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‘Mantiq-al-Tayr�� or The Conference of the Birds - The foundational epic twelfth century Sufi poem - has immense doctrinal as well as literary value. The best way to read it is aloud, alone, at night, savoring every syllable and syntax, and absorbing every inflection and nuance. For this is after all a work of passion and an output of devotion. Not only has this outstanding work of spiritual introspection and sublime allegorical poetry influenced mystical thought in the centuries that followed but indeed it has left a lasting imprint as an allegory, due to its underlying quest and message and in terms of its symbolism on multiple cultures and literatures. This translation works quite well and while using this I intend to read the Persian original which because of what Urdu owes to it, become resonant and intelligible to fluent Urdu speakers and readers.

I must confess that I have always had trouble reading longer verse but The Conference of the Birds flows lyrically and is a wonderful exception. The initial part where the hoopoe is persuading the various birds to join in the pursuit for the mythical Simorgh in order to achieve true happiness is particularly delightful. The birds depict various facets and archetypes of human character and personality; this makes their doubts and reservations and their various ruses to evade the perilous journey appear so familiar and relatable. However, the hoopoe adroitly takes apart these excuses and explains that the ultimate truth and pursuit of the same is what really matters; that everything else is transient and ephemeral. The examples from Islamic beliefs, history and lore are frequent:

'Khezr sought companionship with one whose mind
Was set on God alone. The man declined
And said to Khezr: "We two could not be friends,
For our existences have different ends.
The waters of immortal life are yours,
And you must always live; life is your cause
And death is mine - you wish to live, whilst I
Impatiently prepare myself to die;
I leave you as quick birds avoid a snare,
To soar up in the free, untrammeled air."

Allegorically explaining and elaborating upon sufism, its pursuit, its trials and tribulations, its various stages and their toll, and of course its ultimate rapture, the great mystical poem abounds in parables, tales, sayings, and episodes from the lives of famous Islamic mystics and sufis. It is, therefore, also a veritable Who is Who of illustrious spiritual figures who have followed the same path and Attar's additional works on their lives and quests reflect here as well. I read this pencil in hand as time and again the profundity and beauty of the lines captured me. A major preoccupation of course is the spiritual quest itself which is akin to all-consuming love, and arduous, often painful and rather esoteric in nature:

“You could not know
The hidden ways by which we lovers go;��

And also:

"Love thrives on inextinguishable pain,
Which tears the soul, then knits the threads again."

Attar is often passionate so that he breaks free of the confines of doctrine, dogma and ritual and exhorts for one to follow the message from the heart. It is unsurprising that there were objections to and consequences of some of his more irreverent lines:

"Begin the journey without fear; be calm;
Forget what is and what is not Islam"

Another theme that emerges frequently is that of the importance of divine grace without which it is not possible to find the right course:

"The man on whom that quickening glance alights
Is raised to heaven's unsuspected heights;
Indeed this glance discovers you;
Your life's a mystery without a clue"

And then there is the all-important need for a spiritual guide:

"You need a skillful guide; you cannot start
This ocean voyage with blindness in your heart."

There are those whose pride will always be an impediment in their way and others who while seemingly mired in sin will be fortunate to be rescued; hence finding the right path and success appears not just an outcome of endeavor but also mercy.

"A sinner died, and, as his coffin passed,
A man who practiced every prayer and fast
Turned ostentatiously aside - how could
He pray for one of whom he knew no good?
He saw the sinner in his dreams that night,
His face transfigured with celestial light.
'How did you enter heaven's gate," he said,
"A sinner stained with faith from foot to head?"
"God saw your merciless, disdainful pride,
And spited my poor soul," the man replied.

Self-love brings one to a dead-end and overcoming the self is what allows one to transcend all obstacles:

"My study is to reach Truth's inmost shrine -
And I am not my Self's ass, he is mine;
Now since the beast I ride on rides on you.
That I am your better is quite plainly true.
You love the Self- it's lit in you a fire
Of nagging lust, insatiable desire,"

Equally corrosive and harmful is greed and love for worldly goods. The famous female saint Rabia of Basra is quoted to say:

"...I fear the harm
That follows from the clink of coin on coin,
The sleepless nights when sums of money join."

Like all great sufic literature Attar sublime poem also drives home the ephemeral nature of human existence and its insignificance given the grand scheme of things:

"As you are reared to live, so from your birth
You're also reared to one day leave this earth.
Which sunset fills with blood from pole to pole -
The sun seems then an executioner,
Beheading thousands with his scimitar.
If you are profligate, if you are pure,
You are but water mixed with dirt, no more -
A drop of trembling instability,
And can a drop resist the surging sea?
Though in the world you are a king, you must
In sorrow and despair return to dust."

More on the same theme - no matter how mighty, they all come to nothingness:

"King Solomon, whose seal subdued all lands,
I dust compounded with the desert sands,
And tyrants whose decrees spelled bloody dooms
Decay to nothing the narrow tomb:"

The hoopoe's persistent exhortation to all the birds is to not be bound by cold reason but to seek out the truth through love:

"Give up the intellect for love and see
In one brief moment all eternity"

The lovingly referred to Simorgh who lives far away is steeped in mystique:

"We have a King; beyond Kaf's mountain peak
The Simorgh lives, the sovereign whom you seek
And He is always near to us, though we
Live far from his transcendent majesty
A hundred thousand veils of dark and light
Withdrew his presence from our mortal sight
And in both worlds no being shares the throne
That marks the Simorgh's power and His alone -
He reigns in undisturbed omnipotence
Bathed in the light of His magnificence
No mind, no intellect can penetrate
The mystery of His unending state:"

The invitation is to explore an insight and a state of knowledge and existence that far exceeds the life and experience that the birds are reconciled to:

"The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea,
Of which your paradise is but a drop.
This ocean can be yours; why should you stop
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secret of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourselves with motes trapped in its beams"

The poem abounds in beautiful lines employing wonderful metaphors that draw a contrast between worldly existence and a much more elevated consciousness:

"The unseen world and that which we can see
Are like a water-drop which instantly
Is and is not. A water-drop was formed
When time began, and on its surface swarmed
The world's appearances. If they were made
Of all-resting iron they would fade;
Hard iron is mere water, after all -
Dispersing like a dream, impalpable."

