Attar Neyshaburi
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Attar, Farid al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim
(1145?-1221?), Persian poet, a strong believer in the principles of Sufism, a form of
Islamic mysticism. He was born in present-day Khorasan Province, Iran. Attar's most
celebrated work is The Conference of the Birds, a poem consisting of 4600 couplets.
The poem uses allegory to illustrate the Sufi doctrine of union between the human and the
divine. His other important writings include Divan and Tazakor-ol-Oliah ( Biographies of the Saints), a prose work about the
early Sufis.
Farid Od-din Attar Neyshaburi was one of the greatest Muslim mystical poets and thinkers of the 12th century. He has written at least 45,000 couplets and many brilliant prose works. |
Attar travelled extensively, visiting Egypt, Syria, Arabia, India and Central Asia and
finally settled in his native town Neishabour, northeastern Iran, where he spent many
years collecting the verses and sayings of famous Muslim mystics.
As said before the greatest of his works is his well-known Manteq-u-ttair (the
conference of the birds), which is an allegorical poem describing the quest of the birds.
his other works include Elahinameh (divine book).
From the point of view of ideas, literary themes and style, Attar's influence was strongly
felt not in Persian literature but in other Islamic literatures.
His grand book of Tazakor-ol-Oliah is in prose and his most famous works in verse
include: Asrarnameh, Elahinameh, Mosibatnameh, Manteq-u'ttair, Bulbulnameh,
Heydarnameh, Mokhtarnameh and Khosrownameh.
Manteq-u-ttair or the Conference of Birds, sung in iambic hexameter, is an elegantly
versified book. Following Solomon's tradition the poet puts tongue in the mouths of the
birds and enables them to warble his theme and fly high and high towards Mount Ghaf in
search of the invincible Simorgh or Phoenix which he ascribes to the Almighty God, and by
this metaphor Attar brings his episode to a surprising climax. Led by the unwavering
hoopoe or Hod Hod, thirty birds out of many thousands manage to cross the seven fatal
valleys in the Path and arrive at the majestic court of the Prince of Universe on the
verge of annihilation.
What they see in amazement there is an enormous phantom mirror of a thousand molten
planets which reflects their own shapes and purified selfs. Here they dissolve in the
mirror and join the enternity.
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