Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:21:38.930Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Remembrance of Death in ʿAttār's Mosibat-nāmeh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Austin Michael O’Malley
Austin Michael O’Malley*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the anecdotes of ʿAttār’s Mosibat-nāmeh as temporal phenomena from the perspective of a reader moving progressively through the text; it is argued that that these anecdotes do not function primarily as carriers of dogmatic information, but as dynamic rhetorical performances designed to prod their audiences into recommitting to a pious mode of life. First, the article shows how the poem’s frame-tale influences a reader’s experience of the embedded anecdotes by encouraging a sequential mode of consumption and contextualizing the work’s pedagogical aims. Next, it is demonstrated that these anecdotes are bound together through formulae and lexical triggers, producing a paratactic structure reminiscent of oral homiletics. Individual anecdotes aim to unsettle readers’ ossified religious understandings, and together they offer a flexible set of heuristics for pious living. Finally, it is argued that ʿAttār’s intended readers were likely familiar with the mystical principles that underlie his poems; he therefore did not use narratives to provide completely new teachings, but rather to persuade his audience to more fully embody those pious principles to which they were already committed.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 23 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association For Iranian Studies, Inc

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

He would like to thank all who read and commented on this work in its many iterations, especially Cameron Cross, Madeleine Elfenbein, Franklin Lewis, Alexandra Zirkle, and Matthew Miller.

References

ʿAttār, Farid al-Din. Mosibat-nāmeh [Book of Affliction]. Edited by Rezā Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Mohammad. 2nd ed. Tehran: Sokhan, 1386/2007-8.Google Scholar
ʿAttār, Farid al-Din. Manteq al-tayr [Conference of the Birds]. Edited by Rezā Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Mohammad. 2nd ed. Tehran: Sokhan, 1387/2008-9.Google Scholar
ʿAttār, Farid al-Din. Mokhtār-nāmeh [Choice Book]. Edited by Rezā Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Mohammad. 2nd ed. Tehran: Sokhan, 1389/2010-11.Google Scholar
Austin, James. How to Do Things with Words. Edited by Urmson, J. O. and Sabisà, Marina. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldick, Julian. “Persian Ṣūfī Poetry up to the Fifteenth Century.” In History of Persian Literature: From the Beginning of the Islamic Period to the Present Day, edited by Morrison, G., 113–132. Leiden: Brill, 1981.Google Scholar
Belcher, Stephen. “Framed Tales in the Oral Tradition: An Exploration.” Fabula 35 (1994): 1–19. doi: 10.1515/fabl.1994.35.1-2.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, J. A. “The Religious Mathnavīs of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār.” Iran 17 (1979): 9–14. doi: 10.2307/4299670Google Scholar
Corbin, Henry. Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Translated by Trask, Willard R.. New York: Pantheon Books, 1960.Google Scholar
Davis, Dick. “The Journey as Paradigm: Literal and Metaphorical Travel in ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-Ṭayr.” Edebiyat, n.s., 4 (1993): 173–183.Google Scholar
Dāyeh, Najm al-Din Rāzi Mersād al-ʿebād [The Path of Servants]. Edited by Amin Riāhi, Mohammad. Tehran: Bongāh-e Tarjomeh va Nashr-e Ketāb, 1391/2012-13.Google Scholar
De Bruijn, J. T. P. Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm Sanāʾī of Ghazna. Leiden: Brill, 1983.Google Scholar
De Bruijn, J. T. P. “The Preaching Poet: Three Homiletic Poems by Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār.” Edebiyat: Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures 9, no. 1 (1998): 85–101.Google Scholar
Dehlavi, Hasan. Favāʾed al-foʾād [Maxims of the Heart]. Edited by Latif Malek, Mohammad. Lahore: Malek Serāj al-Din, 1966.Google Scholar
