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The tomb of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur,
He does not neglect the material world but in this poem he depicts human
qualities, embodied as birds, seeking a figure of salvation which they
ultimately find in their collective identity.
He sees the five senses and the material world as a vehicle for the human
imagination. Where Reason is limited, Love is unlimited:
Give up the intellect for love and see
In one brief moment all eternity;
Every man is imprisoned by his five senses and natural impressions unless he
frees himself from this cocoon. Excessive devotion to self prevents one from
attaining the larger Self beyond individual obsessions and attachments: such
excessive self-love may be bound up in a person, a possession, a house, a
jewel, or some other object which cuts off the votary from full realisation
of his place in the spiritual universe, and humankind as a whole:
The Self is like a mail coat - melt this steel
To pliant wax with David's holy zeal,
And when its metal melts, like David you
Will melt with love and bid the Self adieu.
And again, in his Musibat-nameh (Book of Laments), Attar especially revolts
against God's injustice and opposes the cruelty and social injustices of his
own times. The following is my translation of a poem from the Book of
Laments:
Once there was a poor wanderer
For whom it was easier to die than live:
He had nothing to satisfy either his hunger or thirst;
He had neither anything to eat nor anywhere to sleep. Anyway, once, in
utmost humility and resignation
He went in distress towards Nishapur.
On his way he saw a whole field blackened with cows. Like one's heart
blackened with sin and cruelty.
He asked, "To whom do these cows belong?"
He was told that they belonged to the Amid of the town. He left there
dazzled.
He came to another field, also blackened,
The whole field was full of horses;
You would say that horses had taken over the world. He asked, "Whose horses
are these?"
And was told that they belonged to the Amid of the town. He walked for a
little while, the unfortunate
And saw another field covered with numerous sheep. He asked, "To whom does
such a big flock belong?"
He was told that it belonged to the Amid.
He walked a little further until he reached the town gate [Where] he saw
numerous Turks [slaves] . . .
"Whose slaves are they?" asked the bewildered man. . . "They are men
selected by the Amid" [he was told]. The wandering man thought to himself,
listless,
Who could not afford [even] half a loaf of bread; Something boiled up inside
him
And fury overtook him.
He tore off his ragged turban
And threw it towards the sky.
"Take this too," he yelled [to God],
"So that you can hand it also to your Amid.
Now that everything is destined to belong to him
It is fit that he has this headgear too."
But Farid ud-Din Attar, while making his narrative and his fables as
captivating and diverse as the characters and discourses of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, with its comparable (though in this case unconcluded)
pilgrimage and discussions or stories among the participants, takes care to
point out many direct lessons which have all too much relevance to the
history of Iran from his time to ours, and indeed to the world as I have
seen it. Let him conclude this narrative of my childhood pilgrimage to
Khorasan with one instance of his timeliness:
At public prayers a great lord cried: "0 God,
Have mercy on me now and spare the rod!"
A crazy dervish heard his prayer and said:
"You dare to call His mercies on your head
When behaviour seems to say 'The earth
Can hardly hold a person of my worth'
You've raised a palace up against the sky,
Embellished it with gold to daze the eye;
Ten boys and ten young girls await your whim,
What claim have you on mercy or on Him?
Look on your life, on all that you possess
There isn't room for mercy in this mess!
If Fate gave you my daily round of bread,
Then you could call down mercies on your head.
Shame on you, man! Until you turn aside
From power and wealth and all your stinking pride,
There's nothing to be done - turn now, and see
How like a hero you can still break free."
(From The Conference of Birds.) |