THE CANTICLE OF THE BIRDS

Acrylic and oil paint on deep edge canvas, 2024

60 cm x 60 cm

Inspired by Persian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar's (d. 1220 CE) epic Manteq ot-Teyr (The Canticle of the Birds), this story follows a group of birds, led by a wise hoopoe, on a challenging journey through seven valleys, symbolizing stages like quest, love, and unity. They seek the Great Simorgh, a phoenix on Mount Qaf, representing the highest point on Earth and the link between the earthly and divine. Many perish, but thirty birds reach the peak, where they discover that the Divine they sought was within them all along. A distich 4277 of the poem:

“Though you have struggled, wandered, travelled far,

It is yourselves you see and what you are.”