The famous classical Sufi author, Sheikh Saadi, who is popularly known as Saadi of Shiraz followed the way of story telling to impart his teaching, just like most of the other classical Sufi authors. Saadi has described various kinds of stories, short or long and tried to teach his disciples the lessons that contain the messages of Sufi philosophy. Some of his mostly told and popular stories are given below:

The Dervish under a Vow of Solitude
Sheikh Saadi described the story to his followers at an early stage and the story is about an incident that took place between a dervish and a mighty King. One day, the dervish was sitting in a desert, under a vow of solitude and the King passed by the dervish, along with his attendants. As the dervish was in a special state of mind, he did not notice that the King was passing by him and also did not raise his head, when the procession passed. To this, the King became angry and commented that the wearers of the patchwork robe were as impassive as animals. The king also said that the dervishes also possessed neither politeness nor due humility.

As the king was quite angry, one of his viziers went to the dervish and asked him why he not paid the required homage, when the King was passing by him. The dervish replied that one should let the Sultan look for homage from those who seek to benefit from his goodwill. He also asked the vizier to tell the king that kings are only created for the protection of their subjects and the subjects are not created for the service of kings.

The Dervish and the Camel Rider
This story was described by Sheikh Saadi to his disciples and the story is about a barefooted and bareheaded dervish, who joined a caravan that was heading for southern Arabia. There was a camel rider in the caravan, who saw the penniless dervish striding along purposefully. The rider also heard the dervish reciting while walking.The dervish was saying that neither did he burden a camel nor did he carry a camel`s burden. The dervish added that neither did he rule, nor he was ruled and neither had he anxieties about the Past, the Present or the Future. The dervish told that he breathed fully and also lived his life fully.

Hearing all these, a merchant, who was sitting on a camel advised the dervish to turn back and warned him that else, he would certainly die of hardship and lack of nourishment. However, the dervish did not hear to these advises and continued marching on. When the caravan reached Beni Hamud oasis, the merchant died and the dervish was standing by the bier. The dervish exclaimed at the death of the merchant that though he did not die of his hardships, the merchant had died on his camel. The dervish further said that it is only the fools, who burn lamps during the day and then wonder at night why they have no light.

The Dervish in Hell
This story is about a king, who dreamt a strange dream at one night. In the dream, the king saw a king living in paradise and a dervish living in hell. After seeing this, the king was quite confused and tried to find out the meaning of the dream. He tried so, because he thought the positions of the king and the dervish would be reversed. Suddenly, the king heard a voice replying to his query, and the voice said that the king was in heaven, because he respected the dervishes. The voice added that the dervish was in hell because he did compromise with the kings.