The Conference of the Birds (Penguin Classics) Farid Attar Paperback – Deckle Edge, 29 March 1984

If anyone is interested to understand Sufism. This is a great book to start with. Its written beautifully and translated beautifully. It has so many life changing lessons to offer.

Simple, elegant and a true masterpiece. Must read.

This book is good for beginners. Who’ve just started following the path of sufism. Great book.

This book is basically a poem which is 260 pages long. Or perhaps you could call it a collection of poems which together tell a sequential story. Rather than focus on the theme of the poem, of which there are several reviews which are much better than what I would write here, I will just mention one or two things about this translation and edition.1. This is complete - I first read not this translation but the one by Edward Fitzgerald, which is freely available on the net. That translation is incomplete and translates only some of the poems. It is possible that Fitzgerald translated the complete poem and I got my hands on an abridged version, but then I could not find a complete Fitzgerald translation despite several searches on the net. This translation by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis is complete and this book is several times larger than Fitzgerald book. In fact, this is the only complete translation I could find in verse form. If there are others out there, please do comment on this review so that others can also know of them. The Edward Fitzgerald translation can be found here http://www.amazon.com/Conference-Birds-Illustrated-Farid-ud-Din-ebook/dp/B00AC9XP7E/ref=pd_sim_351_1/188-2646824-9954810?ie=UTF8&refRID=12Q5VAE95P18B2MHZX3W2. This is simple - The language used in this translation is fairly simple and modern. The words used, the turn of phrase and the way the sentences are broken to create rhyming lines are all as close as you can get prose written today while still retaining the character of a poem. In that sense, this is not a difficult poem to read. The Fitzgerald translation requires a little more concentration and I ended up repeating a few lines in my mind so that their rhythm would settle in, but I also found it more beautiful in some ways. I believe there is a translation by C.S.Nott which is in prose and should be even easier to read, but then I have not read that because I was looking for one in verse form.

Beautiful languageExquisite poetryWork of great relevance

Only true seekers can understand

An amazing read ! Must have for students who want to explore Islamic Mysticism !

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