Overview

In Chapter 35, Poem 56 of the Mokhtar Nameh, Attar of Nishapur employs traditional Sufi imagery to depict the devastatingly beautiful impact of the divine beloved on the lover's intellect and faith.

Key Themes

• Bewilderment (Heyrat): The sight of the beloved's face induces absolute amazement and confusion, symbolized by the lover biting their lip in wonder. In Sufism, bewilderment represents a high stage of the spiritual path where logical reasoning fails in the presence of divine reality.
• The Disheveled Tresses (Zolf-e Parishan): The beloved's dark, scattered hair represents the material world, multiplicity, or the spiritual veil that challenges formal faith. Anyone who perceives these tresses cannot maintain conventional religious adherence (Islam) and is drawn into 'infidelity' (kufr), which in mystical poetry signifies transcending external religious dogmas to reach complete annihilation (fana) in divine love.