#attar

"The Concourse of the Birds", folio 11r from a Mantiq al-Tayr (Language of the Birds), painting by Habiballah of Sava (Iranian, active ca. 1590–1610), author: Farid al-Din `Attar (Iranian, Nishapur ca. 1142–ca. 1220 Nishapur), ca. 1600, Isfahan, Iran; ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper (The Met)

Hail Venus! ✴️

Atarshamayn. Pl. Ill, 5. Burnt carnelian. 21 X 9. Brought from Djeblé (Gabala). Goddess advancing on the right, dressed in a long split garment, a sword at her side, wearing a polos crowned with globules and surmounted by a star; she holds in her left hand a ring made of globules, and she raises her right hand; from her head, a dewlap falls to the height of her waist. Behind her, a recumbent ibex, a lozenge, a bucranium. In front of her, an offering table, laden with a footed vase, a bird, and another object. To the right, a bearded figure, long-robed, stands in the attitude of prayer, hands outstretched with palms in the air. Above the scene, crescent and eight-pointed star. In the field, inscription in Phoenician characters: HTM BRO BD TRSMN, seal of Baraq, servant of Atarshamayn. Note the archaic character of the letters, and in particular that of the daleth without a tail. This carefully crafted cylinder appears to belong to the class of Assyrian cylinders .11 from the 10th century (1). Phoenician characters were commonly used in these ancient times for the transcription of Aramaic, and do not allow us to conclude that the seal was engraved in Phoenicia. Moreover, if Baraq (2), the owner of the cylinder, had been Phoenician, his tutelary deity would not have borne an Aramaic name, where the element Atar is the equivalent of the Phoenician Ashtart. The fact that the cylinder was found in Gabala, in Phoenicia, is therefore probably fortuitous Atarshamayn, "Atar of the Heavens," is still known only from a single text, notably later than our cylinder. Around 640, Ashurba-nipal was campaigning against the Arab tribes of the Syrian Desert (3), and his annals specify that he then subdued "the band of Atarsamayn and the people of Oedar" (4). No doubt the people of Atarsamayn were Arabs, just as the people of Qedar were, and they were named after their principal deity. It was a form of the Lady of Heaven (I), whose cult is common to the Semites. Perhaps the warrior goddess, represented on the seal, is the one named in the inscription. This text seems to be composed with the decoration. Barak must have ordered his cylinder as we see it, and, in this case, it will seem natural that he had engraved on it the goddess whose servant he proclaims himself.

Painting by Habiballah of Sava.

— ATTAR ⚜️ Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, transl. by David Fideler & Sabrineh Fideler, (2010)

I asked my professor which masnavi (Persian epic poem) he thinks is the greatest ever written. He replied, Rumi's Masnavi (the only masnavi Rumi wrote). Shock. How can there be a masnavi greater than Attar's Conference of the Birds? (There are 4 authentic Attar masnavis; sadly, as far as I know, Conference of the Birds is the only one that has been translated into English.) Reading through Rumi's masnavi I think I am still team Attar. It's Attar's coarseness I love--he is a poet of mad saints and freaks. In Rumi's Masnavi, the absence of a frame story and the pious/didactic tone is somewhat of a barrier for me. The pieces don't quite hang together, whereas Attar's Conference of the Birds is intricately structured--there are stories within stories within stories, each bird with its idiosyncratic psychology--a narrative arc that mirrors the journey of the soul across the seven valleys. But maybe there is a difference between reading a sufi text for its poetry rather than religious instruction, I don't know.

The Conference of the Birds, Farid Ud-din Attar

The Conference of The Birds by Attar, trans. Sholeh Wolpé