He who knows not his own soul, how shall he know the soul of another? and he who only knows hand and foot, how shall he know the Godhead? The prophets are unequal to understanding this matter why dost thou foolishly claim to do so? When thou hast brought forward a demonstration of this subject, then thou wilt know the pure essence of the faith otherwise what have faith and thou in common? thou hadst best be silent, and speak not folly. What real merit or punishment can there be? It will be swept along, as in a boat, asleep. While mankind remains mere baggage in the world
Sanai's poetry had a tremendous influence upon Persian literature. To Sanai common religion was only habit and ritual. Love ( Ishq) and a social conscience are for him the foundation of religion mankind is asleep, living in a desolate world. Stephenson: "Sanai’s fame has always rested on his Hadiqa it is the best known and in the East by far the most esteemed of his works it is in virtue of this work that he forms one of the great trio of Sufi teachers - Sanai, Attar, Jalaluddin Rumi." Sanai taught that lust, greed and emotional excitement stood between humankind and divine knowledge, which was the only true reality ( Haqq). įor close to 900 years The Walled Garden of Truth has been consistently read as a classic and employed as a Sufi textbook. Dedicated to Bahram Shah, the work expresses the poet's ideas on God, love, philosophy and reason. He wrote an enormous quantity of mystical verse, of which The Walled Garden of Truth or The Hadiqat al Haqiqa (حدیقه الحقیقه و شریعه الطریقه) is his master work and the first Persian mystical epic of Sufism.
He was connected with the court of the Ghaznavid Bahram-shah who ruled 1117 – 1157.