by Farid al-Din Attar

Farid al-Din Attar of Nishapur, Iran, is one of the three greatest mystical poets in Persian literature. His life spanned the period between that of the other two master poets of the Islamic mystical tradition—Sana’i of Ghaznavi (d. 1130) and Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-73). Attar’s birth and death dates remain unknown, though he is thought to have perished in his nineties around 1229, when the Mongols invaded Nishapur in northeastern Iran. During his lifetime, the Seljuqs, a Turkish-speaking dynasty from Central Asia, ruled the northeastern Iranian province of Khurasan, where Nishapur is located. To administer their empire in Iran and collect its lucrative tax revenues, the Seljuqs employed other Turkic tribes, who formed dynasties of their own that competed, often brutally, for the revenues. These upheavals did not prevent Attar from following his father into...