The Key to the Human Soul

A Review of: ‘Attar, Farid al-Din. Bozhestvennaya kniga (Ilakhi-name)[Divine Book (Ilāhī-nāmah)], trans. by L.G. Lakhuti, vol. 1–2. Moscow: Ladomir Publ.; VRS, 2022, 890 p. + 567 pp.

Abstract

The review presents an overview of the first complete Russian annotated
translation of the “Divine Book” (Ilāhī-nāmah) by Farīd al-Dīn ʻAṭṭār Nīshābūrī, the Persian Sufi poet of the late 12th — early 13th centuries, prepared by L.G. Lakhuti. The reviewer consistently examines the plot of the “Divine Book”, analyzes the translator’s approach to the Persian text, and demonstrates the value of ʻAṭṭār’s poem for historical and philosophical Iranian studies. It is proposed to look at translation as an instrument of interaction with the intellectual field of Iranian culture and find an answer to the question: does L.G. Lakhuti succeed in throwing a “semantic bridge” to ʻAṭṭār, bringing the “Divine Book” closer to the Russian-speaking reader, and recreating its Sufi context. The “Divine Book” is less known than “The Language of the Birds” (Manṭiq al-ṭayr), but no less important. In it, ʻAṭṭār presented a non-trivial teaching of the human soul, its qualities and aspirations. The translator’s special merit lies in demonstrating ʻAṭṭār's method of philosophizing. We see how, through the story of the king’s conversation with his sons about their desires, the poet reveals the central concepts of Sufi doctrine: love (ʻishq), self-knowledge and awakening of the soul on the Path to God (ṭarīq) and monotheism (tawḥīd). The “Divine Book” was a reflection of the era in which the poet lived, but not in the sense of describing the realities of that time, but in what concerns the form of existence of Sufi knowledge. It is shown that the “Divine Book” enshrines the special model of Persian Sufi didactic text.