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Attar of Nishapur Quotes

d. 1220 Iran

Abū Hamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (c. 1110 – c. 1221); ابو حامد ابن ابوبکر ابراهیم, more famous by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn (فریدالدین) and ‘Attār (عطار - "the perfumer"), was a Persian Sufi poet, mystical philosopher, and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and Sufism.

Iran
Philosophers
Poets
Sufis

Also known as: Attar

Random Attar of Nishapur quote

29 quotes

Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers.

Since I have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.

The sea
Will be a sea
Whatever the drop's philosophy.

All things are but masks at God's beck and call,
They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.

From each a mystic silence Love demands.

Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.

Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside.

He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

God is Eternal … Here in this garden of a lower Eden, Attar perfumed the soul of the humblest of men.

The Sea
Will be the Sea
Whatever the drop's philosophy.

The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis (2003)

From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer "thou" and "I" exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

Yet what are seas and what is air? For all
Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth
To veil Divinity. For heaven and earth,
Did He not permeate them, were but names;
Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.

Joy! Joy! I triumph! Now no more I know
Myself as simply me. I burn with love
Unto myself, and bury me in love.
The centre is within me and its wonder
Lies as a circle everywhere about me.
Joy! Joy! No mortal thought can fathom me.

Thou all Creation art, all we behold, but Thou,
The soul within the body lies concealed,
And Thou dost hide Thyself within the soul,
O soul in soul! Myst'ry in myst'ry hid!
Before all wert Thou, and are more than all!

I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.
I shall trample Matter and Space with my horse,
beyond all Being I shall utter a great shout,
and in that moment when I shall be alone with Him,
I shall whisper secrets to all mankind.
Since I have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.

Sin and Contrition — Retribution owed,
And cancell'd — Pilgrim, Pilgrimage, and Road,
Was but Myself toward Myself: and Your
Arrival but Myself at my own Door.

All you have been, and seen, and done, and thought,
Not You but I, have seen and been and wrought:
I was the Sin that from Myself rebell'd:
I the Remorse that tow'rd Myself compell'd.

He has bent over upon immensity, for the tent-roof of his dwelling, the gorgeous bow of the stars.

Attributed Pebbles, Pearls and Gems from the Orient (1882)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Attar of Nishapur (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.