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 conferenceAnd 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’s1919 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

Sophos = knowledge, wisdom, philosophySuf = 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, AliThe Islamic State Consolidated:Umayyad Caliphate (661 – 750)Abbasid Caliphate (750 – 1258) emergence of Sufism as a movement in Baghdad

Sources:The Kor’anHadithSunnahNeoplatonism founded by Plotinus (204-270 CE)

Sufism

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 nightingaleWould 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 findNo 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 quailIs only for the outward show of things.Renounce delusion and prepare your wingsFor our great quest; sharp thorns defend the roseAnd beauty such as hers too quickly goes.True love will see such empty transienceFor what it is -- a fleeting turbulenceThat 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 goalUntil you first outsoar both flesh and soul;But should one part remain, a single hairwill 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 hairwill 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 orcomprehension (‘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 sawThemselves, the Simorgh of the world – with aweThey gazed, and dared at last to comprehendThey 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) sawTheir Selves had been restored to them once more,That after Nothingness they had attainedEternal Life, and self-hood was regained.This Nothingness, this Life, are states no tongueAt any time has adequately sung – Those who can speak still wander far awayFrom the dark truth they struggle to convey,And by analogies they try to showThe forms men’s partial knowledge cannot know.

Language is unable to convey the Truth!Mantiq = Logos = language/speech = reason/intellect(Mantiq ut-Tayr)