Born in Nishapur, in northeastern Persia around 1142. He traveled widely, Tehran, Egypt, Damascus, Mecca, and Turkestan, then settled in Nishapur.

He worked as a healer and saw patients in his shop where he prescribed herbal remedies. Attar is considered one of the greatest Sufi mystic poets – his work inspired Rumi and many others. His greatest work Mantiq al-Tair (The Conference of the Birds) is a symbolic story of the soul’s search for truth and one of the definitive masterpieces of Persian literature. Attar was charged with heresy and banished by the ruling Islamic orthodoxy because of his poetry. He died around 1220-30. His tomb is in Nishapur, Iran.