Rumi (1207-1273) By Farhang Jahanpour
Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi is mainly known in Iran as Mawlana (our master) or Mawlavi, but in the West he is better-known as Rumi. Rumi (1207-1273) has been described by many Western scholars as the greatest mystical poet in the world. He was not just an ordinary poet and a mystic, but he also started a mystical Order or Tariqa – the Mawlavi Order – which continues to the present time. Many of his followers regard him as the closest embodiment of a “Perfect Man”, and many Iranians call his great Mathnavi, six books of about 25,000 rhyming couples, “the Persian Koran”. Consequently, Rumi’s life has assumed the qualities of the lives of prophets and super-human characters, and has influenced the works of subsequent poets and the religious thinking of most Iranians, regardless of whether they are Sufis or not.
Rumi famously compared the cold rationalism of the philosophers to a man with wooden legs, saying “the feet of rationalist are wooden; wooden legs are unsteady” (not made for running on flights of imagination). At the same time, he denounced orthodox theologians as being unaware of the deeper meanings of Islam. He saw a proud pilgrim who had just returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca and was surrounded by a large number of adoring admirers. Rumi asked him if he had seen the face of God in Ka’ba, the man answered that he had not. He asked him if he had heard the voice of God in that holy spot, and the man again replied in negative. Rumi asked if he had seen the angels and the cherubim circling round Ka’ba and again heard a negative response. Rumi told him: “My friend you have gone on a pilgrimage to a house of clay, and not to the house of God.” He told him that he had wasted his time going on that long journey because God dwells in the believers’ heart, not in a shrine or a building.
Rumi started his religious life as a sober and learned scholar, but after meeting a wandering dervish by the name of Shams-e Tabrizi he was transformed into an ecstatic and enraptured lover of God. He wrote a whole book of more than 40,000 verses, called Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, dedicated to the memory and the teachings of that great man. That experience opened his eyes to new spiritual realities that are far superior to dogmatic religious beliefs. He died of self, and woke up to universal realities. After Shams departed never to be seen again, the Friend’s absence dominated the poet’s world. He travelled far and wide in search of the Friend, but then he realised:
Why should I seek? I am the same as he
His essence speaks through me.
Have I been looking for myself?
In a lovely poem, called “Quietness”, he wrote:
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die.
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you have died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now.[1]
By seeing the spiritual oneness of mankind, Rumi moved beyond names and titles, dogmas and rituals. He became a universal man:
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam or Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.[2]
In addition to these vast tomes, Rumi also wrote a number of quatrains on the themes of love and longing. Here is one example:
To
Love is to reach God.
Never will a Lover’s chest
feel any sorrow.
Never will a Lover’s robe
be touched by mortals.
Never will a Lover’s body
be found buried in the earth.
To Love is to reach God.[3]
Love of God transcends all religions, and that is the kind of religion that Rumi preaches:
The Lover is not a Moslem
Be sure of that.
Since in the religion of Love,
there is no blasphemy or faith.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul
Become this,
Fall in Love
you will not be separated again.[4]
According to Rumi, truth is beyond all the ignorant squabbling of fanatics:
Out beyond
ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
It is amazing that although he wrote his poems about 800 years ago they are still as fresh and contemporary as today’s tweets. Some of the translations of his poetry have become best-sellers in the United States and the West as a whole.
Many Iranians, even those who are not Muslims or even religious, read or sing Rumi’s poetry as a form of enlightenment and solace. His tolerant and unifying views have permeated the Iranian culture. He is as relevant to the Iranians, the Turks, the Afghans and to anyone who can read and understand his sublime poetry as any contemporary poet or writer.
[1] The Essential Rumi: Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne (HarperCollins Paperback Edition, 1996), p 22.
[2] Ibid., p 32.
[3] Shahram Shiva, Hush, Don’t Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (Jain Publishing, 1999), p 9.
[4] ibid, p 17
F Jahanpour 