Sufi, poet, physician
and pharmacist (B. 1120, Nishabur - D. 1229, Mecca). His full name was Feridüddin
Muhammed b. İbrahim, also known as Feridüddin Ebû Hamid Muhammed. We have very
little information on Attâr's life. The name “Attâr” comes from his father who
was selling medicine, scent and perfumes. In sufism, the word “Attâr” means the
“famous sufi”. Feridüddin-i Attâr lived in the middle age. There are people
asserting that he was born in 1119 and killed in 1230 at the age of 110.
Ferîdüddin-i
Attâr, who is considered as one of the most important poets and religious
scholars of his period, was a person possessing zühd (piety - renunciation of
the world and its pleasures) and takva (avoiding anything forbidden by Allah). During
his childhood, while learning to become a herbalist, he was also attending the
religious talks of the scholar Kutbüddin Haydar, a religion man. After the
death of his father, he substituted him and continued to herbalist’s trade for
some time. Meanwhile, he was reading valuable religious books, lives of saints
and their anecdotes. He is known to have been captured by a Mongolian soldier
during the invasion of Cenghis and martyrized. The grave of Feridüddin Attâr,
who has been buried in the town of Şadbah, has been made a place of pilgrimage.
Attâr, who
spent all his life aiming to possess takva and studying literary works, has
written more than thirty works and also left a “Divan” consisting of short poets. His poetic works are about 45
thousand couplets.
After travelling
to Egypt, Syria, Arabia, India and Central Asia, he settled in Nişabur, his
place of birth at the North East of Iran. Here, he tried to collect the poems
and mottos of famous sufis. When he couldn’t stand anymore to his faith to Sufi
Kutbüddin Haydar and his will and desire to learn his religion, he quit the
herbalist’s trade and distributed the goods in his shop as charity. Then he
joined the dervish lodge of a great religion man called Rükneddîn-i Ekaf and
became his student.
There are
considerable differences between the opinions of scientists regarding if many
of the literal works said to be of Attâr were really written by him and
regarding the details of his life and death. When Attâr revealed that he was
inclined to Shi'ism by means of his book named “Mazharü’l Acaib”, in a period when a Sunni regime was governing,
his book was burnt by a mufti named Semerkandî and Attâr’s house was pillaged.
Thereupon, Attâr had to run away to Mecca and he wrote his last work, “Lisanü’l Gayb” there. He is said to have
died there.
Indeed Attâr, with his thoughts, literal themes and style, not only influenced the Persian literature but also other Islam literatures. The Attâr’s opinion “Tell me, what is a human being. A wretched creature, a handful of soil and a two-day being… A breath holds him between the life and the death. All his existence is by virtue of that breath.” has been mentioned in the grains of sand and drops of water example of his posterior Pascal. His opinion above has also been mentioned in the following couplet of Nizamî: “The difference between the existence and non-existence is as much as a hair.”
During his pilgrim's journey, Feridüddin
Attâr met with many persons, who were masters of sufism and intellectuals.
Afterwards, he began to read books on sufism and interested in poems on advise,
sufism and reality.
Most important work of Attâr
is “Mantıku’t Tayr”. In this work,
which is indeed about a mesnevi of
Gazalî, the birds’, namely the sufis’, looking for the mythologic bird
Simurgh (Phoenix) who they wanted to make their king, namely the God, is told.
In the final section, the surviving birds look at the images on the mirror-like
face of Simurgh and realize that Simurgh is themselves. In this work, Attâr
intended to emphasise that, the one who was looking for the God could find the
God only inside himself even he travelled whole universe.
WORKS:
Musîbetnâme (Mesnevî türünde yazılmış olan eserde
pek çok küçük öykü anlatılır. Written
in Mesnevî style and contains many short stories. Translated into
Turkish with the name of Tarîkatnâme.), Esrârnâme
(About sufism,
translated into Turkish), Mantık-ut-Tayr and
Makâmât-ı Tuyûr (A work on sufism that has been published as
two volumes during 1944-45. Its subject has been taken from Ahmed-i Gazâlî's Risâlet-üt-Tayr'.),
Muhtârnâme
(Collection of quatrains arranged by subject. Translated into Turkish
during Selîm the Second’s period.), Cevher-üz-Zât (A work
saying that everything other than Allah is passing.), Üştürnâme, Bülbülnâme,
Bisernâme, Haydarnâme, Deryânâme, Leylâ and Mecnûn, Mahmûd-u Ayaz, Mahzen-ül-Esrâr,
Mazhâr-üs-Sıfât, Miftâh-ül-Fütûh, Vuslâtnâme, İrşâd-ı Beyân, Velednâme, Hırâdnâme,
Hayâtnâme, Şifâ-ül-Kulûb, Uşşaknâme, Kenz-ül-Esrâr, Kenz-ül-Hakâik,
Mazhar-ül-Âsâr, Mîracnâme, Misbahnâme, Hüdhüdnâme, Mahfinâme, Kemâlnâme,
Tercümet-ül-Ehâdîs, Zühdnâme, Tezkiret-ül-Evliyâ (He compiled the biographies, anecdotes and mottos of saints. This originally
Persian work has been translated into Turkish by Süleyman Uludağ in 1985 and
also many times into French and Arabic).
REFERENCE:
İbrahim Kutluk / Attar’ın Musibetnâmesi (doktora tezi, 1962) - Attar’ın Tezkiretü’l-Evliya’sı
Tercümesi,(1962), Ana Britannica Genel Kültür Ansiklopedisi (c.2,
1986), İslâm Âlimleri Ansiklopedisi (2008), İhsan Işık / Ünlü Fikir ve Kültür
Adamları (Türkiye Ünlüler Ansiklopedisi, c. 3, 2013) )
- Encyclopedia of Turkey’s Famous People (2013) - Resimli ve Metin Örnekli
Türkiye Edebiyatçılar ve Kültür Adamları Ansiklopedisi (C. 12, 2017).
