"The Concourse of the Birds", Folio 11r from a Mantiq al-Tayr (Language of the Birds)

Farid al-Din `Attar|Habiballah of Sava

ca. 1600 · Ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper · Islamic Art

The illustration on this folio depicts a scene from a mystical poem, Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds), written by a twelfth-century Iranian, Farid al-Din 'Attar. The birds, which symbolize individual souls in search of the simurgh (a mystical bird representing ultimate spiritual unity), are assembled in an idyllic landscape to begin their pilgrimage under the leadership of a hoopoe (perched on a rock at center right). The careful, harmonious composition is consistent with that of the late fifteenth-century Timurid miniatures also in the manuscript, but three factors indicate that this image is later: the presence of the hunter, who has no place in the narrative; his firearm, a weapon that gained currency in Iran after the mid-sixteenth century; and the signature of the late sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century artist Habiballah

Artist

Farid al-Din `Attar|Habiballah of Sava

Date

ca. 1600

Medium

Ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper

Department

Islamic Art

Credit line

Fletcher Fund, 1963