Dinar: Malek ibn Dinar was the son of a Persian slave. He was taught by Hasan of Basra, who had known many of the Companions of the Prophet. He achieved fame as a calligrapher; perhaps this is what Attar is referring to when he has Malek Dinar say that he receives his bread ‘from God’s own hands’, as he was a copyist of the Koran. He died c. 748. (pp. 99–100)
Gharoun: Korah in Numbers Ch. 16. (p. 90)
Ghouri: see Sanjar. (p. 134)
Hallaj: see the Introduction, p. 12–13. (pp. 114, 220)
Hanbal: Ahmad ibn Mohammad ibn Hanbal was one of the most important Islamic theologians and the founder of one of the four schools of orthodox Islam. He was born in 780 in Baghdad and died in the same city in 855. (pp. 135–6)
Jacob: the pain of separation from someone dearly loved is a common metaphor in Persian poetry for the soul’s longing for God; Jacob’s longing for his son Joseph is frequently used as an example of this. (pp. 50, 139, 170)
Joseph: the favourite son of Jacob, he was hidden in a well by his jealous brothers and sold to Malek Dar, who took him to Egypt. Here he became overseer of the state granaries (Attar seems to believe he also became king). The stories of his relationship with Zuleikha (q.v.) and his confronting his brothers with their treachery are frequently alluded to in Persian poetry. He was of unsurpassed beauty, and for this reason beautiful heroes (and heroines) are usually compared to him. Joseph is the most frequently mentioned character in The Conference of the Birds, closely followed by Mahmoud of Ghazna; in both cases. Attar is dearly interested in the same themes: physical beauty (Joseph and Ayaz), gratitude, authority tempered by understanding and mercy, (pp. 31, 50, 58, 59, 104, 132–3, 138–9, 142, 163–4, 170, 197, 207, 217 – 18)
Junaid: Abou’l Qasim ibn Mohammad ibn al-Junaid was one of the most celebrated of sufis and the chief expounder of the ’sober’ school of sufism. Of the state of fana or annihilation in God he wrote: ‘For at that time thou wilt be addressed, thyself addressing; questioned concerning thy tidings, thyself questioning’ and it is interesting to compare this with what happens when Attar’s birds reach the Simorgh. He died in 910. (pp. 115, 123)
Kherghani (or Khergan; Attar gives both forms): Abou’l Hasan Kherghani was a Persian sufi of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. He lived near Bistan in north-west Iran. (pp. 127–8, 130)
Khezr: the immortal guardian of a spring whose waters bestow immortality. His original name, al-Khadir, means ‘the green man’ he is clearly a figure from pre-Islamic legend, and parts of his story recall the tale of Utnapishtim in The Epic of Gilgamesh. (p. 31, 38, 39)
Khosroe: the name of at least three of the Sassanian kings who ruled Iran from 229 to 652. Like the name Caesar it came to mean any emperor or important king. (p. 44)
Leili and her lover Majnoun are the archetypal lovers in Arabic, Persian and Turkish poetry. The story is originally Arabic. They were the children of hostile tribes, and their association was forbidden by Leili’s father. Majnoun, driven mad by love, lived on the fringes of the desert among wild animals; both lovers eventually died of grief. There are many narrative poems based on this story, the most famous being that of the Persian poet Nezami. Majnoun’s madness is a frequent symbol in Islamic mystical poetry of the soul’s longing for God. (p. 169, 174, 216)
Loghman of Sarrakhs: one of the ‘wise madmen’ (aqala majaniri) who were companions of Abou Sa’id Aboul Kheir (q.v. under Mahna). (pp. 193–4)
Mahmoud: Sultan Mahmoud of Ghazna (the ruins of Ghazna are in modern Afghanistan, on the road from Kandahar to Kabul) reigned from 998 to 1030. During this period he considerably extended the area over which he ruled. He invaded and conquered much of north-west India, and when he died his kingdom stretched from Samarqand to Kashmir. A poet himself, he filled his court with poets and philosophers; his relationship with Ayaz (q.v.) is celebrated in many Persian poems. Attar obviously thought of him as a benign and tolerant ruler, but the historical Mahmoud was, according to E. G. Browne, ‘greedy of wealth… fanatical, cruel to Moslem heretics as well as to Hindus (of whom he slew an incalculable number), fickle, and uncertain in temper’. See also Joseph, (pp. 44, 81–3, 136–7, 146–7, 158–9, 160–62, 171–2, 175–6, 184, 194 – 6)
Mahna: a small town in Khavaran, a province of Khorasan; ‘Manna’s sheikh’ was the important poet Abou Sa’id Aboul Kheir, who lived in the eleventh century and is credited with having been the first to use the mystical themes and metaphors that became typical of Persian sufi poetry, (pp. 123, 170)
Majnoun: seeLeili.
