Islamic mysticism, or sufism, has found its finest expression in the classical poetry of Persia, in particular during its most creative period up to the late 15th century. Focusing on the poems themselves rather than on their authors, this very readable introduction surveys the development of Persian mystical poetry, dealing first with the relation between Sufism and literature and then with the four main genres of the tradition: the epigram, the homiletic poem, love poetry, and symbolic narrative.

Johannes Thomas Pieter de Bruijn (1931) recently retired from the Chair of Persian at the University of Leiden. He wrote Of Piety and Poetry: the Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Hakīm Sanā’ī of Ghazna (1983) and several other studies on classical Persian literature and the history of Persian studies in Europe. In 1997 he published a Dutch translation of Sa‘dī’s Gulistān.