Attar
عطار
Druggist of Nishapur and author of The Conference of the Birds, the great allegory of the soul's journey.
- Known for
- The Conference of the Birds
- Forms
- Masnavi, Ghazal
- Places
- Razavi Khorasanخراسان رضوی
- Collection
- The Greats
Farid al-Din took his name from his trade: an attar was a druggist and perfumer. In The Conference of the Birds, the hoopoe leads the birds of the world in search of their king, the Simorgh. Only thirty reach the end, to find that the Simorgh is themselves: si morgh means thirty birds.
Attar is said to have died when the Mongols sacked Nishapur, around 1221.
Booksکتابها
The principal works of Attar.
The Conference of the Birds
منطقالطیرAttar’s best-known work: the birds of the world, led by the hoopoe, set out to find their king, the Simorgh. Through seven valleys most of them fall away; thirty reach the end and find that they themselves, si morgh, thirty birds, are the Simorgh. Dozens of short tales are set within the frame.
Read 2 poemsThe Book of God
الهینامهA king asks his six sons what they most desire, and they name worldly things: a fairy princess, magic, the cup of Jamshid, the water of life, Solomon’s ring and the alchemist’s secret. Through many stories the father shows each son the spiritual truth hidden in his wish.
The Book of Affliction
مصیبتنامهA wandering seeker, the ‘traveller of thought’, goes in turn to angels, the heavens, the elements, the prophets and many other beings, asking each for help, and is turned away by all. At last he is sent within, to find in his own soul the sea he was seeking. Each stage is illustrated with tales.
The Book of Secrets
اسرارنامهA shorter mystical poem without a frame story, gathering reflections and anecdotes on the soul, death and the vanity of the world. A well-known later legend says the old Attar gave a copy to the boy Rumi as his family passed through Nishapur on their way west.
Memorial of the Saints
تذکرةالاولیاAttar’s one great prose work: lives, sayings and miracles of the early Sufi masters, from Ja‘far al-Sadiq and Hasan of Basra to Hallaj, whose execution it describes. Written in clear, moving Persian prose, it became one of the principal sources for the memory of the early Sufis.
The Divan of Attar
دیوان عطارAttar’s lyric poems, chiefly ghazals and some qasidas. They gave the mystical ghazal much of its vocabulary of the tavern, the Magian elder and the gambler in love, which Rumi and Hafez later took up. They are less read abroad than his long poems.
Poems by Attarشعرها
In the original Persian, beside an English translation.
هست وادی طلب آغاز کار
وادی عشق است از آن پس، بی کنار
The valley of Seeking is the beginning of the work;
after it comes the valley of Love, which has no shore;
The Seven Valleys
آفتاب قربت از پیشان بتافت
جمله را از پرتو آن جان بتافت
The sun of nearness shone out before them,
and from its radiance the soul of each was lit.
The Thirty Birds
Attar in Iranian history
Iranian historySeljuks, Mongols and Ilkhanidsسلجوقیان، مغولان و ایلخانان
Turkic and then Mongol conquerors took Iran in turn. The Seljuks built mosques and colleges; the Mongols brought catastrophe, then, as the Ilkhanids, became patrons of history-writing and art.