manuscript of the ninth-century physician ibn Bakhtishu’sThe Usefulness
of Animals(Manafial-Hayawan), produced around 1297. [Figure 3] Its
resemblance to the Fenghuang reflects transfer of the form not only to
Central Asia following the Mongol conquests, but also contemporaneously
in the Late Roman Empire–neither Firdausi nor Attar would likely have
visualized this representation. This form soon proliferated in Central Asian
painting, in independent images as well as in paintings where narratively it
had no obvious place, as in the representation of Plato at the Organ.
Similarly, many editions of theShahnamehframe the largely pre-Islamic
content with frontispieces of themi’rajand of Bilqis and Solomon, always
under a Simurgh. Although Firdausi’s bird appears as a mythological
figure, its inclusion in association with Solomon visually quotes Attar’s
suggestion that the Simurgh appears as Solomon, and the seekers as mere
ants before him.^72 [Plate 6]
The bird remains the same, regardless of how spiritual its depiction in
the text. By the thirteenth century, an educated reader would experience
Figure 3Anonymous,Simurgh, from theManafial-Hayawanby Jabril ibn Bakhtishu,
Maragheh, Iran,c. 1297–1300. Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.500, fol. 55r
(^72) Attar, 1984 : 52.
The Simurgh 101