The Conference of the Birds. A Sufi Allegory Being an Abridged Version of Farid-ud-Din Attar’s Mantiq-ut-Tayr

The trumpet sounds and the march begins on to the bound of the waste on to the City of God." At the very commencement of the journey the birds begin to tremble at the sight of the awinspiring road. [...] The first is the valley of the Quest the second of Love; the third of Knowledge; the fourth of Dtachment; the fifth of Unity ; the sixth of Bewilderment and the seventh the steepest of all of Annihilation. [...] The Beloved of the Sufi is thus the Allah of the Quran the Jehovah of the Old Testament the King of Kings the Author of Good and Evil the Master of Compassion and Retribution. [...] Deification is The Ultima Thule of the Hindu as well as the Muslim mystic."24 CONFERENCE OF BIRDS But close though the resemblance is between the Hindu and Muslim ideas of Oneness it is clear that the Beloved of the mystic of Iran whose dazzling beauty and awe-inspiring splendour is the theme of many a Sufi song is not the same abstract deity as the Brahman or rather the Parabrahman of the Indi [...] Wherever the human mind is exercised on the why and the wherefore of existence the whence and the whither of the spirit confined in the carnal cage wherever there is the same longing Rua the same striving there has been and there will be the same lisping and the same smattering of infants crying for the light".