Farid Ad-din Attar

Related Category: Asian Literature: Biographies

(färēd´ äd-dēn ät-tär´), 1142?–1220?, b. Nishapur, Persia, one of the greatest Sufi mystic poets of Islam. His masterpiece is the Mantiq ut-Tair (The Conference of the Birds), a long allegory of the soul's search for divine truth. His many other works include Tadkhirat al-Awliya, (Biographies of the Saints) which contains biographies of many Sufi mystics. His name also appears as Ferid Eddin Attar and Farid ud-Din Attar.

See his Conference of the Birds (tr. 1971), and Muslim Saints and Mystics (tr. 1979).