Fariduddin Attar, The Chemist

From Idries Shah's THE SUFIS (1964) FARIDUDDIN ATTAR, THE CHEMIST

In the Order of Khidhr (who is St. George and also Khidr, the patron saint of the Sufis, the hidden guide, sometimes thought to be Elias), which exists to this day, passages from the Mantiq ut-Tair (Parliament of the Birds) of Attar are quoted. This is a part of the ceremonial of initiation:

The sea was asked why it was dressed in blue, the color of mourning, and why it became agitated as if fire made it boil. It answered that the blue robe spoke of the sadness of separation from the Beloved, "that it was the fire of Love which made it boil." Yellow, continues the recital, is the color of gold-the alchemy of the Perfected Man, who is refined until he is in a sense gold. The robe of initiation consists of the Sufi blue mantle, with a hood, and a yellow band. Together these two colors when mixed make green, the color of initiation and nature, truth and immortality. The Mantiq was written about one hundred and seventy years before the foundation of the mysterious Order of the Garter, which was originally known as the Order of St. George.

The Sufi Order which Attar is credited with having created, and probably developed, and which certainly carries the tradition of his concentrating, carries out exercises designed to produce and maintain the harmony of the participant with the whole of creation, and it closely resembles the other Orders of Sufism, the tarikas. The stages of development of a Sufi, while they may take a different sequence in different individuals, are portrayed in the Parliament of the Birds.

The birds, who represent humanity, are called together by the hoopoe, the Sufi, who proposes that they should start on a quest to find their mysterious King. He is called Simurgh, and he lives in the Mountains of Kaf. Each bird, after at first being excited by the prospect of having a King, begins to make excuses as to why he should not himself take part in the journey toward the hidden King. The hoopoe, after hearing the plea of each, replies with a tale which illustrates the uselessness of preferring what one has or might have to what one should have. The poem is full of the Sufi imagery, and has to be studied in detail in order to be properly understood. The Ring of Solomon, the nature of Khidr the hidden guide, anecdotes of the ancient sages, fill its pages.

Eventually the hoopoe tells the birds that in the quest they have to traverse seven valleys. First of all is the Valley of the Quest, where all kinds of perils threaten, and where the pilgrim must renounce desires. Then comes the Valley of Love, the limitless area in which the Seeker is completely consumed by a thirst for the Beloved. Love is followed by the Valley of Intuitive Knowledge, in which the heart receives directly the illumination of Truth and an experience of God. In the Valley of Detachment the traveler becomes liberated from desires and dependence.

In the interchange in which the hoopoe deals with the nightingale, Attar exposes the uselessness of ecstatics, mystics who follow romance for its own sake, who intoxicate themselves with yearnings, who indulge ecstatic experience, and are out of touch with human life.

The passionate nightingale came forward, beside himself with fervor. In each one of his thousand varying chirrupings he gave vent to a different mystery of meaning. He spoke so eloquently of mysteries that all the other birds fell silent.

"I know the secrets of love," he said. "Throughout the night I give my love call. I myself teach the secrets; and it is my song which is the lament of the mystic flute, and which the lute wails. It is I who set the Rose in motion, and move the hearts of lovers. Continuously I teach new mysteries, each moment new notes of sadness, like the waves of the sea. Whoever hears me loses his wits in rapture, contrary to his normal way. When I am long bereft of my love the Rose, I lament unceasingly. . . . And when the Rose returns to the world in Summer, I open my heart to joy. My secrets are not known to all-but the Rose knows them. I think of nothing but the Rose; I wish nothing but the ruby Rose.

"To reach the Simurgh, that is beyond me-the love of the Rose is enough for the nightingale. It is for me that she flowers. . . . Can the nightingale live but one night without the Beloved?"

The hoopoe cried, "0 laggard, busy with the mere shape of things! Leave off the pleasures of seductive form! The love of the face of the Rose has merely driven thorns into your heart. It is your master. However beautiful the Rose, the beauty vanishes in a few days. Love for something so perishable can only cause revulsion in the Perfected Man. If the Rose's smile awakens your desire, it is only to hold you ceaselessly in sorrow. It is she who laughs at you each Spring, and she does not cry-leave the Rose and the redness."

