Because they are mad

By Ismail Salami - Press TV - Tehran, Iran

Friday, April 6, 2007

Attar is one of the greatest Muslim mystic writers and thinkers who left a profound impact on later poets.

The importance of this towering literary figure largely rests on his dissemination of Sufi thinking through his poetry and prose works.

Little is known of his life. Born Farid od-Din Mohammad ibn Ibrahim Attar in Neyshabur [Iran] c. 1142?, he traveled widely throughout Egypt, Turkistan, and India during his youth. It is generally agreed that his father was a great apothecary and that Attar followed in his footsteps pursuant to his demise.

Attar went through his spiritual awakening while he was practicing medicine. Jami, the great Iranian poet and mystic, states that he was an adherent of the mystical thoughts of Majd ad-din Baghdadi.

Legend says that Attar was once sitting in his shop and a dervish entered and asked him: How will you die? He answered: As you will. Then the dervish lay down and mentioned the holy name of Allah and died on the spot. This event produced in him an indescribable state whereupon he relinquished all worldly matters and joined the circle of the dervishes.

Narration has it that Baha Walad, Father of Rumi, together with his son Rumi met him on their way to Mecca in Neyshabur and Attar gave them a copy of The Asrar-Nameh (The Book of Secrets).

A prolific writer and poet, Attar wrote and compiled many works of literature which are used as great references in Islamic mysticism. In his works he deals with many great ideas; yet, a dominant theme which pervades most of his works is the notion of 'Wise Madmen'.

The readers may be astounded by the way he addresses God through the tongue of his characters. Most of them are mad or half-wits. According to Attar, there are three groups of people who are allowed to speak audaciously to God: the prophets, the mystics, and the madmen.

And the characters in his narratives are licensed to talk audaciously to and about God because they are mad.

Yet, Attar is best-known in the West for his Mantiq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds), a poem consisting of 4600 couplets. The book has long caught the attention and interest of the orientalists all over the world. There are more than seventy renditions of the work in English alone, a fact which testifies to the significance of this work in the West.

Mantiq al-Tayr describes the journey of a flock of birds to the home of their guide. Each bird symbolizes a certain attribute. The birds are in fact after a king to rule over them. They assemble together and the hoopoe rises and states that the only bird who deserves to rule over them is the Simorgh (phoenix).

They start an arduous journey and some of them die on the way and the surviving thirty birds arrive at their destination and look in the mirror-like countenance of the Simorgh, only to realize that they and the Simorgh are one.

The book in fact exemplifies the union between the human and the divine.

Another great work by the poet is Tadhkirat al-Awliya (Hagiography). It details the biographies of the Muslim saints and mystics. It includes the biographies of such great mystics as Hallaj, Bayazid Bastami and Imam Ja'far Sadeq (AS) whom the writer believes was one of the initiators of the doctrine of Sufism in Islam.

Attar's influence is extremely felt not only in Iranian literature but also in other Muslim literatures.

Attar was killed at the hands of a Mongol soldier around year 1220 A.D.