Mysticism and Text II

‘Attār’s Elahīnāmeh, much like earlier and contemporary mirrors-for-princes, makes use of historical figures and fictional characters who come from all walks of life, including those who are diametrically opposed to one another (king/pauper, ascetic/high ranking imam, lover/beloved), and whose tales are didactic in nature. However, there are two key features that set the Elahīnāmeh apart from most mirrors-of-princes, namely, its conceptualization of space within and across embedded stories and its preoccupation with steadfastness in faith as a manifestation of love of the Divine (haqq). Indeed, in the Elahīnāmeh, the frame-story’s narrator, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians frequently admonish those within and outside of their respective communities to not vacillate between professed faiths and to remain resolute. While most studies focus primarily on the Sūfī ethos as depicted in ‘Attār’s corpus, this paper will focus on these two aspects of the Elahīnāmeh from a literary perspective while touching upon conversion in ‘Attār’s social milieu. First, the paper will analyze how the Elahīnāmeh constructs the world inhabited by historical and fictional figures. It argues that despite certain structural affinities it shares with mirrors-for-princes, the Elahīnāmeh is a precursor to historical-fictions in the metaphysical space that it constructs for its characters to occupy that is unhindered by, even as it is juxtaposed with, the times and locations in which each story takes place. That metaphysical space is an equalizing one where people of competing religions commingle and are equal to one another in inner manifestations of faith regardless of religion practiced or social rank. The paper contends that this space makes the Elahīnāmeh distinct from the medieval mirrors-for-princes which employ a multiplicity of spaces and more traditional polemical and apologetical texts. The paper argues further that, in this respect, the Elahīnāmeh anticipates the universalism and humanism in Rumī’s Mas̱navī-e Ma‘navī, which has become the focus of recent scholarship. The paper will then highlight how the Elahīnāmeh’s attitude toward conversion and reconversion may offer clues to the frequency with which they occurred in medieval Iran and, on the flip side of the same coin, how the Elahīnāmeh understands and contextualizes the underlying motivations for such conversions.