The Humay is distracted by ambition, and the Owl loves only the treasure he has found. The Hoopoe advises the Partridge that gems are just colored stones and that love of them hardens the heart she should seek the real jewel of sound quality. The Duck is too content with water to seek the Simurgh. The Parrot longs for immortality, and the Hoopoe encourages the Peacock to choose the whole. The Nightingale says that the love of the Rose satisfies him, and the journey is beyond his strength but the Hoopoe warns against being a slave of passing love that interferes with seeking self-perfection. She recommends Simurgh as their true king, saying that one of his feathers fell on China. The Hoopoe presents herself as a messenger from the invisible world with knowledge of God and the secrets of creation. When the birds assemble, they wonder why they have no king. One cannot gain spiritual knowledge without dying to all things. The soul will manifest itself when the body is laid aside. 'Attar believed that God is beyond all human knowledge. 'Attar began The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-tair) with an invocation praising the holy Creator in which he suggested that one must live a hundred lives to know oneself but you must know God by the deity, not by yourself, for God opens the way, not human wisdom.
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