In Attar's 'Conference of the Birds', the poem 'The Speech of a Deputy at the Moment of Death' conveys the Sufi teaching on the transient nature of worldly authority and the inescapable reality of death. The dying deputy acknowledges that his lifetime of striving yields only a return to dust. The narrative explicitly contrasts the former glory of kings who held the world under their command with their ultimate reduction to dirt, asserting that all human beings are born to die. This highlights the ultimate futility of worldly attachments when facing the grave, which serves as the daunting first stage of the afterlife journey.