Philosophy of Religion

The Conference of the Birds

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Attar of Nishapur

c. 1177

The Conference of the Birds — Mantiq al-Tayr — is the masterpiece of Persian Sufi poetry and one of the great allegorical works of world literature. Attar describes a parliament of all the birds of the world who set out together in search of the legendary Simorgh, the king of birds who represents the divine. Their guide is the hoopoe — symbol of wisdom — who must answer the fears and excuses of each bird in turn before the journey can begin. Only thirty birds survive the seven valleys of the spiritual path: the valleys of the Quest, Love, Knowledge, Detachment, Unity, Bewilderment, and finally Annihilation. When at last they reach the Simorgh, they discover that si morgh in Persian means thirty birds — that the divine they sought was none other than themselves, transformed. The poem is at once a manual of the Sufi path, a treasury of tales and parables, and a sustained meditation on the annihilation of the self in the divine.