Jump to content

Rumi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 70.27.175.162 (talk) at 04:10, 10 March 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

File:Mawlana rumi.jpg
Mawlana Rumi

Molana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi or Celâladin Mehmet Rumi [1](Persian: مولانا جلال الدين محمد بلخى , Arabic: جلال الدين محمد رومي) (September 30, 1207 – December 17, 1273 CE) (also known as Molana, Molavi, Mawlvi, Mawlana, meaning our guide or our master in Arabic and Persian, or Mevlana meaning our guide in Turkish) was Persian Sufi poet, jurist, theologian and teacher of Sufism who was born in Balkh (then a city of the Greater Khorasan province of Persia, now part of Afghanistan) and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey). His birth place and native tongue point towards a Persian heritage. He also wrote his poetry in Persian and his works are widely read in Iran and Afghanistan where the language is spoken. He lived most of his life and produced his works under the Seljuk Empire and his descendants today are Turkish citizens and live in modern day Turkey. Although he has for long been claimed by Turks to be of Turkish descent, his poems were, to a great extend, in Persian and some in Arabic.

Life

Rumi museum in Konya
File:Rdance.jpg
Rumi and the whirling dervishes

When the Mongols invaded Central Asia, some time between 1215 and 1220, his father (Bahauddin Walad, a theologian, jurist and a mystic of uncertain lineage) set out westwards with his whole family and a group of disciples. On the road to Anatolia he met one of the most famous mystic Persian poets Attar in the city of Neishapour, located in the Iranian province of Khorasan. Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea followed by an ocean." He gave the boy his Asranama, a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on Rumi's thoughts, which later on his works became the inspiration of Rumi. Rumi was 18 years old at that time. From Nayshapur Walad and his entourage set out for Baghdad, meeting many of the scholars and Sufis of the city. From there they went to the Hejaz and performed the pilgrimage at Mecca. It was after this journey that most likely as a result of the invitation of Alauddin Kayqubad, the ruler of Anatolia, Bahauddin came to Asia Minor and finally settled in Konya in Anatolia within the westernmost territories of Seljuk Empire.

Bahauddin became the head of a madrassa (religious school) and when he died Rumi succeeded him at the age of 25. Bahauddin's Maarif, a collection of notes, diarylike remarks, sermons and strange accounts of visionary experiences, has shocked most of the conventional scholars who have tried to understand them. He shows a startlingly sensual freedom in stating his union with God. He was trained in the religious and mystical doctrines of his father by a former student Syed Burhanuddin Mahaqqiq. For nine years Rumi practiced Sufism as a disciple of Burhanuddin until the latter died in 1240-1. During this period Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there. It was his meeting with the dervish Shams Tabriz in the late fall of 1244 that changed his life completely. The Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company." A voice came, "what will you give in return?" "My head!" "The one you seek is Jelaluddin of Konya." On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is believed that he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, Allaedin; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship. His love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in a surge of music, dance and lyric poems, Divani Shamsi Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:

File:Tavern1.jpg
The tavern is a recurring theme in Rumi's poetry
Why should I seek? I am the same as
he. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself! [2]

For more than ten years after meeting Shams, Mevlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals, and these had been collected in a the Divan-i Kabir. Rumi found another companion in Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith. After Saladin's death, Rumi's scribe and favorite student Husam Chelebi assumed the role. One day, the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside of Konya when Husam described an idea he had to Rumi: "If you were to write a book like the Ilahiname of Sanai or the Mantik'ut-Tayr'i of Attar it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts form you work and compose music to accompany it."

Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written the opening eighteen lines of his Mathnawi, beginning with:

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
how it sings of separation... [3]

Husam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this master-work, the Mathnawi to Husam. In December 1273, Rumi fell ill. He predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal, which begins with the verse:

How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as companion?
Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have iron legs. [4]

He died on December 17, 1273 in Konya which was a city under the jurisdiction of the Seljuk Turks; Rumi was laid to rest beside his father, and a splendid shrine, the Yesil Turbe, or Green Tomb, was erected over his tomb. His epitaph reads:

"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men." [5]

He played a big role in the history of converting Orthodox Anatolia (Asia-minor) to Islam.

Teachings of Rumi

A page of a copy circa 1503 of the "Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i"

The general theme of his thoughts, like that of the other mystic and Sufi poets of the Persian literature, is essentially about the concept of Tawheed (unity) and union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut and fallen aloof, and his longing and desire for reunity.

