Logic of the Birds – Details, episodes & analysis

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Logic of the Birds

The Logic of the Birds

Frequency: 1 episode/19d. Total Eps: 12

Join us as we engage in enlightening conversations with eminent scholars and poets from around the world to explore these and other questions. Focusing on Sufi poetry, this podcast series will explore some of the great poets and poems in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Wolof, Hausa, Swahili, Panjabi, Malay, and more. Our conversations will examine how these traditions cultivated perspectives and popular literary traditions that wedded the sensual and intellectual, the aesthetic and the ethical, the affective and rational, the logical and the spiritual, the philosophical and mystical.

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Episode 12: Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse

Monday, September 30, 2024 • Duration 01:32:45

Imam Fakhruddin Owaisi and Adnan Adrian Wood Smith join us to discuss of the Poetry of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975). Probably the most popular and influential African poet of the 20th century in any language, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse was born in 1900, Tayba in Senegal, a town founded by his father, the Sufi master and scholar Abdoulaye Niasse. The young Ibrahim Niasse was something of a prodigy, quickly mastering all of the Islamic disciplines his father taught him, including classical Arabic poetry. Niasse excelled in writing poetry praising the Prophet Muḥammad (madīḥ nabawī), and as Niasse became recognized as […]

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Episode 11: Bedil

Tuesday, September 17, 2024 • Duration 01:33:07

Professor Hajnalka Kovacs and Ahmad Rashid Salim join us to discuss the poetry of Bedil Dihlavī (d. 1720), one of the greatest and most influential Persian-language poets of the Indian subcontinent. He wrote over 2,800 ghazals, four mathanwis (a genre of narrative verse in rhymed couplets), and other poetic texts, all of which circulated throughout the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia, and the Safavid and Ottoman Empires. Known for its complex and ambiguous style, creative metaphors and images, and adaptations of Sanskrit and Hindu themes and figures, Bedil’s poetry is highly philosophical, brilliantly translating and thinking through the issues of Ibn […]

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Episode 10: Misri, Bursavi, and Ottoman Sufi Poetry

Tuesday, September 17, 2024 • Duration 01:10:26

Professors Nurullah Koltaş and Vitoria Holbrook join us to discuss the poetry of Niyazi Misri (d. 1694) and Ismā’īl Ḥaqqī Bursawī (d. 1725), two of the greatest Sufi poets of Ottoman Turkish. Highly-esteemed scholars, authors, and Sufi masters of the Halveti order during their lives, their poetry is still sung today in Turkish tekyes, or Sufi lodges, forming the basis of many popular ilâhis. Their poetry is characterized by a marriage of Akbari metaphysics, Persian ghazal symbolism, and the directness and profundity of the earlier Turkish Ashki tradition. One of Niyazi’s poems even alludes to the title of this podcast: […]

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Episode 9: Hafez

Tuesday, April 30, 2024 • Duration 53:59

Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr joins us to discuss the poetry of Shams al-dīn Muḥammad Shirāzī (1325-1390), better known by his pen-name, Hafez. Widely considered the greatest master of the Persian ghazal, his poetry was acclaimed even during his lifetime, winning him fame as far as Bengal. His Divān, or collection of poetry, is one of the most beloved, studied, and commented upon works of literature in Islamic history, even influencing non-Islamic poets like Goethe and Tagore. Enjoying the patronage of the various rulers of Shiraz during this tumultuous period of its history, Hafez was known for the exceptional musicality and […]

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Episode 8: Ibn al-‘Arabī

Sunday, April 21, 2024 • Duration 01:12:41

Professors Michael Sells and Hany Ibrahim explore the poetry of Muḥyī ad-Dīn Ibn al-‘Arabī (1165-1240), the Andalusian scholar, mystic, poet, and author known as the Shaykh al-Akbar, “The Greatest Master.” One of the most influential Islamic thinkers and spiritual figures of all time, Ibn al-‘Arabi is best known for his voluminous Futuḥāt al-Makkiya, The Meccan Openings, once called “the greatest spiritual encyclopedia ever written by a single author,” and his highly influential and shorter philosophical-mystical work, al-Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, The Ringstones of Wisdom; both works are filled with his unique style of spiritually didactic poetry. But Ibn al-‘Arabi was also a gifted lyrical poet with an distinctive, but highly influential style, and the most recent edition of his Diwān, or collection of poetry, fills five volumes and over 2,000 pages. His theories of poetry and his metaphysical frameworks and terminology came to be used to interpret Sufi and other Islamic poetry, as well as inspiring generations of poets in virtually every Islamic language from his time down to the present-day.

