BIRDS as motifs were used traditionally by Muslim artists and poets in secular art and literature, most commonly in the arts of Persia, India, Turkey and Central Asia. Their importance in Islamic art stems from beliefs that birds were auspicious creatures. Admired for their beauty, their symbolic meanings can change depending on where they came from. Birds in Islamic art were often inspired by Persian literature such as Farid ud-Din Attar’s epic Conference of Birds, a 12th century mystical poem in which birds, in search of a leader, act as a metaphor for man’s search for God. 

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