I am (only) the house of your beloved,
not the beloved (herself):
true love is for the treasure,
not for the coffer (that contains it).
The (real) beloved is that one who is unique,
who is your beginning and end.
When you find him,
you will not remain in expectation(of anything else):
he is both the manifest and also the mystery.
He is the lord of states of feeling,
not dependent on any state;
month and year are slaves to that Moon.
When he bids the "state,"
it does his bidding;
when he wills,he makes body (become) spirit.
Mathnawi III, 1417-1424

The "Mathnawi" weaves fables, scenes from everyday life, Quranic revelations and exegesis, and metaphysics, into a vast and intricate tapestry. Rumi is considered an example of "insani kamil" — the perfected or completed human being. In the East, it is said of him, that he was, "not a prophet — but surely, he has brought a scripture". Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dancing as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine, and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these ideas that the practice of Whirling Dervishes developed into a ritual form. He founded the order of the Mevlevi, the "whirling" dervishes, and created the "Sema", their "turning", sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, Sema represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfect." In this journey the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth, and arrives at the "Perfect"; then returns from this spiritual journey with greater maturity, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination against beliefs, races, classes and nations.

Major works

File:Higherself.jpg
Rumi in pensive mood

Rumi's poetry is often divided into various categories: the quatrains (rubaiyat) and odes (ghazals) of the Divan, the six books of the Mathnawi, the discourses, the letters, and the almost unknown Six Sermons. Rumi's major work is Masnavi-ye Manavi (Spiritual Couplets), a six-volume poem regarded by many Sufis as second in importance only to the Qur'an. In fact, the Masnawi is often called the "Qur'an-e Parsi" (The Persian Qur'an). It is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of mystical poetry. Rumi's other major work is the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i (The Works of Shams of Tabriz - named in honor of Rumi's great friend and inspiration, the darvish Shams), comprising some 40,000 verses. Both works are among the most significant in all of Persian literature. It is believed by some that Shams was murdered by disciples of Rumi who were jealous of his relationship with Shams (also spelt Shems).

Fihi Ma Fih (In It What's in It) is composed of Rumi's speeches on different subjects. Rumi himself did not prepare or write these discourses. They were recorded by his son Sultan Valad or some other disciple of Rumi and put together as a book. The title may mean "what's in the Mathnawi is in this too." Some of the discourses are addressed to Muin al-Din Parvane. Some portions of it are commentary on Masnavi.

Majalis-i Sab'a (seven sessions) contains seven sermons (as the name implies) given in seven different assemblies. As Aflaki relates, after Sham-i Tabrizi, Rumi gave sermons at the request of notables, especially Salah al-Din Zarqubi.

Influence

The Mevlevi Sufi order was founded in 1273 by Rumi's followers after his death. The Mevlevi, or "The Whirling Dervishes", believe in performing their dhikr in the form of sema. During the time of Rumi (as attested in the "Manakib ul Arifin" of Eflaki Dede), his followers gathered for musical and "turning" practices. Mevlana himself was a notable musician, who played the rebab although his favorite instrument was the ney . The music accompanying the traditional ritual consists of settings of poems from the "Mathnawi" and "Diwan-i-Kebir" or of his son Sultan Veled's poems. The Mevlevi were a well established Sufi Order in the Ottoman Empire, and many of the members of the order served in various official positions of the Caliphate. The centre for the Mevlevi order was in Konya. There is also a Mevlevi monastery or dergah in Istanbul, near the Galata Tower, where the sema ceremony is performed and accessible to the public. Rumi's order issues invitation to people of all backgrounds:

"Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolator, worshipper of fire,
come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair. [6]

File:Dervishes22.jpg
Whirling dervishes

During Ottoman times the Mevlevi order produced a number of famous poets and musicians such as Sheikh Ghalib, Ismail Ankaravi (both buried at the Galata Mevlevi-Hane) and Abdullah Sari. Music, especially the ney, play an important part in the Mevelevi order and thus much of the traditional 'oriental' music that Westerners associate with Turkey originates with the Mevlevi order. Indeed, if one buys a CD of Turkish Sufi music, chances are it will be Mevlevi religious music.

The Mevlevi Order was outlawed in Turkey at the dawn of the secular revolution by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. In the 1950s, the Turkish government, realizing that The Whirling Dervishes had value as a tourist attraction, began allowing the Whirling Dervishes to perform annually in Konya on the Urs of Mevlana, December 17, the anniversary of Rumi's death. In 1974, they were allowed to come to the West. The Mevlana annual festival is held every year in Konya in December. It lasts two weeks and its culminating point is the 17th December called Sheb-i Arus meaning 'Nuptial Night', the night of the union of Mevlana with God.

