FARID UD-DIN 'ATTAR (1119-1229), Persian poet and mystic, was born at Nishapur, c. 513 A.H. (A.D. I119), and was put to death c. 627 A.H. (A.D. I229). His real name was Abu Talib (or Abu Hamid) Mohammed ben Ibrahim, and Farid ud-din was simply an honourable title equivalent to Pearl of Religion. He followed for a time his father's profession of druggist or per fumer, and hence the name `Attar (one who sold `itr, otto of roses; hence, simply, dealer in drugs), which he afterwards em ployed as his poetical designation. Farid soon gave up his shop and began to study the mystic theosophy of the Sufis under Sheik Rukneddin, and before long was recognized as one of its principal representatives. He travelled extensively, visited Mecca, Egypt, Damascus and India, and was invested with the Sufi mantle by Sheik Majd-ud-din of Baghdad. The greater portion of his life was spent in the town of Shadyakh, but he is not unfrequently named Nishapuri, after the city of his boyhood and youth. Farid was a voluminous writer, and left no fewer than 120,000 couplets of poetry, though in his later years he carried his asceticism so far as to deny himself the pleasures of poetical composition. His most famous work is the Mantik uttair, or language of birds, an allegori cal poem containing a complete survey of the life and doctrine of the Sufis. It is extremely popular among Mohammedans both of the Sunnite and Shiite sects, and the manuscript copies are conse quently very numerous. The birds, according to the poet, were tired of a republican constitution, and longed for a king! As the lapwing, having guided Solomon through the desert, best knew what a king should be, he was asked whom they should choose. The Simorg in the Caucasus, was his reply. But the way to the Caucasus was long and dangerous, and most of the birds excused themselves from the enterprise. A few, however, set out, but by the time they reached the great king's court, their number was reduced to thirty. The thirty birds (si morg), wing-weary and hunger-stricken, at length gained access to their chosen monarch the Simorg; but only to find that they strangely lost their identity in his presence—that they are he, and he is they. In such strange fashion does the poet image forth the search of the human soul after absorption into the divine.
The text of the Mantik uttair was published by Garcin de Tassy in 1857, a summary of its contents having already appeared as La Poesie philosophique et religieuse chez les Persans in 1856; this was succeeded by a complete translation in 1863. Among Farid ud-din's other works may be mentioned his Pandnama (Book of Counsel), of which a translation by Silvestre de Sacy appeared in 1819; Bulbul Nama (Book of the Nightingale) ; Wasalet Nama (Book of Conjunctions) ; Khusru va Gul (The King and the Rose) ; and Tadhkiratu 'l Awliya (Memoirs of the Saints) (ed. R. A. Nicholson in Persian Historical Texts).
See Sir Gore Ouseley, Biographical Notices of Persian Poets (1846) , p. 236; Von Hammer Purgstall, Geschichte der schonen Redekiinste Persiens (Vienna, 1818), p. 14o; the Oriental Collec tions, ii. (London, 1798), pp. 84, 124, containing translations of part of the Pandnama; E. H. Palmer, Oriental Mysticism (1867) ; E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia (i906).