Concept

The Metaphor of the Blind Man and the Inaccessible Secret in Attar's Mokhtar Nameh (Chapter 11, Poem 52)

In Poem 52 (Chapter 11) of the Mokhtar Nameh, Attar of Nishapur explores the profound inaccessibility of the ultimate divine secret. He introduces a secret so overwhelming that it 'can make the heart of both worlds bleed.' To convey the utter futility of human attempts to rationally comprehend this spiritual truth, Attar employs a striking metaphor: a 'blind man at midnight at the bottom of a well' attempting to split a hair into a thousand strands. This imagery serves to emphasize the extreme limitations of human intellect and sensory perception when faced with the infinite mysteries of the divine, a recurring theme in Sufi epistemology.

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Updated 2026-07-04

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Humanities

Literature

Persian Literature Prerequisite Course