BismillahirRahmanirRahimThe Mevlevi OrderRumi: A Poet for all TimesBy Jamaluddin Hoffman
The Lord works in mysterious ways, which describes the sudden, explosive popularity of the
great Islamic mystic Mevlana Muhammad Jalaluddin Rumi, the top-selling poet in the US. In
1999, Newsweek called Rumi “a Persian love machine” and went on to say, “his fame is
spreading fast.” Some 700 years after his death, the deeply religious poems he penned have
become the stuff of American pop culture. His name is a common feature of hundreds of
articles and books, video and audio recordings, posters, websites and T-shirts. His teachings
are en vogue with contemporary celebrities.
Unfortunately, as the somewhat dubious Newsweek description suggests, many of those
responsible for this new interest in one of Islam’s greatest figures remain completely ignorant
of both the man and his message. Love is, indeed, the central theme of Rumi’s poetry. But he
speaks to a superior love - of the divine – in ways and measures that could be misconstrued
by contemporary promoters.
The well-stocked Amazon.com features more than 100 books by or about Rumi. There are
many translations of his works, ranging from small collections of seemingly lighter poems
marketed for mass consumption, to comprehensive scholarly collections and books published
by Buddhist and Hindu organizations.
On the Internet, Rumi is featured on thousands of websites and even merits his own search
category on Yahoo!, his own Usenet discussion forum (alt.fan.jalaludin_rumi) and his own
network (www.rumi.net). Indeed, the revered Sufi saint seems to be popping up everywhere
these days – from hundreds of cyberspace chat rooms to yuppie dance clubs of New York.
Crossover Appeal Impacts Diverse American Audiences
Annual Rumi festivals take place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and in Vancouver, British
Columbia – the latter held at the city’s Jewish Community Center. To ring in the New Year,
Deepak Chopra hosted a black-tie “Millennium Event” at a posh Palm Springs resort that
featured a Rumi-themed multimedia experience. Chopra, a millionaire endocrinologist turned
new age guru/motivational speaker, is the author of the best-selling spiritual self-help book
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, among others. More recently, he released a recording
entitled The Love Poems of Rumi and was featured in a nationally broadcast PBS
documentary on Rumi. Chopra also co-produced a popular CD featuring Hollywood
celebrities like Madonna reading their favorite Rumi poems to musical accompaniment.
According to Newsweek, the notoriously wanton Madonna – famous for her sexually explicit
lyrics – fell in love with Rumi’s poetry when she read the documentary manuscript. She
decided the poems would be better set to music and asked Chopra to round up a bunch of
glitterati for an album, which he said was hardly a problem. “Everyone was already reading
Rumi,” Chopra said. “These people were passionately in love with him.”
The result was a CD entitled A Gift of Love, featuring Madonna, Martin Sheen, Goldie Hawn
and others reading their favorite Rumi poems. Its overwhelming popularity encouraged the
remix of several tracks into dance music. New York nightclub DJs now blast the song Do You
Love Me? – the musical version of a famous Rumi poem as sung by Hollywood legend Demi
Moore.
While Chopra is currently cashing in on Rumi, the man most responsible for introducing Rumi
to the West is Coleman Barks – an American college professor and poet who has been
translating Rumi for mass consumption since the late 1970s.
Hallmark, the American greeting card company, contacted Barks to request permission to use
his translations of Rumi’s verses for their Valentine’s Day cards. He declined, saying: “This is
the kind of love that obliterates the lovers.” Chopra, on the other hand, was delighted the
bookstore chain Barnes & Noble featured a Valentine’s special on his book of “Love Poems.”
Muslims may cringe at the way Rumi’s works are being distorted, but confusion has always
surrounded this great saint, and never stopped his message of love of the Creator from
reaching its mark.
Traditional Roots Unknown to Most Americans
Mevlana Muhammad Jalaluddin Rumi was born in the year 604 A.H. (1207 of the Common
Era or C.E.) in the town of Balkh in what is now Afghanistan. However, he would be known to
the ages as Rumi – the Roman – as he spent most of his days in the lands that once formed
part of the Byzantine Empire. His father, Bahauddin Walad, was a respected shaykh, scholar
and a noted author of theological works who was well read and had many students. The
young Rumi grew up in a household imbued with the love of Allah Y and his beloved Prophet
Muhammad r. Bahauddin oversaw Rumi’s formal religious training and was his first master.
Father of the sufi order of Whirling Dervishes, his poetry still inspires celebrities, academia,
and mainstream America. Family life was peaceful until word of the Mongol invasions reached
Balkh around 615 A.H. (1218 C.E.). Fearful, Bahauddin gathered his family and set out for the
safety of the Seljuk dominions in Anatolia. Their journey was a long and twisting one that took
them to the holy cities of Makkah and Medina, and other important centers of the Islamic
world.
