Spiritual Journeying: An exploration in the light of Spenser?s The Faerie Queene and ?Attar?s Conference of the Birds

The author has been fascinated, from a young age, with the question of how different religious traditions, envisage the human beings spiritual journey to God? In this seminal work, he draws on two classics from his Islamic and Western heritages - The Faerie Queene and the Conference of the Birds - to address this perennial question. The author states, 'both texts are masterpieces in allegory and impregnated with multiple meanings. That is to say that they provide a map of how the human being, fallen, cut off from her origins - might once again regain that which was lost at the fall - God. Both texts are rooted within the religious cultures in which they were given birth but nonetheless speak beyond their contexts, hence their enduring appeal and relevance.'