Methods of storytelling and allegory in the poetic works of Attar Neyshabouri

Storytelling and allegory are two important and instructive tools for describing issues that are difficult to express in an ordinary language orth ones the audience cannot understand properly. Having that in mind, poets and writers throughout history have used these two tools to achieve their goals. Attar Neyshabouri is a great example in this respect who, as a mystic poet, has used stories and allegories in his work with the aim of presenting mystical concepts to the audience. In the present study, Attar's procedure of using around two thousand stories and allegories in various educational and moral, romantic and historical subjects in expressing his mystical thoughts have been studied, and it has been determined that he, as one of the figures of mystical literature, conveys his message to the audience in a tangible and simple way, and at the end of each story, expresses what he has learnt from the story. This resarch, using the descriptive-analytical procedure, investigates the role of story in explaining mystical issues and, after the typology of allegorical stories, the nine methods in storytelling and narration used by Attar are being explained.