Rumi at 800

September 30, 2007 marks the 800th birthday anniversary of arguably the world’s most beloved poet, Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273). If only the place of his birth were as certain as the date, for he is generally thought to have been born in eastern Afghanistan, but more likely in what is now Tajikistan. Notwithstanding this and the fact that his entire poetical career was lived in Konya, Turkey, he is Persian through and through, in the great tradition of the mystic poets that preceded him -- ‘Attar, Khayyam, Ferdowsi, Sana’i, et. al -- his contemporary Sa’adi, and those who followed, such as Hafiz.

His prodigious output, several times that of Shakespeare’s, is all the more remarkable in that he didn’t begin until mid-life. He had been following in the footsteps of his scholarly father until the arrival on the scene one day of a certain Shams from Tabriz, Persia, who challenged his whole approach to the spiritual life. Legends abound about how this took place, the most popular being that Shams burst upon Rumi reading to his students from his own father’s works, and knocked the book into the fountain behind him. More likely was the less melodramatic problem posed by Shams about the Prophet Muhammad and Bayazid. At any rate, the older Shams became a mentor/muse/axis mundi/sounding board and human incarnation of his spiritual beloved all rolled into one, a relationship unknown in the western world. Rumi was initiated into the mysteries of Sufism, with its attendant devotional poetry about yearning to be reunited with the Beloved, music, chanting, and ecstatic, trancelike movement. Rumi began composing verses, many of them while “whirling,” and rarely stopped until the end of his life.

His relationship with Shams was fraught with turbulence and aroused the jealousy of his students. Shams disappeared at least twice, casing him untold anguish. He was once found in Damascus and brought back, but the last time he evaporated for good – rumours of his murder are unsubstantiated, and this last disappearance remains a mystery. Rumi eventually came to terms with this, reportedly discovering that Shams was somehow with him and he carried on.
Nevertheless two others in succession fulfilled Shams’ role, Salah al-Din, and Hosam al-Din, and the poetry showed marked differences in these periods. For instance, during the Shams period, his major work was the Divan – ecstatic poems suffused with longing, beautiful imagery, and mystical insights. These continued, but under Hosam’s prodding, he produced a no less-beloved work, the Mathnawi, full of instructional moral tales drawn from the Qur’an and the lore of the Middle East and Central Asia.

After his passing, his students established the Mevlevi Order in his honour and remembrance, famously known as the Whirling Dervishes, which have in these days been taken over by the government of Turkey as a cultural feature and export.

The present popularity of Rumi in America is largely attributable to the work of Coleman Barks, who has published several best-selling volumes of translations. Purists squirm at these, since Barks has taken all manner of liberties in trying to free them from their original context and make them contemporary and universal; notwithstanding Barks has struck a nerve, and the public is devouring them. Rumi has also become an icon himself, as films, stage productions, and musical works are devoted to his life and work.

Bahá’u’lláh quotes Rumi often in His own Writings, most notably in The Seven Valleys, an early mystical work revealed in Baghdad, ensuring that Rumi’s legacy will continue as long as the Bahá’í Faith endures, unforeseen in the wildest imaginations of the 13th century.

In 2000 Franklin Lewis published the most comprehensive scholarly work yet on the poet, the 686-page Rumi – Past and Present, East and West, and for this was invited to Iran for special recognition, all the more remarkable as he is non-Persian and a Bahá’í for good measure.

Here are the opening lines of the Mathnawi:


HEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains,
Lamenting its banishment from its home:
"Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,
My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day ho shall return.
My wailing is heard in every throng,
In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.
Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,
But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.
My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes,
Yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear.
Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body,
Yet no man hath ever seen a soul."
This plaint of the flute is fire, not mere air.
Let him who lacks this fire be accounted dead!
'Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute,l
'Tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine.
The flute is the confidant of all unhappy lovers;
Yea, its strains lay bare my inmost secrets.
Who hath seen a poison and an antidote like the flute?
Who hath seen a sympathetic consoler like the flute?
The flute tells the tale of love's bloodstained path,
It recounts the story of Majnun's love toils.
None is privy to these feelings save one distracted,
As ear inclines to the whispers of the tongue.