#attar

[noosphe-re]

"The Concourse of the Birds", folio 11r from a Mantiq al-Tayr (Language of the Birds), painting by Habiballah of Sava (Iranian, active ca. 1590–1610), author: Farid al-Din `Attar (Iranian, Nishapur ca. 1142–ca. 1220 Nishapur), ca. 1600, Isfahan, Iran; ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper (The Met)

[cultkinkcoven]

More trans Lucifer because it drives the terfs crazzy

I love him so much aaa 💕

u can see more of my art on Instagram @thrashkink_art !!!

Hail Venus! ✴️

[tsalmu]

Attarshamayn and Worshiper Text in Old Aramaic, dedication of Baraq to the goddess Attarshamayn ("Attar of the Heavens", related to Attar, Atargatis, Astarte) 11-10th c. BCE, likely crafted in ancient Assyria. Acquired from Jableh, Syria. __________________________ Translated excerpt from: Antiquités syriennes Henri Seyrig Syria T. 32, Fasc. 1/2 (1955), pp. 29-48 (23 pages)

Atarshamayn. Pl. Ill, 5. Burnt carnelian. 21 X 9. Brought from Djeblé (Gabala). Goddess advancing on the right, dressed in a long split garment, a sword at her side, wearing a polos crowned with globules and surmounted by a star; she holds in her left hand a ring made of globules, and she raises her right hand; from her head, a dewlap falls to the height of her waist. Behind her, a recumbent ibex, a lozenge, a bucranium. In front of her, an offering table, laden with a footed vase, a bird, and another object. To the right, a bearded figure, long-robed, stands in the attitude of prayer, hands outstretched with palms in the air. Above the scene, crescent and eight-pointed star. In the field, inscription in Phoenician characters: HTM BRO BD TRSMN, seal of Baraq, servant of Atarshamayn. Note the archaic character of the letters, and in particular that of the daleth without a tail. This carefully crafted cylinder appears to belong to the class of Assyrian cylinders .11 from the 10th century (1). Phoenician characters were commonly used in these ancient times for the transcription of Aramaic, and do not allow us to conclude that the seal was engraved in Phoenicia. Moreover, if Baraq (2), the owner of the cylinder, had been Phoenician, his tutelary deity would not have borne an Aramaic name, where the element Atar is the equivalent of the Phoenician Ashtart. The fact that the cylinder was found in Gabala, in Phoenicia, is therefore probably fortuitous Atarshamayn, "Atar of the Heavens," is still known only from a single text, notably later than our cylinder. Around 640, Ashurba-nipal was campaigning against the Arab tribes of the Syrian Desert (3), and his annals specify that he then subdued "the band of Atarsamayn and the people of Oedar" (4). No doubt the people of Atarsamayn were Arabs, just as the people of Qedar were, and they were named after their principal deity. It was a form of the Lady of Heaven (I), whose cult is common to the Semites. Perhaps the warrior goddess, represented on the seal, is the one named in the inscription. This text seems to be composed with the decoration. Barak must have ordered his cylinder as we see it, and, in this case, it will seem natural that he had engraved on it the goddess whose servant he proclaims himself.

[victusinveritas]

Attar's The Concourse of the Birds, Folio 11r from a Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds) ca. 1600

Painting by Habiballah of Sava.

[majestativa]

Drink the wine of mystic knowledge, but don’t then forget to keep your lips closed.

— ATTAR ⚜️ Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, transl. by David Fideler & Sabrineh Fideler, (2010)

[loneberry]

"Attar is one of the greatest poets of the Persian language. Nonetheless, his popularity - both in Iran itself and in the West (Goethe, for example, touched on him only briefly in his West-Eastern Divan) - does not match that of Ferdowsi (d. 1020), Omar Khayyam (d. c.1132), Rumi, Saadi (d. 1292) or Hafiz (d. 1389); occasionally he is even omitted from the line of seven Persian poet-princes in favour of Jami (d. 1492). One pos­sible reason for this is that the composition of his poetry is too artful, too complex to be effective in the town squares and teahouses, while at the same time, many of his stories and figures may seem too coarse, too folk-like and too sarcastic to be at the forefront of the high spir­itual literature cultivated at courts in former times and in middle-class households today. Attar’s poetry, on the other hand, is far less stilted than that of most Persian poets but, rather, unadorned, clear and imme­diate. The pain it expresses is not spiritually filtered as in Rumi, far less metaphysically elevated than in Saadi, and not sublimated into pleasure as in Omar Khayyam - where Hafiz turns the earthly into the mystical, Attar strips mysticism down to its leaden, earthly foundation in order to scream his longing to the heavens." --Navid Kermani, The Terror of God: Attar, Job and the Metaphysical Revolt

.

I asked my professor which masnavi (Persian epic poem) he thinks is the greatest ever written. He replied, Rumi's Masnavi (the only masnavi Rumi wrote). Shock. How can there be a masnavi greater than Attar's Conference of the Birds? (There are 4 authentic Attar masnavis; sadly, as far as I know, Conference of the Birds is the only one that has been translated into English.) Reading through Rumi's masnavi I think I am still team Attar. It's Attar's coarseness I love--he is a poet of mad saints and freaks. In Rumi's Masnavi, the absence of a frame story and the pious/didactic tone is somewhat of a barrier for me. The pieces don't quite hang together, whereas Attar's Conference of the Birds is intricately structured--there are stories within stories within stories, each bird with its idiosyncratic psychology--a narrative arc that mirrors the journey of the soul across the seven valleys. But maybe there is a difference between reading a sufi text for its poetry rather than religious instruction, I don't know.

[laughter-of-the-rose]

The first stage is the Valley of the Quest;

Then Love’s wide valley is our second test;

The third is Insight into Mystery,

The fourth Detachment and Serenity –

The fifth is Unity; the sixth is Awe,

A deep Bewilderment unknown before,

The seventh Poverty and Nothingness –

And there you are suspended, motionless,

Till you are drawn – the impulse is not yours –

A drop absorbed in seas that have no shores.

The Conference of the Birds, Farid Ud-din Attar

[boise-chypre]

I walk the wrong way, having lost the Way, my heart dark as the list of my deeds. Guide me, wash my life’s record clean. Wipe clean in both worlds the chalkboard of my life. I writhe in my yearning for you. If I have a soul, it’s ashamed to stand before you. Would that I might live a hundred lives to suffer in each, a new longing for you

The Conference of The Birds by Attar, trans. Sholeh Wolpé