These travels surely had a significant impact on the young Rumi, as he took in the wonders of
Muslim civilization and encountered some of its great personages. In the Iranian city of
Nishapur, he is said to have met Fariduddin `Attar, a great Persian mystic and poet who
blessed the boy before he and his family continued on their trek.
Along the way, Rumi married. Finally, he and his family reached the Seljuk lands. They
settled briefly in Laranda, now the Turkish city of Karaman. It was there Rumi’s mother died
and his first child was born.
Father and Son Promote Traditional Teachings
The presence of a great scholar like Bahauddin did not go unnoticed for long. In 625 A.H.
(1228 C.E.) Rumi’s father was ordered to the Seljuk capital at Konya to teach at a religious
school - a madrasa. Bahauddin served as an imperial scholar until his death three years later.
When he died, Rumi inherited both his vast library of Islamic books and his position of
authority. Rumi continued to follow in his father’s footsteps and was soon highly regarded as
a scholar in his own right.
Around 629 A.H. (1232 C.E.), one of Bahauddin’s former disciples arrived in Konya from Iran.
His name was Burhanuddin Muhaqqiq, a dervish who had spent many years alone in private
contemplation in the mountains. He had also studied with the mystical orders in Persia and
was well versed in theology.
Burhanuddin became Rumi’s teacher, instructing him in the principles of tasawwuf - Sufism.
The two traveled extensively together, visiting centers of Islamic learning in Aleppo and
Damascus. There, Rumi is said to have met the great master of his age, Ibn al-`Arabi, with
whom he maintained a connection through his stepson, Sadruddin al-Qunawi, who also lived
in Konya.
Emergence of “The Sun of the Religion”
When Burhanuddin departed from Konya in 637 A.H. (1240 C.E.), Rumi was soon to find a
new teacher, destined to change his life forever. That was Shamsuddin of Tabriz, a
wandering mystic who appeared out of the desert one day with nothing but a ragged, black,
wool cloak and a seemingly bottomless store of spiritual wisdom.
Known as “the dervish Parinda”, “The Winged One,” and “Shams” or “the Sun”, his
background is shrouded in mystery. While Shamsuddin was not knowingly connected with
any of the established Sufi orders, it is clear that his knowledge of tasawwuf was profound.
He arrived in Konya in 642 A.H. (1244 C.E.) when Rumi was 37 years old. Some accounts
say the two met earlier during one of Rumi’s visits to Syria, but such details are hardly
important.
What is important is the profound, long-lasting impact their relationship was to have on Rumi’s
life and work. Shams was the “hidden saint,” the friend of Allah I that he had searched for all
his life to guide him on the path to his Creator. He instinctively knew his quest was at an end
the moment he met Shams. Once introduced, Rumi savored every moment at the side of his
new teacher. They spent months together, and Rumi neglected his family, friends and
students. Often mentor and disciple disappeared for weeks at a time. Comparisons to the
Relationship of Moses with Khidr.
Rumi’s eldest son, Sultan Walad, compared their relationship to that of the Prophet Moses u
and the saint Khidr, which Allah I describes in Chapter 18 of the Holy Qu’ran. Like Khidr,
Shams challenged all of Rumi’s assumptions and forced him to reevaluate everything he
thought he knew.
One day Shams visited Rumi while he was studying. Without warning, he grabbed Rumi’s
books and threw them into a fish pond. “Now you must live what you know!” Shams declared.
Rumi was aghast. When he tried to save his books, Shams prevented him, saying that book
knowledge is not real knowledge. Like Moses u, Rumi was then instinctively prepared to
accept the transfer of knowledge “from heart to heart”, whereby knowledge flows from Allah I
to the Prophet Muhammad r to his spiritual heirs, thence to their disciples. His profound love
for his spiritual guide brought him distinctly nearer to God.
Rumi’s family members and even his disciples became increasingly jealous of his singleminded
focus on Shamsuddin. They begged him to return to his teaching and domestic
duties. Each day he spent with Shams brought new revelations and a deeper understanding
of the true realities of creation and its Creator, and he refused to return to his former daily life.
His refusals only increased the ire of his disciples.
In 1246, they met in secret and confronted Shamsuddin, forcing the dervish to flee Konya.
Rumi, anguished over the sudden departure of his teacher and friend, sent Sultan Walad to
Syria in search of his master. He found Shamsuddin in Damascus and persuaded his return
to Konya. While Rumi was overjoyed at the reunion, his family and students remained
scandalized by his all-consuming devotion to Shams. Soon, their jealousy was to separate the
teacher and student forever.
