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Rumi (1207–1273)
Born in Balkh, Afghanistan, Mawlana Jalal-ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
(Jalaluddin Rumi) grew up in Turkey. His family had fled there from the
Mongol invasion. His education included the spiritual practice of fasting
and meditation as well as the study of Sufi texts. Sufism is a mystical
branch of Islam, the name alluding to
suf
or wool, as traditionally worn
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by those mystics. Often cited as America’s most popular poet, Rumi’s
work was originally written in Persian.
By the age of 37, Rumi had taken over his father’s position as sheikh
and teacher in Konya and had acquired a large following. His life was
transformed in 1244, when he met Shams-e Tabrizi (Shams of Tabriz).
The name Shams means ‘sun’. He was a wandering dervish, who had
spent years travelling around India, and had longed to meet someone
with whom to share his advanced spiritual knowledge. Legend has it that
Shams had learned the secrets of divine love and had passed beyond what
could be communicated in words and concepts. He had asked for some-
one with whom he could share what he had found, and had offered his
life for that. He had been made aware of Rumi, and various stories are
told of their meeting.
Rumi . . . was leaving his college situated in the coffee trader market,
on his way to the bazaar riding a mule. His students were following
him on foot. Suddenly Shams ran after him, grasped the mule’s bridle,
and asked Rumi who was the greatest, Bayazid (a great Sufi mystic in
the tradition of Al-Hallaj), or Mohammed? Maulana (Rumi) answered
that it was a strange question, Mohammed being the seed of the
prophets. ‘What is the meaning then of this,’ answered Shams. ‘The
Prophet said to God, “I have not known Thee as I should have,” and
Bayazid said, “Glory be to me. How high is my dignity.” ’ At this
moment Rumi fainted. When he recovered, he took Shams by the hand
and led him to the college on foot, where they kept to themselves in a
cell for forty days.
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Their intense relationship aroused jealousy in Rumi’s family and students.
Shams fled. Rumi was beside himself with grief and begged all travellers
arriving in Konya for any news of Shams. When he heard that Shams
was in Damascus, he sent his son to fetch him. It took three months for
them to walk back. When Shams and Rumi were reunited, once again
they became inseparable, united in mystical love. Rumi’s son Sultan Walad
tells us that that when Shams and Rumi met after that long agony of
separation, they ran into each other’s arms and ‘you could not tell the
lover from the beloved.’
Again Shams and Rumi went into the deepest mystical union. They
went into ecstatic communion, they danced, they sang and they exchanged
divine secrets, and the transmission continued with furious power. Again,
the jealousy of the disciples grew, wilder and wilder, until the moment,
that terrible moment in December 1247, when there was a knock at the
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179
door of Rumi’s house. Shams got up calmly and said, ‘It is time. I am
going. I am called to my death.’ And he went out into the night and was
never seen again.
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Rumi was broken with grief. He suffered terribly and this led to his writ-
ing the moving
Divan-I Shamsi Tabriz
and the
Mathnawi
. Rumi’s love for
Shams and his loss led to a profound understanding of the love of God.
Love is the remedy of our pride and self-conceit, the physician of all
our infirmities. Only he whose garment is rent by love becomes entirely
unselfish.
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Still on the theme of loss of ego, in
Mathnawi,
Rumi writes of
worship,
Go and contemplate God’s wonders, become lost to yourselves
from the majesty and awe of God. When the one who beholds
the wonders of God abandons pride and egoism from contemplating
God’s work, that one will know his proper station and will be
silent concerning the Maker. Such a person will only say from their
soul, ‘I cannot praise You properly,’ because that declaration is beyond
reckoning.
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He also explains how the love for God is in fact reciprocal, as humans
are responding to the love of God and through this are led to a mystical
marriage of unity.
One night a certain devotee was praying aloud, when Satan appeared
to him and said, ‘How long wilt thou cry, “O Allah”? Be quiet, for thou
wilt get no answer.’ The devotee hung his head in silence. After a little
while he had a vision of the prophet Khadir, who said to him, ‘Ah, why
hast thou ceased to call on God?’ ‘Because the answer “Here am I”
came not,’ he replied. Khadir said, ‘God hath ordered me to go to thee
and say this:
“Was it not I that summoned thee to service? Did not I make thee
busy with My name? Thy calling ‘Allah!’
was
My ‘Here am I,’ Thy
yearning pain My messenger to thee. Of all those tears and cries and
supplications I was the magnet, and I gave them wings.” ’
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After Shams’ disappearance, Rumi began the dancing which led to the
establishment of the Mevlevi Order of whirling dervishes. Dressed in
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180
white, with full skirts, the dancers circle, like the planets round the sun,
the right arm extended towards heaven, receiving divine grace, the left
directing this grace down to the earth. These Sufis use poetry, music and
movement to reach spiritual ecstasy.
Rumi died at sunset, and was mourned by people of all faiths,
who had found illumination of their own traditions through Rumi’s
poetry.
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