Dols, Michael W., and Immisch, Diana. Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elias, Jamal. The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla as-Simnānī. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Foruzānfar, Badiʿ al-Zamān. Sharh-e ahvāl va naqd va tahlil-e āsār-e Shaykh Farid al-Din Mohammad ʿAttār-e Nayshāburi [The Life of ʿAttār and Criticism and Analysis of His Works]. Tehran: Chāp-khāneh-ye Dāneshgāh, 1339/1960-61. Reprint, Tehran: Āsim, 1389/2010-11.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. The Courage of the Truth (The Government of Self and Others II): Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-1984. Translated by Burchell, Graham. Edited by Gros, Frédéric. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.Google Scholar
Hojviri, ʿAli b. ʿOsmān. Kashf al-mahjub [Unveiling the Veiled]. Edited by ʿĀbedi, Mahmud. Tehran: Sorush, 1392/2013-14.Google Scholar
Irwin, Bonnie D. “What’s in a Frame? The Medieval Textualization of Traditional Storytelling.” Oral Tradition 10, no. 1 (1995): 27–53.Google Scholar
Kermani, Navid. Der Schrecken Gottes: Attar, Hiob, und die metaphysische Revolte. Munich: Beck, 2005.Google Scholar
Kermani, Navid. The Terror of God: Attar, Job and the Metaphysical Revolt. Translated by Hoban, Wieland. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Keshavarz, Fatemeh. “Flight of the Birds: The Poetic Animating the Spiritual in ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-Ṭayr.” In ʿAṭṭār and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight, edited by Lewisohn, Leonard and Shackle, Christopher, 112–134. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.Google Scholar
Kirkwood, William. “Parables as Metaphors and Examples.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 71 (1985): 422–440. doi: 10.1080/00335638509383746CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malherbe, Abraham, ed. Moral Exhortation, A Greco-Roman Sourcebook. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Marzolph, Ulrich. “ʿUḳalāʾ al-mad͟jānīn.” In Encylopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by Bearman, P., Bianquis, Th., Bosworth, C. E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W. P.. Brill. Article posted 2012. doi: 10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8927.Google Scholar
Meier, Fritz. “The Spiritual Man in the Persian Poet ʿAṭṭār.” Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks 4 (1954): 267–304.Google Scholar
Meier, Fritz. “Ismailiten und Mystik im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert [Ismailis and Mysticism in the 12th and 13th Century].” Persica 16 (2000): 19–29. doi: 10.2143/PERS.16.0.509CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirafzali, Sayyed ʿAli. “Āyā Mokhtār-nāmeh az ʿAttār ast? [Is the Mokhtār-nāma ʿAttār's?]” Nashr-e dānesh 17, no. 1 (Spring 1379/2000): 32–43.Google Scholar
Mosharraf, Maryam. “Shāludeh-shakani-ye manteq-e vahshat dar āsār-e ʿAttār [Deconstructing the Logic of Terror in the Works of ʿAttār].” In ʿAttār-shenākht, edited by Rezā Rāshed Mohassel, Mohammad, 107–118. Mashhad: Farhang-sarā-ye Ferdowsi, 1385/2006-7.Google Scholar
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “The Flight of the Birds to Union: Meditations upon ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr’.” In Islamic Art and Spirituality, 98–113. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.Google Scholar
O’Malley, Austin. “Poetry and Pedagogy: The Homiletic Verse of Farid al-Din ʿAṭṭâr.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2017.Google Scholar
Ohlander, Erik. Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the Rise of the Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods. Leiden: Brill, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ong, Walter J. “The Writer’s Audience is always a Fiction.” PMLA 90, no. 1 (Jan. 1975): 9–21. doi: 10.2307/461344Google Scholar
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Pourjavady, Nasrollah. “Hekmat-e divānagān dar masnavi-hā-ye ʿAttār [The Wisdom of Fools in ʿAttār's Masnavis].” Nashr-e dānesh 13, no. 1 (1371/1992-93): 2–16.Google Scholar
