A ceremony will be held at Attar’s mausoleum on April 13 which will be attended by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, the secretary of the ceremony Mohammad-Mehdi Mojdi told the Persian service of ISNA.
He went on to say that Attar’s mausoleum will also be adorned with flowers on this day. Attar Day is celebrated every year on April 14 at his mausoleum in Neyshabur, and several conferences and exhibits in his honor are held across the country.
Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini and Khorasan Razavi Governor Mahmud Salahi will speak at the Simorgh Cultural Center in Neyshabur, Mojdi added.
In addition, the participants will gather at the tomb of Attar’s father Ebrahim ibn Es’haq Kadkani on April 14.
Scholars Mohammad Taqavi, Hassan Zolfaqari, Mohammad-Yusef Nayyeri, Reza Ashrafzadeh and Vida Ahmadi will present papers on Attar’s work and life Thursday, he said.
Asrar-Nama, Mantiq at-Tayr (Conference of the Birds), Mosibat-Nama, Elahi-Nama, Mokhtar-Nama, Khosrow-Nama, and Tadkerat al-Awliya are among Attar’s masterpieces.
Attar’s most famous work “The Conference of the Birds” is an allegorical poem describing the quest of the birds, which symbolically represent Sufis, for the mythical Simorgh, or Phoenix.
Finally thirty birds that have survived the journey realize that they and the Simorgh are one, a clever play on the words Simorgh -- a mystical bird in Iranian mythology -- and “si morgh” -- meaning “thirty birds” in Persian.
SB/YAW
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MNA