The Conversation with the Sky in Aṭṭār’s Masnavi Poem Musibat-Nameh and Ferdowsi’s Epic Poem Shah-Nameh

Abstract

In Persian poetry sky is a powerful being whose incessant rotation around the earth determines the course of time and governs people’s destinies. Poets glorify the height and grandeur of the firmament, invoke its mercy upon themselves or upon the one to whom the poem is dedicated, and often they address the sky with reproaches. However, usually it does not answer them. The article discusses two cases in which the sky responds to the appeal, and a philological translation of the relevant passages is proposed. One example can be found in the masnavi poem by the Sufi poet Farid ad-Din ʿAṭṭār the Musibat-nameh (The Book of Torments) (12–13th cc.) where the Traveller of Thought (sālik-i fikrat), i.e. the personified thought of a meditating soul, converses with the sky seeking solace in his metaphysical grief. Another one is a fragment from Ferdowsi’s poem Shah-nameh where the Sky is being addressed by the author himself. Although these appeals to the Sky are quite different, the responses are similar: in both cases, the Sky ― and through it the poet ― appeals to human beeing’s higher purpose and unique place in the universe.

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