This article provides a critical assessment of contemporary Iranian scholarship on Saadi’s political thought, focusing on four influential works by Homa Katouzian, Abbas Milani and Maryam Mirzadeh, Rouhollah Eslami, and Seyyed Javad Tabatabaei. The central question concerns how Saʿdī is represented in these readings as a political thinker and how his relationship to politics is interpreted. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical hermeneutics, and emphasizing the dialectical relation between explanation and understanding, the article demonstrates that although Saʿdī lacks a coherent and systematic political theory, his works embody a form of practical, people-centered, and realist political rationality. The findings indicate that politics in Saʿdī’s thought is grounded less in abstract theorization than in lived experience, critical ethics, context-sensitive advisory writing, and resistance to injustice. These features render Saʿdī a significant resource for the rethinking of indigenous political reflection in Iran.
Extended Abstract
This article offers a critical and interpretive examination of contemporary Iranian scholarship on the political thought of Saadi of Shiraz, one of the most influential figures in classical Persian literature. While Saadi is traditionally celebrated as a moralist, poet, and educator, his political ideas have increasingly attracted scholarly attention in recent decades, particularly within debates on indigenous political thought, ethics of power, and the relationship between morality and governance in Iranian intellectual history. The central argument of this article is that Saadi does indeed possess a coherent form of political rationality, albeit not in the form of a systematic political theory. Rather, his political thought is articulated through practical wisdom, ethical admonition, narrative strategies, and experiential realism. By analyzing major contemporary interpretations of Saadi, this study seeks to clarify the methodological assumptions behind these readings and to evaluate their explanatory power and limitations.

Introduction
The question of whether classical Persian literary figures can be considered political thinkers has long been a matter of debate in Iranian intellectual history. In recent years, this debate has intensified with regard to Saadi, whose works—particularly Bustan and Golestan—contain numerous reflections on power, justice, tyranny, governance, and social order. Contemporary scholars have attempted to situate Saadi within broader discussions of political ethics, statecraft, and social criticism. However, these attempts have often produced divergent and sometimes conflicting interpretations. Some scholars view Saadi as a pragmatic moralist operating within an authoritarian political culture, while others emphasize his humanism, proto-liberal tendencies, or critical stance toward power. This article argues that such divergences stem less from ambiguities in Saadi’s texts than from differences in interpretive frameworks and methodological presuppositions adopted by scholars. Accordingly, the article aims to critically assess selected influential Iranian studies on Saadi’s political thought, focusing on the works of Homa Katouzian, Abbas Milani and Maryam Mirzadeh, Ruhollah Eslami, and Javad Tabatabaei. By applying Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical hermeneutics, the article seeks to move beyond reductive readings and to propose a more balanced understanding of Saadi’s political rationality.

Materials & Methods
The methodological framework of this study is grounded in Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical theory, particularly his tripartite model of interpretation: explanation, understanding, and appropriation. This approach allows the text to be analyzed independently of authorial intention while preserving its historical specificity and opening it to contemporary meaning. In the explanatory phase, the article examines the structural, linguistic, and narrative features of Saadi’s texts as they are employed by modern interpreters. In the interpretive phase, these features are situated within broader intellectual, social, and political contexts, including traditions of advice literature (andarznāmeh) and Islamic ethical thought. Finally, in the phase of appropriation, the study evaluates how Saadi’s political insights can be meaningfully related to contemporary debates on power, ethics, and governance. The materials analyzed consist of key contemporary Iranian monographs and articles on Saadi’s political thought. These works are treated not merely as secondary commentaries but as interpretive acts shaped by distinct theoretical commitments—such as historical sociology, humanism, structuralism, and intellectual history. The study does not seek to rank these interpretations hierarchically but rather to assess their internal coherence, methodological rigor, and capacity to illuminate Saadi’s political vision.

Discussion & Results
The analysis reveals that contemporary interpretations of Saadi can be grouped into four major approaches. Katouzian situates Saadi within the framework of Iranian authoritarianism, emphasizing the absence of stable political institutions and the predominance of moral counsel over legal or constitutional constraints. From this perspective, Saadi emerges as a pragmatic adviser who seeks to humanize power rather than transform political structures. While this reading highlights important historical constraints, it risks reducing Saadi’s political thought to a mere reflection of despotism. Milani and Mirzadeh adopt a humanistic reading, portraying Saadi as a thinker who prioritizes individual dignity, rationality, and ethical autonomy. They argue that Saʿdi anticipates elements of modern humanism by emphasizing compassion, moderation, and the moral responsibility of rulers toward subjects. Although this approach successfully foregrounds Saadi’s ethical universalism, it occasionally projects modern categories onto a premodern context, thereby underestimating the embeddedness of his thought in traditional moral frameworks. Eslami’s structural analysis interprets Saadi’s political thought through the lens of everyday life, identifying recurring patterns related to power, livelihood, pleasure, and religion. This reading underscores Saadi’s realism and attentiveness to lived social relations. However, its emphasis on structural regularities may obscure the narrative and rhetorical dimensions through which Saadi conveys political meaning. Tabatabaei’s intellectual-historical approach highlights Saadi’s innovation within the tradition of advice literature, particularly his departure from abstract moralism toward experiential and situational judgment. This interpretation compellingly situates Saadi within the trajectory of Iranian political decline, yet it tends to subordinate ethical analysis to historical diagnosis. Taken together, these findings suggest that Saadi’s political thought is best understood as a form of practical political rationality that resists systematic codification. His engagement with politics operates through narrative exemplification, ethical critique, and attention to concrete human situations rather than through abstract theory.

Conclusion
This study concludes that Saadi should neither be dismissed as a non-political moralist nor elevated to the status of a modern political theorist. His political thought occupies an intermediate space characterized by ethical realism, narrative reasoning, and critical engagement with power. By applying Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, the article demonstrates that Saadi’s texts retain a surplus of meaning that allows for multiple yet bounded interpretations. A balanced reading must therefore preserve historical distance while enabling contemporary appropriation. Ultimately, Saadi’s political relevance lies in his capacity to articulate a morally grounded critique of power that remains sensitive to human vulnerability and social complexity. Such a perspective can enrich ongoing discussions of indigenous political thought in Iran and offer alternative ways of conceptualizing the relationship between ethics and politics beyond rigid theoretical systems.