The Sun’s Eclipse
The facts surrounding Shams’ mysterious disappearance in 1247 CE continue to elude
historians. Some say Shams was attacked by Rumi’s disciples, driven to murder by their
jealousy over their master’s attentions. According to at least one account, Rumi’s students
ambushed the great saint. As they leapt on Shamsuddin with knives drawn, he is said to have
cried out, “There is no god but Allah! There is no god except You!” The attackers were so
struck by this declaration, they immediately fell senseless. They afterwards found only a few
trace drops of blood – and no sign of their intended victim.
Other reports say that Shams was killed by Rumi’s own sons and hastily buried near a well
that still exists in Konya. Whatever the truth, the fact remains that Shams’ disappearance
devastated Rumi, creating a pit of sorrow so deep that his lovelorn declarations thereafter
sprung forth uninhibited as the most captivating poetry for which he is known to this day.
Expression of Divine Love Still Dazzles the World
According to one legend, when news of Shams’ disappearance reached Rumi, he slumped
against a pillar. Circling that pillar while clinging to it with one hand, he recited lengthy verses
in ode to his former master. Some say this is the origin of the whirling meditation that would
later become the symbol of Rumi’s followers. However it may have started, the torrent of
poetry unleashed by Shamsuddin’s disappearance came without premeditation or effort on
Rumi’s part. His inspirations emanated at any time or place, at times while he walked with his
disciples, to whom he had returned, or as he listened to the sound of running water or the
hammering of a goldsmith.
His students became accustomed to these explosions of verse and dutifully recorded them all
for posterity. But Rumi, himself, was not terribly concerned with poetry. When asked about it
he replied, “It is as necessary as when a man reaches his hands into tripe and washes and
prepares it for his guest, because his guest has asked for it.”
The seven volumes of his Mathnavi are ranked among essential Islamic texts. Rumi’s verses
totaled more than 45,000. Many of them focus on the evolution of his spiritual love for his
departed master and were collected in a volume he called the Divan-e Shams. When this
topic was exhausted, still his poetry continued. Indeed, Shams was not the sole inspiration of
Rumi’s poetry. He often saw the reflection of his former master in his favorite disciples and
composed odes that spoke of their spiritual qualities.
His Greatest Known Work
Rumi began his great opus, the Mathnavi, at the request of his dearest student and spiritual
deputy, Husamuddin Chelebi. Knowing the power of his poetry, Husamuddin asked Rumi to
follow the example of two previous mystical legends who expressed their spiritual knowledge
in traditionally lengthy, flowing poetry. The works Attar and Sana’i were peppered with fables,
stories, anecdotes and allegories that underlined the central theses of their expositions. Their
poems were popular among Rumi’s disciples, and thus Husamuddin urged Rumi to make his
own vast spiritual knowledge accessible in a similar format.
Rumi agreed and dictated some 25,000 couplets to Husamuddin. Together, they cover the
entire spectrum of the mystical knowledge of tasawwuf. Collected into seven volumes, these
magnificent verses are ranked among the most important Islamic texts.As with the Divan-e-
Shams, Rumi refused to put his own name on the Mathnavi, calling it instead “The Book of
Husam” in honor of his loving disciple.
His Spiritual Heritage
Rumi lived only a short while after completing the Mathnavi. Despite the conflicts and
controversy sparked by his devotion to Shams of Tabriz and his occasional eccentric ways,
Rumi remained a prominent and respected member of Konya society, and an esteemed
teacher and theologian. Both Muslim scholars and Christian monks sought his company and
counsel. Many students of tasawwuf also sought Rumi as their spiritual guide on their journey
to the best of destinations.
Husamuddin was appointed by the great Rumi as his immediate spiritual heir. He was later
succeeded by Rumi’s son, Sultan Walad, who organized his father’s disciples into a new Sufi
order known as the Mevlevi. The Order came to be known in the West as “Whirling
Dervishes”, owing to the dance-like meditation that became the Mevlevi’s primary method of
meditation and God Consciousness (dhikr).
Sultan Walad also composed a poetical account that remains the primary source of
information about Rumi’s life. As for Rumi’s teachings, in addition to his poetry, a small
collection of his khutbas (sermons) were recorded by his students. The Fihi-ma-fihi (“There is
in it what is in it”), features central themes of his poetry in a more direct format. A few of his
personal letters have also survived through the ages.
Rumi’s influence on Islamic life and the development of Islamic mysticism far exceeded his
generation and cannot be overstated. His mausoleum in Konya, known as the Green Dome,
remains a place of visitation to this day. Inspired with newfound interest in his life work, a new
generation of Muslim converts and other contemporary seekers are making the trip there, as
well.
