Simurgh
Simurgh
7 min read
The Simurgh is a fabulous and benevolent bird from Persian mythology, a gigantic creature often described as nesting in the Tree of Life. A symbol of wisdom and healing, it protects and guides the heroes of the great Iranian epic tales.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- A central creature of pre-Islamic Iranian mythology, attested as early as the Zoroastrian tradition (the Avesta, around the 1st millennium BC)
- Described as a giant bird nesting in the Tree of All Seeds, scattering the seeds to make the earth fertile
- Plays a major role in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings), around the year 1000, where it raises and protects the hero Zal
- Mystically reinterpreted by the Sufi poet Attar in 'The Conference of the Birds' (around 1177) as a symbol of the divine
- A symbol of benevolence, healing, and wisdom, sometimes associated with the phoenix of other traditions
Works & Achievements
The Simurgh takes in and raises the abandoned albino child, teaching him wisdom before returning him to mankind. The foundation of the Iranian heroic lineage.
The bird guides Zal to save Rudabeh through an incision and bring Rostam into the world, the greatest hero of the Persian epic. One of the oldest accounts of a caesarean birth.
Wounded by Esfandiyar, Rostam is healed by the Simurgh, who draws out the arrows and closes his wounds. A demonstration of the bird's medical power.
In Attar's The Conference of the Birds, the Simurgh is the king sought beyond seven valleys, revealing the unity of the soul and the divine. A summit of Persian mystical poetry.
Suhrawardi makes the Simurgh an image of light and knowledge in his doctrine of illumination. A bridge between myth and philosophy.
Timurid and Safavid court painters immortalize the bird with its dazzling plumage in illuminated manuscripts. High points of the Persian art of the book.
Anecdotes
In the Book of Kings (Shahnameh) by Ferdowsi, the hero Zal is born an albino, with white hair, and his frightened father abandons him at the summit of Mount Alborz. It is the Simurgh who takes the infant into her nest and raises him as one of her own chicks, until a shepherd returns him to humankind.
Before leaving Zal, now grown to adulthood, the Simurgh gives him one of her feathers: the hero need only burn it for the wondrous bird to appear and come to his aid. This motif of the talisman-feather returns several times during the great moments of the Iranian epic.
When Rudabeh cannot give birth to the future hero Rostam, Zal burns the magic feather. The Simurgh appears and teaches him how to perform an incision to save both mother and child: the legend thus describes one of the oldest accounts of a birth by caesarean section.
Later, mortally wounded in his fight against Prince Esfandiyar, Rostam once again calls upon the Simurgh. The bird removes the arrowheads, heals his wounds by passing a feather over them, and reveals to him the secret to defeating his opponent, who was reputed to be invulnerable.
In the 12th century, the Sufi poet Attar plays on words: in Persian, “si morgh” means “thirty birds.” In The Conference of the Birds, thirty birds cross seven valleys to reach King Simurgh; once they arrive, they understand that the Simurgh they had been seeking is their own reflection — they themselves, the thirty birds.
Primary Sources
The Simurgh descended from the sky and seized the child; it carried him to its nest on Mount Alborz and fed him among its own young, without doing him any harm.
Take one of my feathers, said the bird; when you are in need, cast it into the fire, and at once you will see me come to you like a cloud.
When the thirty birds at last beheld the face of the Simurgh, they saw that the Simurgh was the thirty birds, and that the thirty birds were the Simurgh.
The bird Sēnmurw has its nest upon the Tree of All Seeds, in the midst of the sea Vourukasha; when it takes flight, it scatters the seeds that the rain spreads across all the earth.
Key Places
Mountain range in northern Iran where, according to the Shahnameh, the Simurgh has its nest and raises the child Zal. A boundary between the world of men and the realm of wonders.
Mythical mountain that encircles the world, home of the Simurgh in Attar's The Conference of the Birds. The ultimate goal of the thirty birds' spiritual quest.
Cosmic ocean of Zoroastrian mythology at whose center grows the tree of a thousand seeds bearing the bird's nest. The mythical source of all the world's vegetation.
Legendary region of southeastern Iran, stronghold of the family of Zal and Rostam, whom the Simurgh comes to rescue. The setting for the great heroic episodes of the Shahnameh.
Great Persian city of art where the illuminators of the Timurid and Safavid eras painted the finest depictions of the Simurgh. A hub for the artistic spread of the legend.
