The Conference of the Birds

Farid ud-Din Attar's (d. approx. 1220 CE) Manteq at-Tair is--like all great fables--deceptively simple. When I first read it (sometime in the late 1990's) I found it clever but quaint. It takes some time to get used to the sing-song quality of what Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis term (in their Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition [1984]) "the common masnavi metre of Persian narrative poetry" (p. 23). One does not expect such verse to be a vehicle for profound reflections about the nature of the universe and human existence. The success of Coleman Barks as a "translator" of Rumi's poetry is due, in part, to his recognition that the Euro-American ear expects a different sort of tuning and, in addition, to his ability to render Mevlana's lines in a way that better conforms to such expectations.

But an important aspect of learning to read poetry lies in the acquisition of a different "ear." Dipping into Attar's masterpiece from time to time over the past decade and a half has permitted me, ever so slowly, to gain a greater appreciation for Persian verse; meeting Dick Davis several years ago and learning from him a little about his translation process was also extremely helpful.

Nowadays I treasure the work. It is a poem meant to be sung and, when sung, its deceptively simple renderings of complex philosophical, theological, and pietistic ideas insinuate themselves in the subconscious. Once past the cultural barrier, one learns from Farid ud-Din by learning, first, to sort of "hum" his lines. In time, one learns, ineluctably, to think like him. This seems to be only fitting considering the fact that Attar's own connections to Islamic pietism and intellectual traditions remain sketchy:

"... E. G. Browne quotes a Persian source to the effect that though Majd ad-Din was Attar's teacher it was medicine that he taught him, not the Way of sufism. There is another persistent tradition (first mentioned by Rumi, whom Attar is said to have dandled on his knee as a child and whose poetry is considered by Persians to be the ne plus ultra of mystical literature) that Attar had in fact no teacher and was instructed in the Way by the spirit of Mansur al-Hallaj, the sufi martyr who had been executed in Baghdad in 922 and who appeared to him in a dream" (Attar, Conference, 12). The connection to al-Hallaj leads, by another road, to fellow Khorasanian Said Abu'l Khayr--who is said to have been the first poet to have sung the martyr's teachings (to be followed, subsequently, by Sana'i, Attar, and Rumi--ibid., 13).



Khorasan! O Khorasan!



Hoopoe, bird of the heart.