Saadi Surprise…

While I was in Iran giving a series of lectures for the Commonwealth Club of California, our group ran into these young Afghan refugees in Shiraz at the serene shrine of the 13th century poet Saadi (whose humanistic poetry adorns the United Nations). Suspecting that they likely had many verses of Sufi poetry memorized (like my little friends in Afghanistan), I asked them if they would recite some Persian poetry for us. Happily, they obliged, and treated us all to some mystic morsels from the poetry of Rumi. It was the most perfect Persian surprise.