Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi and more popularly and simply as Rumi (1207 - 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turkish, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims. The Muslims of South Asia have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. Rumi's works are written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Greek, Arabic, and Turkish in his verse. His Mathnawi, composed in Konya, remains one of the purest literary glories of the Persian language. Today his works are widely read in their original language across Greater Iran and the Persian-speaking world. His translated works are very popular, most notably in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the United States, and South Asia. His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto and Bengali.
Rumi did not discriminate against Jews, Christians, Hindus or even atheists, despite his Muslim background. In one piece of writing called "He Was in No Other Place," Rumi wrote about his relationship with other religions: "Cross and Christians, end to end, I examined. He was not on the Cross. I went to the Hindu temple, to the ancient pagoda. In none of them was there any sign. To the uplands of Herat I went, and to Kandahar I looked. He was not on the heights or in the lowlands. Resolutely, I went to the summit of the fabulous mountain of Kaf. There only was the dwelling of the legendary Anqa bird. I went to the Kaaba of Mecca. He was not there. I asked about him from Avicenna, the philosopher. He was beyond the range of Avicenna. ... I looked into my heart. In that place, His place, I saw Him. He was in no other place". For Rumi, in essence, all religions were more or less equally beautiful because they all sought the divine truth: "I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim/I am not of the East, nor of the West.../ I have put duality away, I have seen the two worlds as one;/ One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call".
Rumi's fondness for interfaith dialogue between people of different faiths is visible in one of his quatrains, in which he notes that: "There is a path from me to you/ that I am constantly looking for, / so I try to keep clear and still/ as water does with the moon. / This moment this love comes to rest in me,/ many beings in one being./ In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks./ Inside the needles eye, a turning night of stars". Rumi's appreciation and devotion to interfaith dialogue and to people of non-Muslim backgrounds was also once displayed at his funeral in Konya, Turkey in 1273. Attended by people from all walks of life, it is said that a weeping Muslim man asked a Christian man, "Why are you crying at the funeral of a Muslim poet?" The Christian answered: "We esteemed him as the Moses, the David, the Jesus of the age. We are all his followers and his disciples." It is the Christian man's affinity for Rumi's life work that has made the Sufi poet so revered in most, if not all, religious circles.
Rumi was possessed by such an overwhelming vision of love, that he was unable to confine himself to any one spiritual discipline for his inspiration. Rumi's poetry, for example, was only possible after his deeply felt personal experiences of God's love. Rumi's poem "Love is the Master," supports this thesis: "Love is the One who masters all things; /I am mastered totally by Love. / By my passion of love for Love".../. In addition, "I am a child of love" shows Rumi's true "religious" beliefs: "I profess the religion of love, / Love is my religion and my faith. / My mother is love/My father is love/My Prophet is love/My God is love/I am a child of love/ I have come only to speak of love". He shared his love with people from different practices and beliefs, which is depicted on an inscription on Rumi's shrine in Konya, Turkey, which reads: "Come, come, whoever you are/ Wanderer, worshiper, lover or leaving. /It doesn't matter./ Ours is not a caravan of despair./ Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times./ Come, yet again, come, come".
To Rumi, those who follow the message of seeking and spreading love are able to escape "the chain of birth and death," as "the heart that is not in love will fail the test" of God's judgment. To Rumi, God is the source of all love and it is this love which permeates the entire universe. "Love is an infinite ocean whose skies are a bubble of foam./ Know that it is the waves of Love which make the wheel of the/ Heavens turn; without Love the world would be inanimate./ How is an inorganic thing transformed into a plant?/How are the plants sacrificed to become gifted with spirit?/How is the spirit sacrificed for the Breath, of which only a/Whiff was enough to impregnate Mary?/Each atom is intoxicated with this Perfection and hastens/ Toward it... Their haste says implicitly: 'Glory be to God'".
In his poem "One Song," Rumi shares a desire for mankind to unite to end conflict and war, which he calls "an unnecessary foolishness, because just beyond the arguing there is a long table of companionship set and waiting for us to sit down." Rumi encourages us to put aside our differences and to listen to each other's grievances in an honest and calm way. He continued in "One Song" by writing, "What is praised is One, so the praise is one too,/ many jugs being poured into a huge basin./ All religions, all this singing, one song".
Rumi's emphasis on the oneness of humanity is again found in another of his poems, conveniently titled "All Religions are but one:" "Since the object of praise is One,/ from this point of view,/ all religions are but one religion./ Know that all praise belongs to the Light of God/ and is only lent to created forms and beings./ Should people praise anyone but the One/who alone deserves to be praised?/ But they go astray in useless fantasy./ The Light of God in relation to phenomena/ is like light shining upon a wall --/ the wall is but a focus for these splendours". Rumi cared not so much for religious differences and divisions but rather the "Oneness" in everything. Rumi believed that God existed before the creation of all religions and it is this universal idea of "Oneness" in God that the human family should celebrate.
Rumi's following love quotes capture the Sufi Mystic's divine passion: "In a crowd, the lover is easy to spot, like a shining moon among the stars of the sky". "The roots of love are eternity. The leaves of love are creation." "Everyone sleeps, except lovers, who stay awake, telling stories to God". "Love speaks a hundred different languages". "Have you ever seen a lover bored with passion? Have you ever seen a fish bored with the sea?" "I circled around the flame of your beautiful face, all night, your face more beautiful than the moon, stand across from me, until I see hundreds of eternal worlds". "With love, I'm like an arrow hitting the target". "I learned about love from your perfection. I learned about poetry and song from your beauty". "Passion for love swept me away from learning and reciting, until I became as crazy and distracted as I am today". "From now on, I will burn with passion. Like a candle, the more I burn, the brighter I shine". "Your flame burns the moth of my heart". "When I sleep at the end of my beloved's street, my pillow and blanket glow like the stars". "No fear of loneliness fills the hearts of lovers". "While everyone else is seeking clothes or money, a lover is seeking his beloved".
The world today is rife with suffering, mistrust, and wars, but by turning to the writings of Rumi, we can find inspiration to build a stronger bridge between East and West, between Muslims and non-Muslims. The writings of this mystical figure should remind us of the absurdity which is the "clash of civilisations" between "Western culture" and Islam. In Rumi we have a confluence of civilisations, not a clash of them. As Rumi said in his poem "Look at Love": "why are you so busy/with this or that or good or bad/ pay attention to how things blend".
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre. Email: [email protected]
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