"When they started, their numbers were countless, but at last only thirty arrived, and these without feathers and wings, exhausted and prostrated, their hearts broken, their souls fainting, their bodies worn out by fatigue. They had arrived at the Palace of the Simurgh. A chamberlain of the King, who saw these thirty hapless birds without feathers or wings, questioned them whence they came, and why. 'We have come,' they answered, 'that the Simurgh may become our king. The love that we feel for him has unsettled our reason. We have denied ourselves all rest to follow the road that leads to Him. It is very long since we started, and of our many millions, only thirty have reached the goal. The hope of appearing here has buoyed us up hitherto; may the King think kindly of the perils we have undergone, and cast upon us at least a glance of compassion.' The chamberlain returned a harsh answer, and ordered them to go back, telling them that the King had no need of their homage. This answer at first cast them into despair, but afterwards, imitating the moth which seeks certain death in the flame of the lamp, they persisted in their request to be admitted to the presence of the Simurgh. Their steadfastness did not remain unrewarded. The "chamberlain of grace" came out, opened a door, and presented them with a document which he ordered them to read. This contained a list of all the sins which the birds had committed against the Simurgh. The perusal of it caused them nothing less than death, but this death was for them the birth into a new life."
Attar says: "By reason of the shame and confusion which these birds experienced, their bodies became dust, and their souls were annihilated. When they were entirely purified from all earthly elements, they all received a new life. All that they had done or omitted to do during their earthly existence passed entirely out of mind. The sun of proximity burnt them, that is to say, their former existence was consumed by the sun of the Divine Essence which they had approached, and a ray of this light produced a life which animated them all. At this moment they beheld themselves reflected in the Simurgh.[49] When they stole a glance at Him, He appeared to be the thirty birds themselves; when they looked at themselves, they seemed to be the Simurgh; and when they looked at both together, only one Simurgh appeared. The situation was inexpressible in words. They were all submerged in an ocean of stupefaction, with all faculties of thought suspended. Without moving a tongue, they interrogated the Awful Presence for an explanation of the mystery of apparent identity between the Divinity and his adorers.
"Then a voice was heard saying, 'The Majesty of the Simurgh is a sun-resembling mirror; whosoever contemplates Him beholds his own reflection; body and soul see in Him body and soul. As you are thirty birds, you appear in this mirror as thirty birds; if forty or fifty birds came here they would see forty or fifty. Although you have passed through many changes, it is yourselves only whom you have seen throughout. Can the eye of an ant reach the Pleiades? Then how can your inch of inkling attain to Us?
"In all the valleys which you have traversed, in all the acts of kindness which you have done to others, it was by Our impulse alone that you were acting. All this while you have been asleep in the Valley of the Essence and the Attributes. You thirty birds have been unconscious hitherto. The name "thirty birds" belongs rather to Us, who are the veritable Simurgh. Find then in Us a glorious self-effacement, in order to find yourselves again in us.'
"So they vanished in Him for ever, as the shadow disappears in the sun. While on pilgrimage they conversed; when they had arrived, all converse ceased. There was no longer a guide; there were no longer pilgrims; the road itself had ceased to be."
Such is this allegory, or Sufi's "Pilgrim's Progress," which contains nearly five thousand couplets. Attar varies the monotony of the long speeches of the Hoopoe and the other birds by inserting anecdotes, of which the following is one of the most striking:—
story of the sheikh sanaan.
The Sheikh Sanaan was one of the saints of his age; four or five times he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca; his prayers and fasts were countless; no practice enjoined by the religious law was omitted by him; he had passed through all the degrees of the spiritual life; his very breath had a healing influence upon the sick. In joy and in grief, he was an example for men, and, as it were, a standard lifted up.
One night, to his distress, he dreamt that he was fated to leave Mecca (where he was then residing) for Roum (Asia Minor), and there become an idolator. When he awoke, he said to his disciples, of whom he had four hundred, "My decision is taken; I must go to Roum in order to have this dream explained." His four hundred disciples accompanied him on the journey. They went from Mecca to Roum, and traversed the country from one end to another. One day, by chance they saw on an elevated balcony a young and lovely Christian girl. No sooner had the Sheikh seen her than he became violently in love, and seemed to lose all regard for his religious duties. His disciples tried to rouse him out of his perilous state, but in vain. One said to him, "O thou knower of secrets, rise and perform thy prayers." He replied, "My 'mihrab'[50] is the face of my Beloved; only thither will I direct my prayers." Another said, "Dost thou not repent? Dost thou not preserve any regard for Islam?" "No one," he said, "repents more deeply than I do for not having been in love before." A third said, "Anyone with intelligence can see that though thou wast our guide, thou hast gone astray." He answered, "Say what you like, I am not ashamed; I break with a stone the vase of hypocrisy."
To many similar remonstrances he made similar replies. At last, finding their efforts of no avail, his disciples left him. Lost in a kind of stupor, he remained the whole night motionless before the balcony.