Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

Saadi and Politics: An Evaluation of Contemporary Iranian Research on Saadi's Political Thought

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research

Author

Azizullah Ariafar

Political science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Mashhad, Iran

10.30465/crtls.2025.49059.2845
Abstract
Abstract
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 nonetheless 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.
Keywords: Saadi; political thought; Golestān; Būstān; Iranian despotism; humanism; political advice

Keywords

Keywords: Saadi
political thought
Gulistan
Bustan
Iranian despotism
humanism
political advice

Subjects

Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 21 January 2026

  • Receive Date 21 September 2025
  • Revise Date 27 November 2025
  • Accept Date 06 January 2026

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