Mas’oud: many kings, particularly of Ghazna, were called by this name, and there is no way of knowing which one Attar had in mind in his story of Mas’oud and the fisherboy. At least two manuscripts give the story to Sultan Mahmoud. (pp. 79–80)
Nasrabad: Abou’l Ghasem Ibrahim Nasrabadi, a mystic of the tenth century, (pp. 202–3)
Nimrod: the enemy and oppressor of Abraham. He was defeated by an army of gnats sent by God; one entered his brain and by its buzzing sent him mad. (pp. 29, 87, 185)
Nouri: Abou’l Hosain Ahmad ibn Mohammad Nouri was a sufi of Baghdad, prominent in the circle which gathered around Junaid (q.v.). He died in 908. (p. 213)
Rabe’eh (pronounced as three syllables, the last rhyming with ‘way’): Rabe’eh bint Esmail al-Adawiya, one of the first and most important woman mystics of Islam. She lived in the eighth century. As a child she was sold into slavery, and she spent most of her life in great poverty in Basra. She became famous in her own lifetime for her piety and was visited by other contemporary mystics. She is credited with the introduction of the theme of Divine Love into Islamic mysticism, and if this is true her influence on the subsequent course of sufism is incalculable. There is an interesting book in English on her life by Margaret Smith, Rabi’a the Mystic and her Fellow Saints (Cambridge, 1928). (pp. 86, 104, 159–60, 172)
Roudbar: Abou All Ahmad ibn Mohammad ibn alQasem ibn Mansour alRoudbari, a sufi of the tenth century, (pp. 157–8)
Saleh: a prophet, mentioned in the Koran, sent to an Arab tribe. God also sent the tribe a she-camel which Saleh said they should feed and water. Instead they killed it, and a storm followed by a destructive earthquake punished their lack of belief, (p. 29)
Sam’an: the story of Sheikh Sam’an is easily the longest in Attar’s poem. Attar sometimes calls him Sam’an and sometimes San’an. Dr Sadegh Gouharin makes the interesting suggestion that the name Sam’an is taken from a monastery of that name near Damascus. He also suggests that the story is modelled distantly on that of a Sheikh ibn Sagha who travelled to Rome and became a Christian. Attar’s story made a great impression on his early audience and was taken as a factual narrative – so much so that Attar himself was said to have been one of the sheikh’s disciples who followed him to Rome. (pp. 57–75)
Sanjar: a Seljuk prince who ruled over Khorasan from 1096 to 1157. He expanded his kingdom until it included all of the Seljuk empire (i.e. virtually all of Islamic Asia) and was formally proclaimed king at Baghdad on 4 September 1119. The later years of his reign were marred by successful rebellions against his rule. To the north-east his possessions were constantly threatened by the kings of Ghour, and it is possible that the rivalry between the obscure ’sheikh Ghouri’ and Sanjar in Attar’s story is to some degree a metaphor for this struggle. If Attar was born in about 1120 he was Sanjar’s subject for the first thirty years or so of his life. (p. 134)
Shebli: Abou Bakr Dolaf ibn Jahdar al-Shebli was well-born and entered the service of the Baghdad court. Later he joined the group of sufis associated with Junaid (q.v.) and became known for his extravagant behaviour, for which eventually he was confined in an asylum. He died in 946. (pp. 93, 111–12, 169)
Tarmazi: Abou Abdallah Mohammad ibn Ali ibn al-Hosain al Hakim al-Tarmazi has been called ‘one of the outstanding creative thinkers of Islamic mysticism’ (A. J. Arberry). He taught at Neishapour and indirectly influenced both al-Ghazali and Ibn Arabi. He lived during the latter part of the ninth and the be
ginning of the tenth centuries, (pp. 126–7)
Tousi: Abou Ali al-Fazl ibn Mohammad Faramadi of Tous (a small town near Mashhad in Khorasan) was a sufi of the eleventh century associated with the poet and mystic Abou Sa’id Aboul Kheir. (pp. 164–5, 204)
Vasati: Abou Bakr Mohammad ibn Mousa alVasati was a sufi of the tenth century, (p. 144)
Yusef of Hamadan: a companion of Abou Ali Faramadi of Tous; he lived in the eleventh century and died on the road to Merv, a city in southern Russia, near Samarqand. Hamadan is in western Iran on the site of the ancient Ecbatana. (pp. 170, 186)
Zuleikha: the woman known in the Bible as Potiphar’s wife. Her illicit love for Joseph, who by virtue of his perfect beauty was considered a symbol of the Divine, is often used as a metaphor for the soul’s need for God. (163–4)
Zulghamin: his story is told in the eighteenth chapter of the Koran, where he is represented as a lawgiver and the conqueror of Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog), (p. 32)
Zulnoon: Abou’t-Faiz Thauban ibn Ibrahim al-Mesri was an Egyptian who lived from c. 796 to 859. He travelled in Syria and Iraq and was for a time imprisoned for heresy at Baghdad; after his release he returned to Egypt, where he died. He is credited by later Islamic mystics with having been one of the first and most important of their number; he also had a reputation as an alchemist, (pp. 130–31)
* A Literary History of Persia (1906; Cambridge, 1928 edition), Vol. 2, 509.
