Sufi masters, which include Hasan Basri, Rabi’a Basri, Bayazid, Junayd,Hallaj,
and many others. Of his
masnavis
, the most famous is
Mantiq al Tair
or ‘The
Conference of Birds’, but he also wrote others of which the better known
are:
Ilahinamah,
or ‘The Book of Divine Knowledge’ and
Asrarnamah
or ‘The
Book of Mysteries.’
‘The Conference of Birds’, his masterpiece, is an allegory of the quest
for and the union with God. The story is surprisingly simple. One day the
birds wake up to the fact that theirs is the only kingdom that does not have
a king. They get together and decide to go in search of one, but they need
a leader to lead them in this endevour. To this end they elect the hoopoe
(
hudhud
) as their guide and he tells them that they already have a king,
who is called Simurgh. The birds at first are very eager to go looking for
him but, when they hear about the difficulties to be encountered on the
way, they drop out one by one and finally only thirty birds reach the palace
of the king. At first they are denied entry but when on persevering,
eventually gain entry into the presence of Simurgh, they see their own
selves reflected in the form that appears before them. The Simurgh is they
and they are the Simurgh. The apparent duality and its end are further
reinforced by the intended pun. The word Simurgh broken down into its
components means simply
si
-thirty and
murgh
-bird, so Simurgh is The
Thirty Birds. Thus, in masterly fashion, Attar presents TheWay, with all its
elements: the seeker (
talib
), the spiritual mentor (
murshid
), the impediments
(self), the ultimate realization and the annihilation.
But the mystic trend already present in the poetry of Sana’i and developed
further by Attar reaches its peak in the works of
Jalal ud din Rumi
.
Rumi (1207-1273) was born in Balkh in Khurasan. His father, Bahaud din
Walad, was a learned man and a Sufi. Because of the impending invasion of
