one of the most celebrated Persian Sufi poets of the 14th century. He was born in Tabriz in 1288 (687 AH), where he received his education. He became deeply versed in the symbolic terminology of Ibn Arabi. He wrote during a period of Mongol invasions. His most famous work is a mystic text called The Secret Rose Garden (Gulshan-i Riz) written about 1311 in rhyming couplets (Mathnawi). This poem was written in response to twenty six queries concerning Sufi metaphysics posed to him by the great Rukh Al Din Amir Husayn Harawi (d. 1318). It was also the main reference used by François Bernier when explaining Sufism to his European friends (in: Lettre sur le Quietisme des Indes, 1688).