Читальный зал

Asrar-nama (The Book of Secrets)

Attar

A masnavi without a frame story, in twenty-two discourses (*maqalat*), each developing an idea through short anecdotes. No other work of Attar's sets out so forcefully the gnostic conception of the soul's fall and the duty to free it from worldly bonds; hence its long reflections on the transience and vanity of earthly things, and the chapter on celestial secrets that gives it its title. Its supposed influence on the prologue of Rumi's *Masnavi* gave rise to the legend that Attar gave a copy to the young Rumi.