File:Rumi tomb.jpg
Rumi's tomb in Konya, Turkey

Rumi's importance transcends national and ethnic borders. Speakers of the Persian language in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan see him as one of their most significant classical poets and an influence to many poets through history. He has also had a great influence on Turkish literature throughout the centuries. His poetry forms the basis of much classical Iranian and Afghan music. Contemporary classical interpretations of his poetry are made by Muhammad Reza Shajarian (Iran), Shahram Nazeri (Iran), Davood Azad (Iran) and Ustad Mohammad Hashem Cheshti (Afghanistan). To many modern Westerners, his teachings are one of the best introductions to the philosophy and practice of Sufism. Pakistan's National Poet, Muhammad Iqbal (November 9, 1877-April 21, 1938) was also inspired by Rumi's works and considered him to be his spiritual leader and addressed him as Pir Rumi in his poems (pir literally means old, but in sufi/mystic context, it means guide, teacher, master, guru.)

Coleman Barks's translations of Rumi have sold more than a 250,000 copies in the United States. Recordings of Rumi poems have made it to Billboard's Top 20 list. A collection of Deepak Chopra's translations of Rumi's love poems has been sung by Hollywood personalities such as Madonna, Goldie Hawn and Demi Moore. The 13th-century poet of the Seljuk Empire is the top-selling poet in the United States.

Notes

  1. ^ Transliteration of Arabic script into English varies. One common transliteration is Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi. The usual brief reference to him is simply Rumi.
  2. ^ The Essential Rumi. Translations by Coleman Barks. pp xx
  3. ^ The Life and Spiritual Milieu of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi
  4. ^ Jalal al-Din Rumi Persian Sufi Sage and Poet
  5. ^ Mevlana Jalal al-din Rumi
  6. ^ [http://www.bazaarturkey.com/mevleviorder.htm Mevlevi order

Bibliography

English translations

  • Rumi, The Masnavi: Book One, trans. J. Mojaddedi, Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 2004 ISBN: 0192804383
File:Essentialrumi.jpg
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
  • The Mesnevi of Mevlānā Jelālu'd-dīn er-Rūmī. Book first, together with some account of the life and acts of the Author, of his ancestors, and of his descendants, illustrated by a selection of characteristic anedocts, as collected by their historian, Mevlānā Shemsu'd-dīn Ahmed el-Eflākī el-'Arifī, translated and the poetry versified by James W. Redhouse, London: 1881. Contains the translation of the first book only.
  • Masnaví-i Ma'naví, the Spiritual Couplets of Mauláná Jalálu'd-din Muhammad Rúmí, translated and abridged by E. H. Whinfield, London: 1887; 1989. Abridged version from the complete poem. On-line editions at sacred-texts.com and on wikisource.
  • The Masnavī by Jalālu'd-din Rūmī. Book II, translated for the first time from the Persian into prose, with a Commentary, by C.E. Wilson, London: 1910.
  • The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, edited from the oldest manuscripts available, with critical notes, translation and commentary by Reynold A. Nicholson, in 8 volumes, London: Messrs Luzac & Co., 1925-1940. Contains the text in persian. First complete English translation of the Mathnawí.
  • The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996 ISBN 0062509594; Edison (NJ) and New York: Castle Books, 1997 ISBN 078580871X. Selections.
  • The Illuminated Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, Michael Green contributor, New York: Broadway Books, 1997 ISBN 0767900022.


References

On Rumi's life and work

  • Leslie Wines, Rumi: A Spiritual Biography, New York: Crossroads, 2001 ISBN 0824523520.
  • Rumi's Thoughts, edited by Seyed G Safavi, London: London Academy of Iranian Studies, 2003.
  • Şefik Can, Fundamentals of Rumi's Thought: A Mevlevi Sufi Perspective, Somerset (NJ): The Light Inc., 2004 ISBN 1932099794.

On Persian literature

  • E.G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, four volumes, 1998 ISBN 070070406X. 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing.
  • Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, Reidel Publishing Company; ASIN B-000-6BXVT-K

See also

Turkish Seljuk Empire

On Persian culture

Spiritual Islam

Rumi experts

Translators of Rumi poetry

English Translators

On-line texts by Rumi

On Rumi

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rumi&oldid=43082534"