Persian calligraphy page from an anthology of poetry by Saadi and Hafez

Bani Adam: Saadi’s Poem, Meaning, and the UN Carpet

Bani Adam (بنی‌آدم) is one of the most quoted passages in Persian literature. In only five lines, Saadi of Shiraz turns the human body into an ethical argument: people share one origin, so another person’s pain cannot be treated as irrelevant.

The poem is often translated as “The children of Adam are limbs of one body.” That captures its central image, but the Persian text has a famous variant, and the poem’s setting inside Saadi’s Golestan adds an important detail. It is not merely a pleasant statement about unity. It is advice about justice, responsibility, and what a person must feel to deserve the name “human.”

Bani Adam in Persian

بنی‌آدم اعضای یکدیگرند
که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند
چو عضوی به درد آورد روزگار
دگر عضوها را نماند قرار
تو کز محنت دیگران بی‌غمی
نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

This is the reading used in the Mohammad Ali Foroughi edition reproduced by Ganjoor’s text of Golestan, chapter 1, story 10.

Transliteration and a close English translation

Transliteration:

Bani-Adam a’zā-ye yekdigarand
Ke dar āfarinesh ze yek goharand
Cho ozvi be dard āvarad ruzegār
Degar ozvhā rā namānad qarār
To k’az mehnat-e digarān bi-ghami
Nashāyad ke nāmat nahand ādami

A close translation:

Adam’s children are members of one another,
for in creation they are of one essence.
When the course of time brings pain to one member,
the other members cannot remain at rest.
You who are unconcerned by the suffering of others—
it is not fitting that they call you human.

No English version can preserve every layer at once. Ozv can mean a bodily limb or a member of a group. Gohar can mean substance, essence, or the precious material from which something is formed. And adami means a human being while echoing Adam in the opening line.

What does “Bani Adam” literally mean?

Bani means children, descendants, or the people belonging to a lineage. Adam is Adam, the shared ancestor in the Abrahamic tradition. Together, Bani Adam means “the children of Adam”—in ordinary English, humankind.

The phrase therefore begins with a claim broader than nationality, religion, class, or dynasty. Saadi does not say that only friends, neighbors, or subjects of one ruler share an essence. He addresses humanity as a single moral family.

“Yekdigar” or “yek peykar”: which version is correct?

Many Iranians learned the first line as:

بنی‌آدم اعضای یک پیکرند

Yek peykar means “one body” or “one frame,” producing the familiar translation “Human beings are limbs of one body.” The other widespread reading, yekdigar, means “one another.”

The difference changes the grammar more than the message. “One body” makes the bodily metaphor explicit in the first line. “Members of one another” delays the full force of that metaphor until Saadi describes one member’s pain disturbing all the rest. The Foroughi text on Ganjoor uses yekdigar, while many recitations and translations prefer yek peykar.

It is best to acknowledge the textual variant rather than declaring that every speaker who learned the other form is simply wrong. Both readings lead into the same next image: pain in one member prevents peace in the others.

Where does the poem appear in Saadi’s work?

Bani Adam is not a separate long poem. It closes story 10 in the first chapter of the Golestan (“Rose Garden”), the chapter concerned with the conduct of kings. In the story, a ruler fears a powerful enemy and asks the narrator for a prayer. The reply is political and practical: show mercy to weak subjects so that a stronger power does not bring harm upon you.

That setting sharpens the verse. Saadi is not asking for passive sympathy alone. He connects fellow feeling to the behavior of rulers and the treatment of vulnerable people. A king who inflicts pain on others cannot claim exemption from the interdependence that binds everyone else.

Encyclopaedia Iranica identifies Saadi as one of the great masters of classical Persian literature and dates the completion of the Golestan to 1258. It also cautions that many first-person episodes in his works are literary constructions rather than reliable autobiography. The ethical lesson is central; whether every narrative detail happened exactly as told is a different question.

Why the body metaphor is so powerful

A body does not hold a meeting before reacting to pain. When one part is injured, the rest adjusts automatically: attention shifts, movement changes, sleep disappears, and the whole person seeks relief. Saadi turns that involuntary response into a standard for moral awareness.

The final line is deliberately severe. He does not merely say that indifference is impolite. He says that someone untouched by the suffering of others is unworthy of being called adami—human. Shared origin creates an obligation to notice and respond.

That is why the passage remains useful in diaspora communities. It can describe mutual aid after a crisis, concern for relatives across borders, support for newcomers, or solidarity with people outside one’s own community. The poem begins in medieval Shiraz but refuses to end at any national boundary.

Is Bani Adam written at the United Nations?

The precise connection is a Persian carpet in the United Nations collection. The UN’s official gift record states that Iran presented the carpet in 2005 in honor of the Dialogue among Civilizations and identifies its inscription with Saadi’s poem. It is more accurate to speak of this documented carpet than to repeat the loose claim that the poem is carved over the main entrance of UN headquarters.

The poem has also entered modern diplomacy. In his official Nowruz message of March 20, 2009, President Barack Obama quoted the opening idea—“The children of Adam are limbs to each other”—while addressing the people and leaders of Iran. The full archived remarks remain available through the Obama White House archive.

How to understand Bani Adam without flattening it

  • It is universal, but not vague. Shared humanity requires a reaction to particular suffering.
  • It is compassionate, but also political. Its original story addresses justice and the conduct of a ruler.
  • It is famous in translation, but its Persian wordplay matters. The movement from Adam to adami frames humanity as both an inheritance and a moral achievement.
  • It is not only about feeling sad. The image of the body suggests attention, adjustment, and response.

A short Persian verse with a long public life

Bani Adam survives because it is compact enough to memorize and demanding enough to revisit. It can be recited at school, woven into a carpet, quoted in diplomacy, written in calligraphy, or spoken during a family conversation about responsibility. Its language is old; its test is immediate: does another person’s pain disturb our peace?

For more context, read our guide to Persian poetry, including Saadi, Hafez, and Rumi. If you want a place to copy the Persian text, practice transliteration, or keep meaningful lines close at hand, see the Motivational Persian Hardcover Journal. The Persian Calligraphy & Achaemenid Guard Canvas Tote Bag offers another everyday connection to Persian script and heritage.

Image credit: “Page of Calligraphy from an Anthology of Poetry by Sa‘di and Hafiz,” late 15th century, attributed to Herat; Persian text by the Iranian poets Saadi and Hafez, calligraphy attributed to the Iranian master Sultan ‘Ali al-Mashhadi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object 11.84.8. The Met marks the image Public Domain; the reused digital file is also available through Wikimedia Commons under CC0.

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