What is the Anqa? In this episode we explore the Anqa (عنقاء), the elusive, legendary bird of Arabic and Islamic tradition, often compared to the phoenix and the Persian Simurgh. We look at its origins in pre-Islamic Arabian lore, the story of how it vanished from the world, and how "the Anqa of the West" (ʿanqāʾ mughrib) became a proverb for something that exists in name but can never be found. We also trace how Sufi mystics like Ibn ʿArabi and Farid al-Din ʿAttar turned this mythical creature into a powerful symbol of the hidden, the unknowable, and the divine.
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Sources/Recommended Reading:
Chittick, William (1989). "The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn 'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination".
Elmore, Gerald T. (1999). "ISLAMIC SAINTHOOD IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME - Ibn al-Arabl’s Book of the Fabulous Gryphon". Brill.
Jaffray, Angela (translated by) (2006). "The Universal Tree and the Four Birds". Anqa Publishing.
Ron-Gilboa, Guy (2021). "ʿAnqāʾ Mughrib: The Poetics of a Mythical Creature". Journal of Abbasid Studies 8 (2021) 75–103.
Ibn 'Arabi - "The Openings Revealed in Makkah: al-futuhat al-makkiyya". Translated by Eric Winkel. Volumes 1-7. Pir Press.
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