Animal system in the systems of Attar Neyshabouri

Attar Nishaburi uses different narrations and allegories in Asrar-Nameh, Ilahi-Nameh, Mosibat- Nameh, and Mantiq-ut-Tayr versified stories to share intelligence and wisdoms that he names “countless treasures”. Using animal symbols and animal characters are important parts of these narrations. By employing a variety of animals and their characteristics, Attar conveys his ideas and concepts. In addition to gaining a deeper insight into Attar’s thoughts, surveying, describing, and analyzing these animals and their characteristics help us to improve our knowledge about the dialogues based on animals’ characteristics in his era and better comprehend his contemporaneous view regarding animals, especially in the Greater Khorasan. Using a descriptiveanalytical method, this article attempts to investigate Attar’s fourfold versified stories and state the characteristics of the mentioned animals in the narrations, after extracting their names. The study indicates that Attar used different resources including stories in Koran Karim, descriptive texts, aphorisms and traditions related to prophets and scholars, fiction-slangy stories, and scientific-quasi as well as scientific sources to describe the animals and their characteristics. Of course, he only uses the animals’ characteristics that he finds useful to express his ideas. In some cases, he is not concerned about being loyal to the references; he rather adds new characteristics to the animals that are controversial to the references.