Commenting upon this passage, one teacher remarks that Attar refers not only to the ecstatic who does not take his mysticism further than rapture. He also means the ecstatic's parallel, the person who feels frequent and incomplete love, and who, although deeply affected by it, is not regenerated and altered by it to such an extent that this very being undergoes a change: "This is the fire of love which purifies, which is different whenever it occurs, which sears the marrow and makes incandescent the kernel. The ore separates from the matrix, and the Perfected Man emerges, altered in such a way that every aspect of his life is ennobled. He is not changed in the sense of being different; but he is completed, and this makes him considered powerful of men. Every fiber has been purified, raised to a higher state, vibrates to a higher tune, gives out a more direct, more penetrating note, attracts the affinity in man and woman, is loved more and hated more; partakes of a destiny, a portion, infinitely assured and recognized, indifferent to the things which affected him while he pursued the mere shadow of which this is the substance, however sublime that former experience may have been."

This teacher (Adil Alimi) warns that these sentiments will not appeal to all. They will be "disbelieved by the materialist; attacked by the theologian; ignored by the romantic; avoided by the shallow; rejected by the ecstatic; be welcomed but misunderstood by the theoretician and imitation Sufi." But, he continues, we must remember qadam ba gadam (step by step): "Before you can drink the fifth cup, you must have drunk the first four, each of them delicious."

He realizes that things, whether they be old or new, have no importance. Things that have been learned are of no value. The traveler is experiencing everything afresh. He understands the difference between traditionalism, for instance, and the reality of which it is a reflection.

The fifth valley is the Valley of Unification. Now the Seeker understands that what seemed to him to be different things and ideas are, in actuality, only one.

In the Valley of Astonishment, the traveler finds bewilderment and also love. He no longer understands knowledge in the same way as formerly. Something, which is called love, replaces it.

The seventh and last valley is that of Death. This is where the Seeker understands the mystery, the paradox, of how an individual "drop can be merged with an ocean, and still remain meaningful. He has found his 'place.'"

**********

Attar is traditionally associated with having passed down the special Sufi exercise called "Halt!"-the Exercise of the Pause of Time. This takes place when the teacher, at a special time, calls for a complete freezing of movement by the students. During this "pause of time" he projects his baraka upon the people. Suddenly suspending all physical action is considered to leave the consciousness open to the receipt of special mental developments whose power is drained by muscular movement. FTR, strangely enough, is in the Sufi word list, developed into QMM. This, again encoded by the same Abjad notation, produces the word QiFF-the Divine Pause. This "Pause" is the name given to the "Halt!" exercise, which is only carried out by a teaching master.

***********

The second interesting evidence which indicates that the Sufis used the FTR root to mean the interior experience and not one which was induced by chemical means is contained in a passage from the works of the aptly named Mast Qalandar (literally, "intoxicated dervish"), who undoubtedly comments upona belief that hallucinogenic mushrooms might provide a mystical experience, but claims that this is incorrect.

First we can look at a literal rendering of the text:

"The Creator from the spreading of fervor and the essence of religious feeling thus ordered the 'juice of the grape' for the breakfasting of the Lovers (the Sufis), and in the sacramental bread of the half understanders he left a symbol. And this too learn and know, that the Sufi illuminate is far from the crack and fissure of deception which is distortion, and went near to that other (initiatory) ecstatic feeling; and was far from mushrooming and mushrooms of madness was far. And the breakfasting was of the breakfast of truths on the Way of uncrackedness. Finally after the spreading (vine) and grape came and after that its juice made wine, and supping (after abstinence), the Complete Man was made fashioned strangely by the blunt scimitar. But this bread is not from what they say, neither from beneath the tree. Truly the Truth of Creation is discovered and ecstasy may be solely known in this hiddenness of the bread of the hungry and thirsty. His drink is after his food. The Creator displays as the Opener."

This remarkable passage has been considered to be the ravings of a madman. Sheikh Mauji of the A,zamia Sufis interprets it in a page from his Durud(Recitals):

"There is a certain sensation which is true fervor and which is associated with love. This stems from ancient origins, and is necessary to mankind. Signs of it remain in circles other than those of the Sufis, but now only in symbolic form-as they have the Cross but we have Jesus. The Seeker must remember that there are similitudes of feeling which are illusory and which are like madness, but not the madness which the Sufi means when he talks of madness, as the author has used to describe himself (Mast Qalandar). It is from this source, the origin of what we call a wine, from a grape, from a vine, the product of splitting and spreading, that comes the true illumination. After a period of abstinence from wine or bread, the detachment from attachment, this force which is a form of Opening comes about. This is the nutrient which is not a food in any sense of being a known physical thing. . . "

.... there is absolutely no doubt that a message is being conveyed to the effect that chemical hallucinogens derived from fungi provide an undeniable but counterfeit experience.