Michael Barry: “Manteq-ot-Tayr or “Canticle of the Birds““ - Part 1 (Stanford University on February 7, 2019)

Part 1 of two part video. Professor Michael Barry discusses the Canticle of the Birds at Stanford University on February 5, 2019. The Iranian mystic `Attâr’s magnificent early 13th-century Persian-language Sufi epic in verse, the Manteq-ot-Tayr or “Canticle of the Birds“, tells of the quest of all the world’s birds, symbolizing human souls, to find the mythical Sun-Bird (Sîmorgh) to be their ruler. In 1487, Sultan Husayn Mîrzâ of Herât (in what is now Afghanistan) commissioned the world’s most beautiful manuscript of the poem illustrated by the finest artists in his kingdom including the renowned Master Behzâd. Still more paintings were added in 1609 in Esfahân, by command of Shâh `Abbâs, for presentation of the manuscript to the royal Safavid family shrine in Ardabîl. Today the priceless manuscript—a showcase of glorious Persian painting—is preserved in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The lecture with slides exp