Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī
Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, often referred to as Maulānā, was a prominent 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic born in Balkh, now part of Afghanistan. His family migrated to Konya, Turkey, fleeing the Mongol invasions, where Rūmī would later become a respected teacher and scholar. His spiritual journey underwent a transformative shift upon meeting the charismatic Sufi, Shams al-Dīn of Tabrīz, whose profound influence ignited Rūmī's passion for poetry, music, and dance as expressions of divine love. After Shams's mysterious disappearance, Rūmī channeled his grief into creating some of his most celebrated works, including the "Dīwan-i Shams-i Tabrīz" and the "Mathnawī-i maʿnawī," the latter being a vast compilation of Sufi teachings and reflections.
Rūmī's poetry explores themes of love, mysticism, and the human condition, earning him a revered place in Persian literature alongside other great poets like Saʿdi and Hafiz. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he focused on divine love rather than worldly affairs, crafting a unique style that emphasized emotional depth and spontaneity over strict technical adherence. Rūmī's teachings continue to resonate, promoting a vision of love as a pathway to spiritual fulfillment, helping to establish him as a foundational figure in Sufism and a revered voice in the literary world. His legacy endures, with his mausoleum in Konya attracting countless pilgrims annually, reflecting his lasting impact on spirituality and poetry.
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Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī
Muslim poet
- Born: September 30, 1207
- Birthplace: Balkh (now in Afghanistan)
- Died: December 17, 1273
- Place of death: Konya, Asia Minor (now in Turkey)
Rūmī was the leading poet of Sufism, the eponymous founder of the still-active Maulawiyah Sufi order, and a direct inspiration for almost all subsequent Gnostic writing in the Islamic world.
Early Life
Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (juh-LAHL uhl-DEEN REWMEE), also known as Maulānā (our master), was born in Balkh, a major eastern city in what is now Afghanistan. His father, a well-known Sufi preacher and scholar, moved his family from Balkh across Iran and into Turkey shortly before (and perhaps in anticipatory fear of) the Mongols’ devastating westward incursion into the Islamic world. Nishapur (now in Iran), the home of ՙAtŃtŃār (c. 1142-c. 1220), the leading Sufi poet before Rūmī, fell to the Mongols in 1219-1220. A generation later, in 1258, Hülegü, Genghis Khan’s grandson, overran the Islamic capital of Baghdad and ended the caliphate.
Rūmī’s family settled in Konya, in Turkish Anatolia, a region then called Rum, from which the poet later got the name “Rūmī,” by which he is best known in the West. Rūmī studied the Qur՚ān, religious sciences, and literature. He was expert in Arabic, but Persian was to be his literary language. When his father died, Rūmī, then twenty-three or twenty-four and married, assumed his position as a teacher in a religious school in Konya. Also at this time, Rūmī began further study of Sufi doctrine and further initiation into Sufi practice with Burhan al-Dīn Muhaqqiq, a former pupil of Rūmī’s father. Burhan al-Dīn died in 1239 or 1240, by which time Rūmī was being referred to as “shaykh,” the title indicating his standing as a Sufi mentor with students and followers.
To this point in his life, Rūmī was presumably an orthodox Sufi and had demonstrated no special interest in poetry or in music and dance as vehicles for or accompaniments to religious devotion and expression of faith. All this was to change in the fall of 1244, when he met a peripatetic and charismatic Sufi called Shams al-Dīn of Tabrīz (d. c. 1247). Rūmī felt mystical love for Shams of Tabrīz, who introduced the latter to wholehearted love as the true Sufi’s requisite attitude and who became Rūmī’s chief “sun” and source of illumination. Rūmī had apparently found in Shams the image of the Divine Beloved, a focus that would inspire the rest of his life. The intensity of the relationship caused Rūmī to begin to express himself in Persian lyric verse and to find special meaning and joy in music and dance.
The attraction of Shams for Rūmī and the former’s influence on the latter did not please Rūmī’s family and students. Presumably as a result of verbal abuse, perhaps including threats, Shams suddenly left Konya without telling anyone of his plans. This event brought Rūmī great sorrow and inspired the composition of Sufi verse lamenting the separation of lover from beloved. Nearly two years later, after hearing that Shams was in Syria, Rūmī sent his older son to bring the wandering dervish back to Konya.
The reunion of the two Sufis inspired Rūmī to compose further Sufi poems, this time on the union of lover and beloved. Yet again, however, some of Rūmī’s followers and family members were vexed at Shams’s presence in their community and his hold on Rūmī. Shams disappeared for good in late 1248 (reportedly murdered by Rūmī’s son and disciples). Rūmī was again inconsolable and set out for Syria to find his mystical guide and beloved. The poet gradually came to realize, however, that the spirit of Shams was with him, that his poems were really Shams’s voice. He consequently chose “Shams” as his own nom de plume.