Links and Further Reading/Listening:

Michael Sells (trans.), The Translator of Desires (Princeton University Press, 2021)

Denis McAuley, Ibn `Arabi’s Mystical Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2012)

Claude Addas, “The Ship of Stone” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society

Cyrus Zargar, Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn’ Arabi and ‘Iraqi (Univ of South Carolina Press, 2013)

Hany Ibrahim, Love in the Teachings of Ibn al-‘Arabi (Equinox Press, 2023).

Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Poetry: https://ibnarabisociety.org/poetry-poems

William Chittick, “Ibn ‘Arabî”, (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Episode 7: Amir Khusraw

Friday, April 12, 2024 • Duration 01:47:22

Professors Prashant Keshavmurthy and Shankar Nair explore the brilliant and multilingual poetry of Amir Khusraw (651-725 /1253–1325), one of the most celebrated and influential South Asian poets, known as Tuti-i Hindi, “The Parrot of India”. A court poet and an devoted disciple of the great Sufi saint, Nizam al-din Awliya’ (next to whom he is buried in Delhi), Khusraw is known for his mastery of multiple genres, flowing style and īhām (double or more-entendres), his musical ability (he is sometimes called “the father of qawwali”), and remarkable creativity. His poetry is still popularly sung today in South Asia and South Asian communities around the world.

Links and Further Reading/Listening:

Amīr Khusraw, In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amīr Khusrau. Translated by Paul Edward Losensky and Sunil Sharma. Penguin Books, 2011.

Sunil Sharma, Amir Khusraw: The Poet of Sultans and Sufis. Oneworld Publications, 2005

Alicia Gabbay, Islamic Tolerance: Amir Khusraw and Pluralism. Routledge, 2010)

Mohammad Habib, Hazrat Amir Khusrau of Delhi. Bombay: Taraporevala Sons and Co., 1927. (Reprint; Lahore, 1979).

Mohammad Wahid Mirza, Life and Works of Amir Khusrau. Lahore: Punjab University Press, 1962. (Reprint; Delhi, 1974).

Faruqi, Shamsur Rahman. A Stranger in the City: The Poetics of Sabk-e Hindi. Annual of Urdu Studies vol. 19 (2004).

Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context, and Meaning in Qawwali. University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Bruce Lawrence, Morals for the Heart: Conversations of Shaykh Nizam ad-din Awliya Recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi. Paulist Press, 1992.

Carl Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Episode 6: ‘Attar

Monday, March 11, 2024 • Duration 01:02:06

Professors Nicholas Boylston and Cyrus Zargar explore the striking poetry of ‘Attar of Nishapur, an seminal Persian Sufi poet and master of the Persian Masnavi (epic in rhymed-couplets) genre. His Conference of the Birds is a masterpiece of Sufi literature, and it and ‘Attar’s other poetic works, including his ghazals, exerted a strong influence on later Sufi poets, especially Rumi.

Links and Further Reading/Listening:

“Attar’s “Conference of the Birds” – The Greatest Sufi Masterpiece?” Let’s Talk Religion

Dick Davis and Afkham Darbandi , The Conference of the Birds (London: Penguin Classics, 1984)

Zargar, Cyrus, Religion of Love: Sufism and Self-Transformation in the Poetic Imagination of ʿAṭṭār (Albany: SUNY Press, 2024).

Lewisohn, Leonard and Christopher Shackle, Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019).

