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The great Sufi poet of Iran, known for Sufi mathnawis such as Mantiq al-Tayr, Musibatnama and Ilahinama, and for his Tadhkirat al-Awliya, a collection of the lives of the great Sufis. His full name was Abu Hamid Farid al-Din Muhammad b. Abi Bakr Ibrahim al-Nishapuri.
He was born at Nishapur in the last period of the Seljuks of Khorasan, most probably between 537-540 (1142-1145). Because he worked as a druggist and physician he received the epithet Attar. What the sources say of his childhood and youth is very divergent and insufficient; his works show that in his youth he practised the druggist's trade while also pursuing learning, acquiring Sufi knowledge and serving various shaykhs. He himself says that he read many books on the prophets and saints, and that for thirty-nine years he kept collecting Sufi poems and stories. Apart from his losing his parents in his youth nothing is known of his family; two quatrains in the Mukhtarnama show that he lost a son aged thirty-two.
From an early age, and especially after devoting himself to Sufism, he travelled to Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Mecca, Medina, India and Turkestan; he then returned to Nishapur and withdrew into seclusion.
From whom he received his Sufi training is not known with certainty (see Multiple Perspectives). In the preface of the Asrarnama he says that he was spiritually affiliated to Abu Sa'id b. Abi al-Khayr (d. 440/1049) and that this man was the one who trained him, thereby indicating that he was an Uwaysi. The source states that even if it is accepted that he entered no order, he was not merely someone curious about Sufism: he embraced it, entered it and engaged, if only a little, in the spiritual journey. In the works certainly his own he appears as a tolerant Sunni opposed to fanaticism, faultless in his reverence and love for the Ahl al-Bayt.
At the end of a life of seclusion that lasted many years, and at a very advanced age, he was martyred by the Mongols at Nishapur (618/1221).
His Circle of Influence — He was a guide to many Iranian Sufi poets and men of letters who came after him, among them Mawlana Rumi, Mahmud Shabistari, Sa'di, Hafiz and Mulla Jami. Rumi regarded him as the leader of the lovers, saw himself as small and Attar as great on the Sufi path, drew heavily on his works, and called Attar “the spirit” and Sana'i the spirit's “two eyes”. According to the source, Attar prepared the way for Rumi with his fiery ghazals and the stories he skilfully set in his mathnawis, and influenced, if only a little, Turkish and Arabic literature as well.
His Poetry and Sufi Line — He used most of the classical verse forms and achieved his greatest success in the mathnawi and the ghazal. His ghazals express Sufi taste, above all the conception of the unity of being, and the love he held necessary for the divine journey; the source says that in this genre only Rumi, with some exceptions, surpassed him. A feature peculiar to him is that in his mathnawis he treats a Sufi question through small stories nested within a frame story; Rumi developed this manner of narration in some respects. His speech is flowing and unadorned, his language warm and sweet; to the end of his life he praised no holder of office or rank. As the source relates, Attar extends the stages of tariqa, ma'rifa and haqiqa into seven stages — seeking, love, gnosis, detachment, unity, bewilderment and annihilation — and requires that they be traversed under the training of a perfect guide. In the Mantiq al-Tayr the birds represent the wayfarers and the hoopoe the guide.
His Works — His verse works are said to come to about 100,000 couplets; the source regards as exaggeration the accounts that put the number of his works at forty, 114 or even 190. According to Sa'id Nafisi, Zarrinkub and Furuzanfar, the works whose attribution to him is beyond doubt are eight, seven in verse and one in prose: the Ilahinama (6500 couplets); the Asrarnama, his first Sufi mathnawi; the Musibatnama (5740 couplets), the most orderly expression of his Sufi views; the Khusrawnama, his only non-Sufi mathnawi; the Mukhtarnama, selected from his more than 5000 quatrains; the Mantiq al-Tayr, composed in 1187; the Divan; and the prose Tadhkirat al-Awliya. The last relates the lives and some sayings of the great Sufis; it was first translated into Turkish in the time of Aydınoğlu Mehmed Bey, and its best-known translation is that of Sinan Paşa.
Differing Scholarly Views
From whom he received his Sufi training — The source states that this point is not known with certainty. That he was a disciple of Qutb al-Din Haydar, who is said to have been his father's shaykh as well, of Rukn al-Din Akkaf and of Majd al-Din al-Baghdadi is doubtful. He himself says that he was trained by the spiritual presence of Abu Sa'id b. Abi al-Khayr. The atlas does not choose between these accounts.
His school — It has been claimed that towards the end of his life he became a Shi'i. The author of the source entry holds that this claim stems from works wrongly attributed to him, and that in the works certainly his own Attar is a Sunni opposed to fanaticism and deeply devoted to the Ahl al-Bayt. The atlas records the claim and the source's assessment side by side.
The attribution of his works — H. Ritter attributes the presence of at least three different styles in Attar's works to spiritual transformations he underwent during his life; Sa'id Nafisi, Zarrinkub and Furuzanfar argue instead that the difference arises from works not his being attributed to him. Many works, such as the Pandnama, Haydarnama and Ushturnama, have been printed under his name; recent research finds the attribution of some of them highly doubtful and the rest wholly spurious, and holds that most belong to Attar-i Tuni, who lived in the XV century, and to other persons named or styled Attar.
His reading of the unity of being — According to the author of the source entry, Attar was not content with the conception of love coming from Ahmad al-Ghazali and the conception of annihilation found in Hallaj; he reached the highest level of the unity of being and perhaps, without realising it, came close at times to the doctrine of union (ittihad) and at times to that of indwelling (hulul). This is the source's own assessment; the atlas passes no judgement.
The site of the grave — The source entry says that Attar was martyred at Nishapur; it does not speak of where he was buried or of his tomb. The Nishapur tomb to which the atlas points does not rest on this entry; the location must be verified separately against the place record's own source.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) · vol. 4, pp. 95-98, entry “Attâr, Ferîdüddin”
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