“ According to the account of Dawlatshah, his interest in the great mystery of the higher life of man was awakened in the following way. One day a wandering fakir gazed sadly into his shop, and, when ordered to be gone, replied: “It is nothing for me to go; but I grieve for thee, O druggist, for how wilt thou be able to think of death, and leave all these goods of thine behind thee?” The word was in season; and Mahommed ben Ibrahim the druggist soon gave up his shop and began to study the mystic theosophy of the Sufis under Sheik Rukneddin. ”

“ His most famous work is the Mantiḳ uṭṭair, or language of birds, an allegorical poem containing a complete survey of the life and doctrine of the Sufis. It is extremely popular among Mahommedans both of the Sunnite and Shiite sects, and the manuscript copies are consequently very numerous. The birds, according to the poet, were tired of a republican constitution, and longed for a king. As the lapwing, having guided Solomon through the desert, best knew what a king should be, he was asked whom they should choose. ”

“ The thirty birds (sī morg) , wing-weary and hunger-stricken, at length gained access to their chosen monarch the Simorg; but only to find that they strangely lost their identity in his presence—that they are he, and he is they. In such strange fashion does the poet image forth the search of the human soul after absorption into the divine.
The text of the Mantiḳ uṭṭair was published by Garcin de Tassy in 1857, a summary of its contents having already appeared as La Poésie philosophique et religieuse chez les Persans in 1856 ”