This allegory from Attar's Mosibat Nameh describes a madman who stands in bewilderment gazing at a ruined city. When asked about his sadness, he explains his astonishment at how a place once so grand, populous, and stable could fall into absolute desolation. The tale serves as a Sufi contemplation on the transience of the material world, the inevitability of decay, and the folly of becoming attached to worldly existence.