UNITY
A home for everyone who carries the light of Persia.
Simurgh Unity
ORIGIN
The Third Feather
Tale I
Thirty Birds
In Attar’s Conference of the Birds, the birds of the world set out to find their king, the Simurgh. They cross seven valleys: quest, love, knowledge, detachment, unity, wonder, and the losing of self. Most turn back or fall. Thirty arrive. At the summit they find no king, only their own reflection. Si morgh: thirty birds. The Simurgh was them, together, all along.
Tale II
The Feathers
In Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, the Simurgh raises the abandoned child Zal on the peak of Alborz. When he returns to the world of men, she gives him her feathers: burn one in your hour of need, and I will come. One brought his son Rostam safely into the world. One healed Rostam from wounds no one else could heal. The last was never told.
Attar, Mantiq al-Tayr, 12th century · Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, c. 1010
Tale III
The Last Feather
For a thousand years the last feather waited, unburned. Its hour has come.
UNITY
Simurgh as Collective Wisdom
We are the last feather. Simurgh Unity brings together everyone who carries the culture, heritage, literature, art, science and wisdom of Persia, in the diaspora, in Iran and across the world, so that eleven thousand years of it are protected, shared and handed on.
Simurgh was never one bird. It was thirty, each carrying part of the whole. Unity works the same way: knowledge held by many, guarded by some, stewarded with wisdom, and every circle answerable to the others.
No circle stands alone. Like the thirty birds, we become Simurgh together.
ETHOS
The Simurgh Compass
Seven virtues that guide us. Seven is the sacred number of Persia: seven heavens, seven valleys, seven stars that guided travellers home.
WISDOM
Powered by Wisdom
Simurgh Intelligence will be a living presence of Persian wisdom that anyone can talk with.
Preview
Q: What did Khayyam see in the stars?
A: A mathematician before he was a poet, Khayyam measured the solar year more precisely than the calendar Europe used for centuries after him. In his quatrains, the same sky that he measured reminds us how brief our time beneath it is.
Simurgh.si, Coming soon
Guard
Guardians take responsibility for each field of knowledge, science, art, history and culture, and answer for its care.
Gather
Poetry and literature, art and music, science and medicine, history and stories, from libraries, archives, scholars and the community itself, each piece recorded with where it came from.
Collaborate
Members and Guardians refine the knowledge together, adding context, correcting errors and settling questions in the open.
Protect
Every piece attributed, verified and preserved, so what is shared is true and kept safe from distortion and loss.
Enlighten
Ask Simurgh about Hafez, the stars of Khayyam, a recipe from your grandmother’s city, or the meaning of a line of Rumi, and Simurgh answers in conversation, with its sources.
Built by the community, governed by its circles. The wisdom of the old, carried to the generations to come.
JOIN
Answer the Call
The feather is burning. Join Simurgh Unity as a Member, or apply to serve as a Simurgh Guardian.
