Craftsmanship and Emptiness by Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī

First published: Early thirteenth century, as part of Masnavī-ye Maՙnavī; English translation collected in One-Handed Basket Weaving, 1991

Type of poem: Meditation

The Poem

“Craftsmanship and Emptiness” consists of a relatively few lines (lines 1369-1420 of book 5) from Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s enormous work Mathnawi. The Persian title Mathnawi refers to the verse form used (rhyming couplets) and came to mean an extensive didactic work that could include a variety of tales and other material. Rūmī’s Mathnawi, left unfinished at his death, includes stories from the Qur’an (Koran) and Islamic tradition, folk stories, and anecdotes. Even though its intent is serious, his Mathnawi is funny and even bawdy at times. Written mostly in Persian, the book also includes passages in Arabic, Turkish, and even Greek. Traditionally, it is referred to as the “Qur’an in Persian,” an indication of its high status. The title “Craftsmanship and Emptiness” is not Rūmī’s, but was added by the translators. This translation makes no effort to reproduce the rhyming couplet form of the original but instead is rendered in free verse.

Rūmī is speaking to the reader in this poem; the relation is one of a spiritual teacher instructing a disciple. The poem moves associatively from one topic to another closely related topic. Its several sections illustrate the value of emptiness. Rūmī begins by reminding his audience of a topic he has spoken of before—emptiness as an opportunity for the craftsman to practice his craft. He lists examples that would be part of the original audience’s everyday experience. In the third stanza, Rūmī addresses the reader directly, admonishing the reader that it is foolish to fear death and emptiness, which are a “beautiful expanse,” while being deceived by the destructive things of the world (“a scorpion pit”).

Having admonished the reader, Rūmī turns to a story from an earlier Persian poet, Attar, to expand and clarify what he has said. The story tells of a Hindu boy, captured by a Muslim ruler and shown favor. The boy’s parents have taught him to fear King Mahmud; raised to a high standing (the king’s vice-regent), the boy weeps in delight and wishes that his parents could be there to see that their fears were all wrong.

Rūmī interprets the story’s details by applying them to his audience. The parents, whose fears previously governed the boy’s feelings, are seen as human attachments. These attachments keep one blind to the “beautiful expanse” of one’s real situation and keep one imprisoned in the “scorpion pit” of fears and selfish desires. Rūmī promises readers that one day they will experience the boy’s tears of joy.

The theme of attachment suggests the body, to which Rūmī next turns. Rather than advocating an extreme ascetic attitude toward the body, Rūmī suggests that the body is useful as well as frustrating and that one’s best attitude toward it is patience. The next few lines take up the theme of patience, using both natural images (the rose and the camel) and human images (the prophets and the embroidered shirt) to show the reader how patience is part of life. Rūmī concludes with three stanzas advising the reader to “live in” God—the Eternal—or be burned out like an abandoned campfire.

Forms and Devices

The comments in this section refer to Coleman Barks’s translation (as collected in Rūmī: One-Handed Basket Weaving, Poems on the Theme of Work, 1991, and The Essential Rūmī, 1995). Other translators of Rūmī have used very different styles. For example, Reynold A. Nicholson, who edited, translated, and commented on the entire Mathnawi (1925-1940), translated each couplet into a prose line, as in these lines: “Even such is the seeker at the court of God: when God comes, the seeker is naughted/ Although union with God is life on life, yet at first that life consists in dying to self” (Tales of Mystic Meaning, 1931, reprint 1995).

Barks used free verse divided into twenty-five verse paragraphs of varying length. Free verse allows Barks to focus on the meaning of Rūmī’s verses and to use line breaks to provide emphasis and rhythm. Barks has translated many of Rūmī’s poems in this style, including material from Rūmī’s quatrains and ghazals (a Persian poetic form) as well as the Mathnawi. Overall, Barks’s translations have the effect of direct and colloquial speech. This effect, combined with Rūmī’s pungent stories and metaphors, accounts for the popularity of Barks’s renderings.

The style Barks uses does not call attention to itself—there is no rhyme, no noticeable alliteration, and no strong rhythms. The sentences are worded directly and vigorously, with no unusual word choices. Sentence structures are varied, thus avoiding such devices as parallelism. The line endings are the major indication of rhythm. As a result, the language is lively, concise, direct, and transparent.

The lack of poetic ornament makes these thirteenth century poems seem very contemporary. Lack of ornamentation may also be particularly appropriate, since Rūmī discounted the value of poetry and wrote the Mathnawi only at the urging of a close associate. In Fīhi mā fīhi (Signs of the Unseen, 1994), Rūmī says that he is “vexed by poetry” and only composes it as a way to communicate with people who respond to poetry. Consistent with this attitude, the poems in the Mathnawi are intended to teach by entertaining the reader with entrancing stories.

Rūmī uses metaphor, simile, allegory, and symbolic images to express his meaning in a vivid and appealing way. In the first few lines, he uses simple descriptive images—the builder, the water carrier, and the carpenter. He endows these images with symbolic meaning by pointing out the value of emptiness to each of these craftsmen. “Emptiness” then refers to the mode in which Rūmī encourages the reader to experience God, but the word does not remain an abstraction. Instead, it is an “ocean” in which the reader is presumed to fish and a “beautiful expanse” in contrast to the “scorpion pit” where the reader has chosen to live.

After retelling Attar’s story of King Mahmud and the young man, Rūmī gives an allegorical interpretation, using details of the story to encourage the reader to abandon attachment to the fleeting things of the world and to not be afraid of the “emptiness” of God. Then, in comparing the body to a shirt of chain mail, Rūmī uses a simile that would be more familiar to his original audience than to a modern one, but nonetheless is clear and forceful. Finally, in describing the individual mixing with God as being like honey mixing with milk, Rūmī uses another simile that not only makes Rūmī’s point but also uses traditional Muslim imagery associated with paradise to reinforce the appeal of his advice.