Pourjavady, Nasrollah. “Genres of Religious Literature.” In General Introduction to Persian Literature, edited by de Bruijn, J. T. P., 270–311. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009.Google Scholar
Purnāmdāriān, Taqi. “Simorgh va Jebraʾil [Gabriel and the Simorgh].” In Didār bā simorgh, 73–97. Tehran: Pazhuhesh-gāh-e ʿOlum-e Ensāni va Motālaʿāt-e Farhangi, 1374/1995-96.Google Scholar
Purnāmdāriān, Taqi. “Negāhi be dāstān-pardāzi-ye ʿAttār [A Look at ʿAttār's Story-Construction].” In Didār bā simorgh, 259–292. Tehran: Pazhuhesh-gāh-e ʿOlum-e Ensāni va Motālaʿāt-e Farhangi, 1374/1995-96.Google Scholar
Radtke, Bernd. “Über Wissenschaftliche Redlichkeit [On Academic Honesty].” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 159 (2009): 15–21.Google Scholar
Rahman, Fazlur. “Dream, Imagination, and ʿĀlam al-mithāl.” In The Dream and Human Societies, edited by Von Grunenbaum, G. E. and Caillois, Roger, 409–419. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Reinert, Benedikt. “ʿAṭṭār, Farīd-al-Dīn.” In Encylopaedia Iranica, edited by Yarshater, Ehsan. Article updated August 17, 2011. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/attar-farid-al-din-poet.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, Paul. “Listening to the Parables of Jesus.” Criterion 13 (Spring 1974): 18–22.Google Scholar
Ritter, Hellmut. “Muslim Mystics’ Strife with God.” Oriens 5, no. 1 (1952): 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritter, Hellmut. “Philologika XIV: Farīduddīn ʿAṭṭār II.” Oriens 11, no. 1/2 (1958): 1–76. doi: 10.2307/1578927CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritter, Hellmut. Das Meer der Seele: Mensch, Welt und Gott in den Geschichten des Farīduddīn ʿAṭṭār. Leiden: Brill, 1978.Google Scholar
Ritter, Hellmut. The Ocean of the Soul: Man, the World and God in the Stories of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār. Translated by O’Kane, John. Edited by Radtke, Bernd. Leiden: Brill, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Mohammad Rezā. Introduction to Manteq al-tayr, by ʿAttār, Farid al-Din, 17–230. 2nd ed. Tehran: Sokhan, 1387/2008-9.Google Scholar
Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Mohammad Rezā. Introduction to Mokhtār-nāmeh, by al-Din ʿAttār, Farid, 11–66. 2nd ed. Tehran: Sokhan, 1389/2010-11.Google Scholar
Stepien, Rafal. “A Study in Sufi Poetics: The Case of ʿAṭṭār Nayshābūrī.” Oriens 41 (2013): 77–120. doi: 10.1163/18778372-13410103CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, David. Parables in Midrash. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Stone, Lucian. “‘Blessed Perplexity’: The Topos of Ḥayrat in ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-Ṭayr.” In ʿAṭṭār and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight, edited by Lewisohn, Leonard and Shackle, Christopher, 95–111. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.Google Scholar
Suhrawardī, Abū Hafs. ʿAwārif al-maʿārif [The Gifts of Knowledge]. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1966.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. “Liminality and Communitas.” In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, 94–130. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Wacks, David A. Framing Iberia: Maqāmāt and Frametale Narratives in Medieval Spain. Leiden: Brill, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waley, Muhammad Isa. “Contemplative Disciplines in Early Persian Sufism.” In The Heritage of Sufism: Classical Persian Sufism form Its Origins to Rumi, 497–548. London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1993. Reprint, Oxford: Oneworld, 1999.Google Scholar
Wolf, Werner. “Framing Borders in Frame Stories.” In Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media, edited by Wolf, Werner and Bernhart, Walter, 179–206. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zarrinkub, ʿAbd al-Hosayn. Sedā-ye bāl-e simorgh [The Sound of the Simorgh's Wing]. Tehran: Sokhan, 1386/2007-8.Google Scholar