The medieval thinker Mahmoud Shabestari’s poem, “The Secret Rose Garden”, is one of the classic Sufi works. It was an important source of knowledge for Islamic mystics for many centuries and contributed to the development of philosophy during the Safavid era. The work still retains its relevance: Muhammad Iqbal, the great thinker and reformer of Islam, wrote a poetic response to this text, while the religious leaders of the post-revolutionary Iran referred to it in their works and delivered lectures on the Shabestari’s masterpiece.
The published work “The Secret Rose Garden (Persian text, translation, commentary)” was prepared by A. A. Lukashev, senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It includes the Persian text of the poem edited by Kazim Dizfuliyan, a translation of this text, and a detailed commentary explaining all the terms, complicated places, characters and discrepancies in different editions.
It should be noted that in 2019 A.A. Lukashev’s work, “The world of meaning in few words. Mahmud Shabestari’s philosophical views in the context of the times”, was published. It preceded the edition of “The Secret Rose Garden” and described the cultural context of the poem.
