Sufism

The Valley of Insight, where certainty is won, not merely believed

This valley distinguishes between believing something is true because one was taught it and knowing it is true because one has directly tasted it.

The third valley in Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr, usually rendered the Valley of Knowledge or Insight, makes an epistemological point: certainty here is not the product of accepted doctrine or secondhand report but of direct perception, closer to what Sufi writers elsewhere call dhawq, tasting. A bird who has only believed things about the Divine, however sincerely, has not yet crossed this valley, because belief still leaves room for doubt in a way direct insight does not. Attar illustrates this valley as personal and variable — each traveler's insight differs in degree and content, won through the particular path each has walked rather than issued uniformly like a shared teaching. This valley's placement after Love is deliberate: Attar suggests genuine insight becomes available only once devotion has already reordered what the seeker wants to be true.

Mantiq al-Tayr (Conference of the Birds)

Written about in

• What Sufism says about doubt

  Attar's third valley makes the same distinction inside a poem: certainty there comes from direct perception, not accepted doctrine. He adds a detail worth noticing, that each traveller's insight differs in degree and content, won on the particular road they walked. There is no standard-issue certainty to be handed out.