Quote by Farid ud-Din Attar: “The bird of the soul sings for love, whether imprisoned or free.”

The capacity to love — and the longing that comes with it — does not depend on your circumstances. Whether you are constrained or free, rich or poor, love persists as an essential feature of what it means to have an inner life.

Attar wrote The Conference of the Birds in Nishapur during a period of political instability before the Mongol invasions, though he would eventually die in the Mongol sack of Nishapur in 1221. His poem of the soul's difficult journey toward God took on additional resonance for later generations reading it after the catastrophes he foretold.

Persian Sufi poet and mystic born around 1145 in Nishapur, whose masterpiece The Conference of the Birds is an extended allegory of the soul's journey toward God. He is considered one of the foundational figures of Persian mystical poetry and a major influence on Rumi.