Farid ud-Din Attar

(c. 1142 - c. 1220)

Less well-known than either Rumi or Hafez, Farid ud-Din Attar composed, among other extant works, The Conference of the Birds, a rhymed-couplet allegorical poem about birds searching for the Simorgh, their king, and a prose hagiography of the early Sufi masters, Memorial of the Saints. Although few details about his life exist, he is thought to have been an apothecary—the name Attar means perfumer or druggist—and he states that while working on two books, he was physician to five hundred patients daily.