Life’s Work
Rūmī’s life after the disappearance of Shams became as creative and inspirational as that of any literary-religious figure in history. He composed the bulk of the much-loved and inimitable Sufi lyrics in Persian that constitute the Dīwan-i Shams-i Tabrīz (Selected Poems from the Dīwani Shamsi Tabriz, 1898). The following is an especially appreciated example of these lyric poems, in a version by Reynold Nicholson, Rūmī’s foremost Western editor and translator:
This is love: to fly heavenward,
Not long after Shams’s disappearance, Rūmī entered into a Sufi relationship with another man in whom he saw something of Shams. Called Sālah al-Dīn Zarkub, this man was reportedly illiterate and also not to the liking of Rūmī’s other disciples. Nevertheless, Rūmī dedicated some poems to Sālah al-Dīn (who died in 1258), and Rūmī’s eldest son married the latter’s daughter. After Sālah al-Dīn’s death, Rūmī became interested in a disciple of his called Chalabī Husamuddin Ḥasan, of whom Shams had presumably thought highly. Rūmī and Husamuddin lived together for ten years, and it was the latter who prevailed on Rūmī to compose a didactic and inspirational Sufi verse guide for his disciples. Thus began Rūmī’s most famous work, called Mathnawī-i maՙnawī (The Mathnawi, 1926-1934), which grew into some twenty-six thousand Persian couplets and is an encyclopedic compendium of Sufi lore, combining anecdotal narratives, didactic commentary, and passages best described as ecstatic reflections and outbursts.
Mathnawī-i maՙnawī begins with the most famous metaphorical representation of the human condition in Middle Eastern literature. In Talat S. Halman’s translation, the passage reads,
Listen to the reed, how it tells its tales;
For Rūmī, then, the proper life is the mystic’s quest through dedication to love to return to the original condition of proximity to God, the Divine Beloved. Mathnawī-i maՙnawī offers Rūmī’s vision through precept and anecdote for the life lived for love. The work is not formally structured or unified; rather, the poet proceeds as inspiration strikes him, often inspired by verbal association to mystical association. He may have composed large parts of it extemporaneously or orally, with Husamuddin transcribing passages. According to tradition, Rūmī composed or recited some tales while dancing around a column at his school.
Rūmī died in December, 1273, before finishing Mathnawī-i maՙnawī , which stops in the middle of a tale in book 6. His death was cause for great mourning in Konya, where his mausoleum is still visited yearly by thousands of pilgrims.
Husamuddin thereafter assumed leadership of Rūmī’s disciples. At his death in 1283 or 1284, Sultan Walad, Rūmī’s eldest son, became their leader and organized them into a formal Sufi order called the Maulawiyah (or Mawlawis), for Rūmī’s title; its members are now known throughout the world as the whirling dervishes. Sultan Walad also composed a spiritual biography of his father in verse.
Significance
Collections of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s sermons, letters, and sayings have survived. It is his chief works, Dīwan-i Shams-i Tabrīz and Mathnawī-i maՙnawī, however, which put him in the first rank of Persian poets and which make him the chief poetic voice of Sufism in history.
In Persian poetry, Rūmī’s intensity of feeling and sure sense of rhythm give him a place in classical Persian ghazal poetry alongside his contemporary Saՙdi (1200-1291), the supreme technical virtuoso of the Persian ghazal (short ode verse), and Hafiz (c. 1320-1389 or 1390), the master of ambivalent lyric expression in the ghazal. At the same time, as a master of the Persian quatrain, Rūmī stands at the opposite end of the thematic spectrum from Omar Khayyám (1048?-1123?), whose verses question the very existence of God and the immortality of the human soul.
Rūmī also stands apart from the mainstream of classical Persian poets because he was not involved with the court system of patronage. He apparently had good relations with rulers in Anatolia, because of which he was able to be of great service to the poor and needy. Whereas the majority of Persian poets praised kings and mundane beloveds, however, Rūmī praised God and his Divine Beloved, and felt no attraction to temporal power or material wealth.
