Attar and Meeting with Holy witness (A discussion on the Construction and Content of some of sonnet-narrations of Attar’s Divan)

Attar (537-627 AH) is one of the most prominent poets of the great mystical school who has the most subtle and refreshing spiritual thoughts and the most beautiful spiritual experiences in the field of mystical worldview has left. In many of his sonnets, a kind of story or event is depicted that expresses the sudden spiritual transformation of a mystic or a seeker of the path. Among his sonnets, which include 872 sonnets, about 70 sonnets have a special and different structure from the rest of the sonnets. In these lyric poems, which express a kind of intuitive experience and are considered as the randan and bullying lyric poems, almost the same situation occurs on Attar or his elder. This state, which is a kind of mystical event and a personal and inner perception, is "the expression of a spiritual experience that implicitly refers to the attainment of unmediated knowledge of the senses and intellect, and requires the creation of special psychological conditions resulting from asceticism and austerity." (Pournamdarian, 1390: 17). Although such a theme can be deduced in most of his sonnets along with other themes of his poetry, but in these few sonnets, they have their own construction and function.

The research method is descriptive-analytical and the purpose of conducting it is to study and analyze those of Attar's sonnets in which the experience of his meeting with a holy witness is depicted. Regarding the researches related to the subject of meeting oneself, one can mention the works of Poornamdarian who have spoken about this subject in detail; In his book Mysteries and Mysterious Stories, he traces the history of such experiences even to pre-Islamic works. In the book Meeting with Simorgh, he describes the spiritual events and the dreams of mystics. He has also dedicated a part of the book in the shadow of the sun to the subject of commands, speech and experiences of mystics in this field, and subsequently to the aspects contrary to the habit and revelation of Molana's sonnets.Taheri (2003) studied the structure and mutual relations of various units and elements in 27 lyric poems narrated by Attar based on the combination of two chain and vertical structural methods (axis of companionship and succession) and he was the originator of this type of lyric poems in Persian literature.

The manifestation of the beloved in one of its infinite forms is among the spiritual experiences which, in Jung's words, is "a psychological knowledge whose contents originate from the unconscious" (Pournamdarian, 1390: 152; quoted by: Jung, 223). This mystical knowledge, which is a spiritual or psychological experience, is obtained as a result of finding a special spiritual space that requires austerity, enduring hunger and thirst, leaving the world and giving up carnality and the like. Such knowledge is born of personal memory and experiences of the type of dreams and dreams that the speaker is not aware of in order to overcome the emotions and emotions that result from it. In such a process of writing, the speaker speaks of the nature of experience and meeting and observing. The predominant aspect of these lyric poems is "emotional passion" and writing meanings and taste experiences that originate from the poet's mentality. Since in most of these sonnets the time of the event is night and especially at dawn, it can be seen that these sonnets are born of a personal experience and inner perception and the narrator is immersed in an intuitive experience (event). , Is a dream) and speaks of the essence of experience and the same meeting. Attar has reported such an experience in many of his joyous sonnets. These poems are more like a dream, because the occurrence of such events in the real world is not very consistent with reality.That a drunken and irrational painter enters the mosque at dawn and on two knees sits in front of the old man and gives him a cup or pain, and the old man under the influence of his words and also under the influence of the painter's beauty or under the influence of a cup or pain that he loses He is drunk, returns from asceticism and religion and turns to infidelity, or ties a rope to the cult of the drunken beauty of Loli, and then reaches the position of discovery and intuition and achieves secrets, is unlikely in the real world. And the possibility of having it as a reality is completely ruled out. Hence, these sonnets "if they are not dreams, they are dreamy and like interpretation, they need to be interpreted; interpretation that is derived from the possessions of the poet's mind "(Pournamdarian, 1390: 146).

The issue of meeting the holy witness is one of the important issues that is reflected in Attar's lyric poems more than other mystic poets. In a significant part of his sonnets, Attar has tried to present a report of his spiritual experiences and emotional emotions to the audience in a simple and intimate language. In these sonnets, the semantic background of which is determined by the story of Sheikh Sanan and Hallaj, the beloved, who has absolute power, appears to him in a body of violence and beauty.Due to the predominance of emotional states, the poet clings to metaphorical language and uses codes and symbols that often play on the institutionalized signs of the Sufi linguistic community. Hence, the circle of the possibility of signification of the signs expands and the system of signification and the domain of meaning in them remains open and opens the door of interpretation to itself. Dreaminess, contradiction and ambiguity are the inherent nature of these sonnets. The poet's tone is serious and regrettable in them, and due to the narrator's close connection with the events, the news and emotional aspects prevail in them.