In an honest quest, in self-abnegation, in passionate contemplation, and in modesty lies the escape and the remedy:

"How many years I wandered far and wide
Until I found the fortress that you seek -
It is the knee, bend it, accept, be meek;
I found no other way - this remedy,
And only this, will cure your misery."

But once more, the right guidance is essential:

"Whoever will be guided finds relief
From Fate's adversity, from inward grief;
One hour of guidance benefits you more
Than all your mortal life, however pure."

And indeed honest and steadfast intent:

"The heart that does not strive can never gain
The endless kingdom's gates and lives in vain;"

And once the heart is maddened by ecstasy the one in love finds himself moving beyond the world of ordinary perceptions:

"As Egypt's noble maids swooned to see
Dear Joseph's radiant face, so ecstasy
Is mirrored in the sufi's maddened heart -
Then he has lost himself and moves apart
From all that we perceive - the world grows dim
As all the world resolves to follow him."

Attar cautions that those in love or in spiritual ecstasy endure much in their journey and hence ought to be left alone, unmolested and unjudged. The drawing of parallels between true love for a person and love of God (Ishq-e-Majazi and Ishq-e-Haqeeqi) is common in eastern spiritual poetry in Persian, Urdu and other regional languages and contributes greatly to choice of common metaphors.

"Don't meddle with their conduct, don't reprove
Those given up to madness and to love.
You would excuse them - nothing is more sure -
If you could share the darkness they endure."

It is the 'I' that has to be suppressed if one is to transcend to a higher plane of consciousness and spirituality and draw closer to the divine:

" If you put all your trust in "I" and "Me"
You've chosen both worlds as your enemy -
But if you kill the Self, the darkest night
Will be illuminated with your light.
If you would flee from evil and its pain
Swear never to repeat this "I" again!"

Those who find fault with others are neglectful of their own state, which is what really ought to be what they should be focusing on. Also, one so sanctimonious and critical is incapable of loving. And if you cannot love fellow-humans how can you have the capacity to love the divine:

"He saw the other's state but not his own,
And in his blindness he is not alone;
You cannot love, and this is why you seek
To find men vicious, or depraved, or weak -
If you could search for love and persevere
The sins of other men would disappear."

Attar's poem also offers philosophical questions about the very meaning of existence as well as the impermanence of everything:

"Where are the earth, the mountains and the sea?
Where are the angels and humanity?
Where are the bodies buried underground?
Where are their minds so subtle and profound?
Where is the pain of death? Where is the soul?
Where are the sundered parts? Where is the whole?
Sift through the universe, and it will seem
An airy maze, an insubstantial dream."

The moth and the flame are ancient metaphors for the lover and the beloved as well as for the all-consuming and annihilating nature of love; for the quest on part of the true lover to become one with the beloved even if it means that he loses his own identity and existence. Attar carries on the tradition in his own glorious way:

"Another moth flew out - his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both Self and fire were mingled by his dance -
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head;
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth's form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: "He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
The hidden truth of which we cannot speak."

Quite apart from the quality of the verse the various parables, sayings, moral stories and shorter allegories are painstakingly weaved together and display great harmony. Amongst others we find mention of great sufis, mystics, philosophers, scholars and ascetics such as Bayazid Bastami, Mansoor Al-Hallaj, Ibrahim Ibn Adham, Ayaz Ibn Aymaq, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Junaid Baghdadi, Abul Qasim Nasrabadi, Abu al-Husain al-Nouri, Rabia Al-Basri, Abu Ali Roudbar, Abu Bakr Al-Shibli, Abu Abdullah Tirmazi, Abu Ali Tousi, Abu-Bakr Al-Wasiti, Yousef of Hamadan, Abul Faiz Zulnoon, and others, thus showing how The Conference of the Birds is an important link in an older spiritual tradition and one that then inspired the guided the likes of Rumi.

The beautiful hoopoe (In Urdu Hud Hud ہدُہدُُ) is of course a bird of mystical significance. A messenger of Prophet Solomon, the hoopoe is central to the poem as it acts as the motivator, guide & leader of the birds, who set off in pursuit of the celestial Simorgh. The way is arduous and the great Simorgh dwells far away beyond the mythical Mountain of Qaf and harsh and forbidding landscapes comprising of seven valleys - the Valleys of Quest, Love, Insight into Mystery, Detachment and Serenity, Unity, Awe, and finally, Poverty and Nothingness. The ultimate insight of what we seek actually existing within ourselves; of the Divine being present everywhere including us; and the answers to our questions lying in what we choose and who we become and want to be and how honestly and passionately we strive for them; are the essential and central insights of Sufism that also characterize this classic poem. The Simorgh here symbolizing not just the mythical and ethereal bird but also literally meaning thirty birds (which is the paltry number which exhausted and spent finally manages to complete the arduous journey from amongst the thousands that set off but failed). Time and again the perilousness nature of the spiritual pursuit is highlighted and the necessity of self-abnegation and bidding farewell to bonds and aspirations material and worldly. As Attar says:

"Your heart is not a mirror bright and clear
If there the Simorgh's form does not appear;
No one can bear His beauty face to face,
And for this reason, of His perfect grace,
He makes a mirror in our hearts - look there
To see Him, search your hearts with anxious care."