Maqamat al-Hariri's Impression on Saadi's Golestan and Bustan

Saadi who is renowned as the "King of the Realm of Literature", in addition to his own innate sense and inherent faculty, benefited from various sources, for his eloquence. One of these sources and references has been the unique masterpiece of the Arabic letters, Maqamat al-Hariri by Abu-Mohammed Al-Qasim Hariri Basri (446-516 H = 1054-1122 AD). This work, owing to its inclusion of nice and astonishing anecdotes, abundance of figures of speech, esthetic requisites of speech and frequent usage of the Qur'anic Verses, Hadith, Arabic poems and proverbs, attracted Saadi's attention. As Saadi used to study at the Nezamieh school of Baghdad, he became familiar with the book. Saadi's attention to Maqamat is to the extent that he has mentioned it in Golestan and Bustan, in a number of occasions. It is worth mentioning that the Persian literary figures and poets had never deemed themselves to be needless of Maqamat al-Hariri; however, it seems that Saadi has been interested in the book, more than anyone else. As a consequence, in the Persian poetry and literary works, the strongest inspiration from the book can be seen in Saadi's words. As a matter of fact, the rhetorical style of Saadi'sGolestan is similar to Maqamat to a great extent. As Bahar, Malekosho'ara( poet laureate) asserts " Golerstan is the second Maqamat al-Hamidi" which is, in turn, regarded as an utter imitation of Maqamat al-Hariri. In short, Saadi has mentioned some points in Golestan and Bustan which are indicative of his attention to Maqamat al-Hariri. The inspirations of Saadi from Maqamat al-Hariri are of two categories: The first category includes verbal inspirations, so that we can sometimes see that Saadi quotes some words from Maqamat al-Hariri, which are used in the Persian literature for the first time, e.g. juxtaposing the two words of /ʔeʃa/ (=the night prayer)and /ʔæʃa/ (=supper) or the two words of /ʤəʊʔ/ (=hunger) and /hoʤəʊʔ/ (=sleep) and sometimes a complete phrase has been cited, e.g. /be hokm-e zæruræt/ (=as the need arises). The second category, which is more important than the first, is the citation of similar concepts, which sometimes includes a phrase, e.g. " practical effect on distant people" (making some people cry) or lack of competence in asking and answering questions, in which Saadi renders Hariri's word "missing all arrows in the quiver"to "He dropped the arrow of the reason quiver". And sometimes, Saadi utilizes the gist of a tale narrated by Hariri, and develops it very delicately and artistically by changing the characters and sets it in a new design, as if it has happened to him himself, e.g. the Euphrates Narrative of Maqamat al-Hariri, mentioned in the 4th chapter of Bustan, under the topic of "Anecdote of the Scholar".