Austin O’Malley, The Poetics of Spiritual Instruction: Farid al-Din ʿAttar and Persian Sufi Didacticism, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023,

Boylston, Nicholas, “Writing the Kaleidoscope of Reality: The Significance of Diversity in the 6 th/12 th Century Persian Metaphysical Literature of Sanā’ī,’Ayn Al-Qudāt and’Attār.” PhD diss..
Georgetown University, 2017.

Kenneth Avery and Ali Alizadeh, Fifty Poems of Attar, (Melbourne: re.press, 2007)

Host: Oludamini Ogunnaike

Guests: Nicholas Boylston and Cyrus Zargar

Edited By: Alana Bittner, WJTU

Online Collection of ‘Attar’s Poetry (in Persian): https://ganjoor.net/attar

Episode 5: Sa’di

Episode 5

Monday, March 11, 2024 • Duration 01:05:06

Professors Fatemeh Keshavarz and Cyrus Zargar explore the poetry of Sa‘di, the traveling poet of 7th/13th-century Shiraz known for his fluid and natural style, wit, and wisdom. His Bustan and Gulistan are considered masterpieces of Persian composition and were widely-studied from the Balkans to Bengal, influencing later Persian as well as European authors.

Links and Further Reading/Listening:

Thackston, W.M. The Gulistan (Rose Garden) is Sa’di: A Bilingual English and Persian Edition (Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, 2008).

Keshavarz, Fatemeh. Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Zargar, Cyrus, The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017).

Ingenito, Domenico, Beholding Beauty: Saʿdi of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry (Boston: Brill, 2020)

Online Collection of Sa‘di’s Poetry (in Persian): https://ganjoor.net/saadi

Host: Oludamini Ogunnaike

Guests: Fatemeh Keshavarz and Cyrus Zargar

Edited By: Alana Bittner, WJTU

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Episode 4: Ibn al-Farid

Episode 4

Monday, March 11, 2024 • Duration 01:35:20

Professors James Morris and Arjun Nair discuss the poetry of the “Sultan of Lovers,” ‘Umar ibn al-Farid, the 7th/13th-century Egyptian poet whose qasidas (odes) are widely considered to be among the best ever composed in the Arabic language.

Links and Further Reading/Listening:

Ibn al-Farid – The Sufi Poet of Love & Oneness, Let’s Talk Religion

T. Emil Homerin, ʻUmar Ibn Al-Fāriḍ: Sufi Verse, Saintly Life (New York: Paulist Press, 2001).

——, Passion Before me, My Fate Behind: Ibn al-Fāriḍ and the Poetry of Recollection, (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2011).

——, “ ‘On the Battleground’: Al-Nābulusī’s Encounters with a Poem by Ibn al-Fāriḍ.” Journal of Arabic Literature (2007): 352-410.

——, The Wine of Love and Life: Ibn Al-Farid’s Al-Khamriyah and Al-Qaysari’s Quest for Meaning (Chicago: Middle East Documentation Center, 2005)

Arberry, A.J., The Mystical Poems of Ibn al-Farid (Dublin: The Chester Beatty Monographs, 1956).

Nair, Arjun, “Compacts, Pacts, and Covenants in Saʿīd al-Dīn Farghānī’s Commentary on Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s Naẓm al-sulūk.” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society 73 (2023).

——, “Poetry and Sufi Commentary: A Case of/for Religious Reading in Premodern Sufism.” Journal of Islamic Studies (2023)..

Links to performances of Ibn al-Farid’s Poetry: https://sites.harvard.edu/sulaymanibnqiddees/tag/ibn-al-farid/

Online Collection of Poems Attributed to Ibn al-Farid (in Arabic): https://www.aldiwan.net/cat-poet-bin-alfard

Host: Oludamini Ogunnaike

Episode 3: Sana’i

Episode 3

Monday, March 11, 2024 • Duration 01:02:18

Professors Nicholas Boylston and Parisa Zahiremami discuss the poetry and legacy of Hakim Sana’i, the seminal Persian Sufi and court poet of the 11th-12th century. His magnum opus, Hadiqat al-Haqiqa (The Garden of Reality), had a tremendous influence on Persian poets and literature after him.

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Logic of the Birds – Details, episodes & analysis

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Logic of the Birds – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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Other25

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