The Conference of the Birds
Mantiq ut-tayr (Language of the Birds)
Farid ud-Din Attar
The birds [of the world] assemble
and the hoopoe tells them of the Simorgh
The world’s birds gathered for their conference
And said: ‘Our constitution makes no sense.
All nations in the world require a king;
How is it we alone have no such thing?
Only a kingdom can be justly run;
We need a king and must inquire for one.’
The hoopoe tells the birds that in fact they have a King
and it is the Simorgh.
Gr. Allegoria: allos (other) + agoria (speaking)
= speaking differently, figuratively, indirectly
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”
The Conference of the Birds is a work explaining (teaching)
the Sufi doctrine to its audience
“…only God truly exists, all other things are an emanation
[tazahur] of Him, or are His ‘shadow’ (…) man’s distinctions
between good and evil have no meaning for God, who knows
only Unity; the soul is trapped within the cage of the body
but can, by looking inward, recognize its essential affinity
with God; the awakened soul, guided by God’s grace,
can progress along a ‘Way’ which leads to annihilation in God.”
(Dick Davis, CofB, Penguin. p.12)
(Tawhid or Wahdat al-Wujud)
The Seven Valleys the birds cross to find the Simorgh symbolize
the Seven Stages (Doors) leading to the mystic’s
self-annihilation and unity with God
Cover of
Neyzen Tevfik’s
1919 collection
of poems,
Hiç (Nothing)
Symbolism of Self-annihilation (Destruction of the Self / Nafs)
1. Black kaftan (nafs)
2. White shirt and dress (shroud)
3. Brown sikke (tomb-stone)
Farid ud-Din Attar (1142 – 1221)
- Born in Nishapour in north-east Iran, intellectual capital of
the Khorasan region and one of the main centers of Sufism.
He was an herbalist and doctor.
- Said to have studied medicine and theology as a child
with the prominent Sufi sheikh Majd ad-Din al-Baghdadi.
- Also believed to have been initiated to the Way by the spirit
of Mansur al-Hallaj who appeared to him in a dream.
Mansur al-Hallaj (858 – 922)
Ana al-Haqq
(I am God / I am the Truth)
Sufism is (was) esoteric
because:
- It goes counter to the
established understanding
and practice of religion
- Hence its teachings cannot
be conveyed to everyone
Sufism
Sophos = knowledge, wisdom, philosophy
Suf = a cloak made of coarse material, against display (and
acquisition) of wealth and power, rejecting the pompous practices
in Islamic communities
After Muhammad: Abu Baqr, Omar, Uthman, Ali
The Islamic State Consolidated:
Umayyad Caliphate (661 – 750)
Abbasid Caliphate (750 – 1258)  emergence of Sufism as a
movement in Baghdad
Sources:
The Kor’an
Hadith
Sunnah
Neoplatonism founded by Plotinus (204-270 CE)
First Shahada as method for Sufism:
La ilaha illa Allah (there is no god but God – no [worldly] power
[idol] to worship except…)
‘’Sufis had contemplated the deeper meaning and sacrality of the
phrase, noting that it begins with the principle of negation (la)
sweeping away idolatry of false gods (ilaha) before leading to the
affirmation of God. The Sufis took this as confirmation of their
belief that a worshipper must first pursue via negativa, obliterating
all trace of idolatry and disciplining the concupiscent [lustful] self
until it achieves self-effacement...in the divine. After sweeping
away these obstacles, one could then set out on the via positiva,
leading to the meeting with God, who stands at the end of the
journey.’’
Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West. Oneworld, 2000.
(pp.129-30)
The quest is arduous; the Way is scary:
The Nightingale’s excuse
My love is for the rose; I bow to her;
From her dear presence I could never stir.
If she should disappear the nightingale
Would lose his reason and his song would fail,
And though my grief is one that no bird knows,
One being understands my heart -- the rose.
I am so drowned in love that I can find
No thought of my existence in my mind.
Her worship is sufficient life for me;
The quest for her is my reality
(And nightingales are not robust or strong;
The path to find the Simorgh is too long).
The hoopoe’s answer to the Nightingale:
Dear nightingale,
This superficial love which makes you quail
Is only for the outward show of things.
Renounce delusion and prepare your wings
For our great quest; sharp thorns defend the rose
And beauty such as hers too quickly goes.
True love will see such empty transience
For what it is -- a fleeting turbulence
That fills your sleepless nights with grief and blame -Forget the rose’s blush and blush for shame!
Each spring she laughs, not for you, as you say,
But at you -- and has faded in a day.
The Seven Valleys on the Sufi’s Way
(way of negation and way of affirmation combined)
1) Seeking, demanding, search (talab)
2) Love (‘ishq)
3) Intuitive knowledge, mystic apprehension (ma’rifat)
4) Detachment, independence (istighna’)
5) Experiencing union with the Divine, unity (tawhid)
6) Perplexity, bewilderment, awe (hayrat)
7) Poverty and nothingness, fulfillment in annihilation
(faqr u fana)
Subsistence in God (baqa)
Allegory of “The moths and the flame” tells the story
of ‘ishq, the flames of passion, thanks to which one
emerges in “the state of union”.
But, the hoopoe warns (Attar’s predicament):
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
will drag you back and plunge you in despair –
No creature’s Self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.
“But should one part remain, a single hair
will drag you back and plunge you in despair”
After the fifth valley (unity with the Divine, tawhid)
comes the valley of perplexity and bewilderment
(hayrat).
The remaining part here is the intellect, reason or
comprehension (‘aql)
Thirty birds (si morgh) at last meet the Simorgh and
understand that He is them (and vice versa)
There in the Simorgh’s radiant face they saw
Themselves, the Simorgh of the world – with awe
They gazed, and dared at last to comprehend
They were the Simorgh and the journey’s end.
They see the Simorgh – at themselves they stare,
And see a second Simorgh standing there;
They look at both and see the two are one,
That this is that, that this, the goal is won.
End of the poem and Attar’s dilemma (or paradox):
(The thirty birds) saw
Their Selves had been restored to them once more,
That after Nothingness they had attained
Eternal Life, and self-hood was regained.
This Nothingness, this Life, are states no tongue
At any time has adequately sung –
Those who can speak still wander far away
From the dark truth they struggle to convey,
And by analogies they try to show
The forms men’s partial knowledge cannot know.
Language is unable to convey the Truth!
Mantiq = Logos = language/speech = reason/intellect
(Mantiq ut-Tayr)