worth the greatest hardships. Far from reflecting a prohibition of images,
the poem emphasizes their inherent insufficiency. Nonetheless, they have
value in directing the seeker toward a more meaningful yet arduous path to
divine apprehension.
The human incapacity to represent the Simurgh results not simply from
mental insufficiency, but from the bird’s immateriality, as Firdausi’s
Simurgh transforms into a Suhrawardian vessel of light:
When long ago Simorghfirst appeared–
His face like sunlight when the clouds have cleared–
He cast unnumbered shadows on the earth,
On each onefixed his eyes, and each gave birth.
Thus we were born; the birds of every land
Are still his shadows–think, and understand.^55
This light is the source of creation–the birds are the shadows of the divine.
This articulates Suhrawardi’s assertion that all matter is a light-emanation
of the divine. The helioid face of the Simurgh thus paradoxically casts
shadows, which are that which we take as real.
If you had known this secret you would see
The link between yourselves and Majesty...
If He had kept His Majesty concealed,
No earthly shadow would have been revealed.^56
Enabling the apprehension of God as light, the Simurgh’s emanation
manifests as earthly shadows embodied in the creation of‘the birds,’
indicator not only of the multiplicity of our human bodies, but also of
each unique human soul and challenge. We exist not through our materi-
ality, but through the distinction between our physical selves and divine
light. Without bodies, divine light could not appear framing shadows. Far
from negating physicality and visuality, the discourse of shadow necessi-
tates matter. Only against a material backdrop can we apprehend
transcendence.
This imagery derives from Suhrawardi’s understanding of Plato. He
explains:“Plato and his companions showed plainly that they believed
the Maker of the universe and the world of intellect to be light when they
said that the pure light is the world of intellect.”^57 Suhrawardi describes all
being as emanation from the Light of Lights. Material creation is the
shadow of this being. Attar’s adoption of the characteristics of the Light
of Lights for the Simurgh constructs an iconography for the divine. It
(^55) Attar, 1984 : 52. (^56) Attar, 1984 : 52. (^57) Suhrawardi, 1999 : 110.
The Simurgh 95