In addition, as knowledgeable as Rūmī was in the craft of Persian poetry, he had little patience for technically and rhetorically correct verse, but concentrated mainly on the development of rhythms that would complement his message. His passionate love of God was filtered through his creativity into a unique Persian style of musical, expressive, spontaneous verse, combining his heartfelt views, his deepest feelings, his abundant knowledge and experience, and his feel for the everyday. The following verses, translated by Annemarie Schimmel, exhibit Rūmī’s recognition of the spontaneity of his art, which may sometimes not withstand prolonged scrutiny for theological content or technical niceties of verse:
My poetry resembles Egyptian bread:
If Rūmī was not a professional Persian poet in a conventional sense, he was also not a philosopher or theologian. His special place as a religious thinker and Sufi does not depend on originality or complexity of thought, but on his intense personal and artistic dedication to his convictions and his ability through word and deed to communicate those views to others. Among the themes that surface in his verse are a sense of God’s transcendence, a perception of nature as offering a hint of God, and a concept of humankind as the highest creatures, who, beyond body, soul, and mind, possess deeper spirits that partake of divine revelation. Prophets and saints are special in this respect because God speaks through them. In death, humans will be absorbed into God, but some residue of the individual may remain. Still, though these elements of a theological system can be extracted from Rūmī’s writings, Rūmī is not to be appreciated as a systematic thinker; he is to be experienced as an inspired man of great vitality, virtue, and love, whose writings attest the nobility of the human spirit.
Bibliography
Barber, David. “Rūmī Nation.” Parnassus: Poetry in Review 25, nos. 1-2 (2001): 176-209. Explores several modern translations of Rūmī’s work and argues that his complex poetry has been oversimplified and even distorted by scholars and others.
Halman, Talat S. “Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī: Passions of the Mystic Mind.” In Persian Literature, edited by Ehsan Yarshater. Albany, N.Y.: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988. An engaging, sympathetic portrait with stylish translations from Rūmī’s poetry. Another essay in this volume, “Lyric Poetry,” provides background and context for appreciating Rūmī’s achievements as a poet.
Keshavarz, Fatemeh. “’How Sweetly with a Kiss Is the Speech Interrupted’: Rūmī’s Poetics of Silence.” In Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. Discusses the more than thirty-five thousand verses written by Rūmī that celebrate silence, or, more specifically, the absence of speech. Compares Rūmī’s thoughts on silences with those in the work of Samuel Beckett, S ren Kierkegaard, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bibliography, index.
Lewis, Franklin. Rūmī, Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. Boston: Oneworld, 2000. A comprehensive study of Rūmī’s life and times, using primary sources by and about Rūmī to draw pictures of his legacy and to discuss his continuing significance. Looks also at Selected Poems from the DīwaniShamsi Tabriz, Rūmī’s children, Rūmī and the Muslim and Western worlds, mythology, and media representation. Maps, bibliography, index.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. The Mathnawí of Jalālu՚ddin Rūmī. Translated and edited by Reynold A. Nicholson. Vols. 2, 4, 6. 1926-1934. Reprint. London: Luzac, 1972. A complete scholarly verse translation of Rūmī’s most important poetic work. Bibliography.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. Mystical Poems of Rūmī. Translated by Arthur J. Arberry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Bibliography.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. Mystical Poems of Rūmī, Second Selection. Translated by Arthur J. Arberry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991. These two volumes contain translations of four hundred of Rūmī’s shorter poems. Bibliography.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. Tales from “The Masnavi” and More Tales from “The Masnavi.” Translated by Arthur J. Arberry. 1961-1963. Reprint. Surrey, England: Curzon Press, 1993. Prose retellings of two hundred anecdotal stories from The Mathnawi. Bibliography.
Schimmel, Annemarie. As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam. 1982. Reprint. Boston: Oneworld, 2001. Five densely annotated essays (originally lectures) titled “The Development of Arabic Mystical Poetry,” “Classical Persian Mystical Poetry,” “Maulana Rūmī and the Metaphors of Love,” “Mystical Poetry in the Vernaculars,” and “Poetry in Honor of the Prophet.” The author demonstrates the centrality of Rūmī to all subsequent Sufistic literary expression. The chapter on Rūmī reviews his life, suggests a chronology of his lyrics, and describes images and symbols for love in his verse.
Schimmel, Annemarie. The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalāloddin Rūmī. 1978. Reprint. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. The standard study by the leading Rūmī scholar, with emphasis on Rūmī’s poetic vocabulary and thought. Includes extensive quotations from Rūmī’s works and a comprehensive bibliography.
Wines, Leslie. “The Poet of Love and Tumult.” In Rūmī: A Spiritual Biography. New York: Crossroad, 2000. This chapter in a brief text places Rūmī’s spiritual and love poetry in a Western, modern context, including his commercialization. Part of the Lives and Legacies series. Bibliography, index.