Author

Books by Farid ud-Din Attar

Farid ud-Din Attar was a twelfth-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, born in Nishapur in what is now Iran. He is believed to have written over forty works, of which a handful survive with confidence. The Conference of the Birds, composed around 1177, is his most celebrated poem and one of the foundational texts of Persian Sufi literature. He was a pharmacist by trade and a deeply learned man; Rumi, who came after him, acknowledged Attar's formative influence on his own thought. The exact circumstances of Attar's death are disputed, though many sources associate it with the Mongol invasion of Nishapur in 1221.