Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
Muhammad Ibrahim Hafiz Ismail Surty, The Quranic
Concept of al-Shirk (London: Ta-Ha Publishers, 1982);
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, The Book of Tawheed
(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: International Islamic Publishing
House, 1998).
shrine See mawlid; saint; wali.
Simurgh (Simorgh)
The Simurgh is a gigantic mythological bird men-
tioned in Persian literature. It has been identified
with the anka, a legendary bird in Arabian tales,
Garuda, the winged mount of the Hindu god
Vishnu, and the phoenix, a mythological fire bird
that Greeks and Romans believed had first appeared
in ancient Egypt. Pre-Islamic and Islamic textiles,
metalwork, ceramics, and illustrated manuscripts
from iran and india feature depictions of it.
Ancient Iranian texts say that Simurgh was
immortal and lived in the Tree of Knowledge;
other Persian texts say that it could live for 1,000
years. It is described as having brilliant plumage
and the power to bestow fertility in the land and
good health among human beings. According to
Firdawsi’s shahnama (the Persian Epic of Kings,
composed in the late 10th century), Simurgh lived
in the Alburz Mountains of northern iran. When
Zal, the albino child of a Persian warrior, was
abandoned there by his father, Simurgh, a female
bird, raised him as one of her own offspring.
Zal returned to his people as an adult, bearing a
golden feather Simurgh had given him to use in
case he needed her help. Zal married Rudabe, a
beautiful princess, and when she was suffering
a painful childbirth, Zal used the feather to call
upon Simurgh’s assistance. The bird saved both
the mother and child, and Zal’s son grew up to
become the great Persian hero Rustam.
The Simurgh is also featured in Farid al-Din
Attar’s Persian-language Sufi poem, Conference of
the Birds (Mantiq al-tayr), written in the 13th cen-
tury. There it is portrayed as an ideal king (a meta-
phor for God) living in far-off China to whom a
flock of different kinds of birds are called to jour-
ney. After overcoming spiritual obstacles and pass-
ing through seven valleys, which represent stages
in the mystical quest for the divine, a party of 30
birds finally arrives at Simurgh’s palace, only to
discover that the king they seek is really the God
reflected in their inner hearts. Attar here makes a
play on the name Simurgh, which can also mean
“thirty birds” in Persian.
See also animals; maqam; persian langUage
and literatUre; sUFism.Further reading: Farid ud-Din Attar, Conference of the
Birds. Translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis
(London: Penguin Books, 1984); Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis,
Persian Myths (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993).sin See crime and punishment; judgment day;
theology.Sipah-i Sahaba See jamiyyat ulama-i islam.
sira See biography; folklore.
Sirhindi, Ahmad (1564–1624) Naqshbandi
Sufi shaykh of the late Mughal period in India
who adamantly argued against Indian Sufi trends
of pantheistic mysticism, advocating instead the
implementation of sharia
Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi was born in Sirhind,
in east Punjab, india, in 1564. In his youth he
received a traditional religious education from
his father, the Sufi shaykh Abd al-Ahad, and he
continued his religious training as an adolescent
with teachers in Sialkot, India. His remarkable
level of scholarship gained him an invitation to
the Mughal emperor Akbar’s court in Agra, where
he assisted Abu al-Fazl, the court historian and
minister. In 1599 he went to delhi, where he met
Khwajah Abd al-Baqi, the first Naqshbandi saint
to come to India, soon after which he was initi-
ated into the naqshbandi sUFi order. He quickly
became a pir and a prolific writer on points of
doctrine of the Naqshbandi branch of sUFism.K 628 shrine