Muslim Saints and Mystics Episodes from the Tadhkirah al-Awliya of Farid al-Din Attar (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

Introduction Abu Hamid bin Abu Bakr Ibrahim Farid al-Din Attar was born in AD 1145 or 1146 in Nishapur province of Iranian Khorasan and died circa 1221. There is disagreement over the exact dates of his birth and death, but several sources confirm that he lived almost a hundred years. Different stories are told about the death of Attar. One common story is as follows. He was captured by a Mongol. One day someone came along and offered a thousand pieces of silver for him. Attar told the Mongol not to sell him for that price since the price was not right. The Mongol accepted Attar’s words and did not sell him. Later, someone else came along and offered a sack of straw for him. Attar counseled the Mongol to sell him because that was how much he was worth. The Mongol soldier became very angry and cut off Attar’s head. So he died to teach a lesson. Attar, much better-known by his pen names Farid al-Din and Attar (‘the pharmacist’), was a Persian and Muslim poet, Sufi, theoretician of mysticism, and hagiographer. Farid al-Din Attar was a Persian poet and Sufi mystic. Living during a turbulent era of political uncertainty, he turned inwards, exploring the realm of God and the paths to Him through mystical poetry. Little about Attar is known with certainty. His name (literally, ‘perfume of roses’) indicates that, like his father, he was a druggist and followed the calling of a medical man. Supposedly reliable Persian sources vary in the year of his death by a span of 43 years. One reason for this uncertainty is that, unlike other Islamic poets, he did not write flattering panegyrics about his own life and greatness. This is to his personal credit, but unfortunate for the historian. We are certain only of the fact that he was born in Nishapur in north-eastern Persia; he passed 13 years of his youth in Mashad, and spent much of his life collecting the poetry of other Sufi mystics. He was the son of a prosperous chemist, and got an excellent education in Arabic, theosophy and medicine. He helped his father in the store and on his father’s death, took over its ownership. The people he helped in the pharmacy used to confide their troubles in Attar and this affected him deeply. Eventually, he abandoned his pharmacy and travelled widely to Kufa, Mecca, Damascus, Turkistan, and India, meeting Sufi sheikhs and returned promoting Sufi (Islamic mysticism) ideas to his home city of Nishapur. Attar speaks of his own poetry in various contexts, including the epilogues of his long narrative poems. He confirms the guess likely to be made by every reader that he possessed an inexhaustible fund of thematic and verbal inspiration. He writes that when he composed his poems, more ideas came into his mind than he could possibly use. He also states that the effort of poetical composition threw him into a state of trance in which he could not sleep.