* op. cit., Vol. 2, 319.
* A reference to the Companion of the Cave. During a period of danger the Prophet Mohammad and a close companion, Abou Bakr, hid for a while in a cave on Mount Thaur. In mystical poetry this episode became a symbol of withdrawal from the world.
* ‘In the name of God’: the opening words of the Koran.
* A mythical bird whose shadow would fall on a future king.
† Two of the most illustrious of the legendary kings of ancient Persia.
* Blue was the colour of mourning in ancient Persia; the epic poet Ferdowsi (loth-nth centuries) mentions it as being worn by the first of the legendary Persian longs, Keyumars, when in mourning for his son Siyamak.
† A stream that flows through paradise.
* A building of grey stone at the centre of the great mosque in Mecca, circumambulated by every pilgrim seven times. It is the geographical centre of Islam.
* The zonnar, a belt or cord worn by Eastern Christians and Jews; thus a symbol of heresy.
* i.e. the dervish cloak.
* A goddess in pre-Islamic Arabia, lines 1919–35
* The angel of death.
* The last four lines of this passage are Attar’s paraphrase of a poem by Hallaj. In this and the following anecdote Attar juxtaposes the attitude to death of the ‘ecstatic’ mystic (Hallaj) and that of the ‘sober’ mystic (Junaid).
* It was at Kerbelah that Husain, the son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, was killed. Husain refused to swear allegiance to the Caliph Yazid; he and his followers were surrounded at Kerbelah, and a swift decisive battle resulted in victory for Yazid’s troops. It is Husain’s death which is remembered with such fervour by Shi’a Moslems through the mourning month of Moharram. Before the battle Husain’s water-supply was cut off, and he and his followers suffered greatly from thirst. During Moharram, and particularly on the anniversary of Husain’s death, many Moslems will refuse to drink in commemoration of this thirst. It is this memory which is behind the otherwise rather obscure anecdote about the sufi who refused to touch sherbet, which precedes the mention of Kerbelah.
* Sirat: a hair-thin bridge over the pit of hell. The good will be able to cross it; the wicked will slip and plunge into the pit (cf. the ‘brig o’ dread’ in the Lyke Wake Dirge).
* The metaphor is based on the notion of blood-money. A murder could be compensated, if the victim’s relatives agreed, by payment of a sum of money; God destroys the dervishes, then pays for this ‘crime’ with His love; He will continue to do this until He has no more love to give, i.e. for ever.
* Actions or (more particularly) sayings of the Prophet Mohammad. The scholar’s task is to sort out which are genuine.
* i.e. God.
* Two angels who question the dead on their faith.
* Lat was the name of an Arabian pre-Islamic goddess. Mahmoud attacked and conquered Somnat in north-west India in 1026 and destroyed the Hindu temple there; Attar has either confused the Arabian and Indian deities, or used the name ‘Lat’ generically, or has been seduced by the fortuitous rhyme.
* The devil.
* The zonnar (see the note on 61).
* The comparison depends on a pun; to ‘feed on blood’ is to ’suffer’,
*The fabulous beast the Prophet mounted on the night of his ascent to heaven
* Jesus had a needle with him when he entered heaven, breaking God’s prohibition on earthly possessions.
* It is possible that this refers to Jesus. Jesus’ breath is an important element in Moslem stories about Him (it was reputed to have vivifying powers), and it may be that Attar had heard of the Christian use of the fish to signify Jesus.
* This crucial moment depends on a pun: si means ‘thirty’, morgh means ‘bird(s)’ the si morgh see the ’simorgh’. It was probably this pun which suggested the idea of the poem to Attar.
* Hallaj was executed for, among other things, crying out ‘I am the Truth’ while in a state of religious exaltation.
* The stringing of pearls on a necklace is a stock metaphor in Persian verse for the writing of poetry; Attar is suggesting that this particular ‘pearl’ is beyond the scope of his, or any, poem – it is too difficult for him to ‘pierce’.
The Conference of the Birds (Penguin) Page 24