CULTURE
TABRIZ WAS ONCE HEART OF CULTURE AND ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION
Talking to reporters, Professor Leonard Lewison said the Azerbaijan region and the city of Tabriz during the Mongol era, until the Safavid dynasty gained suzerainty, was the center of Irano-Islamic civilization.
Participating in the commemoration ceremony of Sheikh Mahmud Shabestari in Tabriz, Lewison described citizen involvement in honoring this renowned mystic as lively and admirable. He said their participation demonstrated they were curious about their past magnificent culture.
Lewison described Shabestari’s The Mystic Rose Garden as masterfully written as other literary and Islamic philosophical works written by Hafiz, Rumi or Eraqi within the realm of Persian literature. "The Mystic Rose Garden" is the best and smallest poetic work about mysticism; Lewison noted the book was a reliable source for the mystics even after the elapse of many years.
Shabestari’s Golshan-e Raz, written in 1311 or possibly 1317, is a poetical expression of his retreat from the temporal world. Consisting of questions and answers about mystical doctrines, the work was introduced into Europe in about 1700; it soon became popular and was translated into German in 1821. European readers often regarded it as the major work of Sufism, and it enjoyed a vogue among Christian followers of mystical theology who shunned ritualism and sought transcendental union with the Divine Being.