Jalaluddin Rumi, a thirteenth-century Muslim poet is the best selling poet in America today. Why? Because although his works were written over 700 years ago, they are timeless. His message is Love. His message is one of no boundaries. Rumi said: "I am neither of the East or the West, no boundaries exist in my breast."
He was known as Mevlana and lived beyond the boundaries and borders which create the limitations of our lives. He existed without the petty differences which divide men and therefore was free to live in the Nur-i Muhammad (pure light), which existed before the Prophet Muhammad and is a place available to us all.
Rumi referred to himself as dust on the path of Muhammad. Dust indicates submission–there is no obdurate heart–no stone-like attitude to life. Dust is submission–even a zephyr can move dust. The drowned man does not move. If it appears as though he is moving it is actually the water moving and gives the illusion that the man is moving. If the man is actually moving then he is as yet not drowned.
Rumi was born in 1207 in a village to the north of Balkh, which is present day Tajikistan. His father, Bahayuddin Veled was an important scholar and teacher of the area. Around 1212 he moved his family to Samarkand, a large city where the cultures of Turkey and Persia met. The Mongol invasions in the area brought death and destruction to a large part of the Muslim world and caused Bahayuddin to take his family, friends and students, some 300 in all and journey westward.
The year was 1219 and a decade of arduous winters would pass before the caravan finally settled in Konya, ancient Iconium, which was the capital of the Rum-Seljuk Empire. The caravan had journeyed from Iraq to Makkah and Madinah to Damascus and Aleppo, where young Jalaluddin studied Arabic poetry and history.
In Konya, Rumi's father was given a professorship and taught there until his death in January of 1231. After his father's death Jalaluddin took over as university professor.
Late in October of 1244 Rumi (known as Mevlana), met a king in a patched robe, the wandering sufi, a lover of the Prophet Muhammad, the sun of Tabriz, Shamsuddin. The two became inseparable. The university professor in Rumi diminished and his spiritual state increased.
The jealousy of Rumi's students caused Shams to disappear. After 40 days Mevlana ordered mourning robes, a white shirt open at the chest and a honey-colored wool fez. On his feet he wore rough sandals. Mevlana changed. He now wrote or spoke poetry as never before. He whirled around reciting poems which expressed his longing and love and astonishment with his own transformed state.
Almost all of Rumi's verses were expressed between the ages of 40 and 66. He was altered by mystical experience and shared his experience with others. His poems and stories are a bridge to reality.
His works include the Mathnawi, 26,000 verses which have been translated into several languages. The Divan-i-Shams-i Tabriz, Fihi Ma Fihi, the Makatib, and Majalis-i-Sab'ah.
Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi departed from this world in Konya, on December 17,
1273. The evening sky burned red as men and women of various religions pressed
through the swelling crowd to touch the green cloth that covered his wooden
coffin. The day of Rumi's death has become known as the Shebi Arus, Wedding
Night, the occasion when Rumi was finally united with his Beloved, God, in
eternal life. This image first appeared in a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad
who said that we will approach the Lord as a groom comes to his wedding.
| Rumi understood
that the signs were on the horizon, but that the secrets were within oneself. |
| Suggested Reading Arberry, Arthur
John Barks, Coleman Chittick, William Ergin, Nevit Friedlander, Shems Golpinarli, Abdulbaki Lifchez, Raymond
(ed.) Meyerovitch, Eva Nasr, Seyyed Hossein Nicholson, Reynold
A. Schimmel, Annemarie Star, Jonathan Thackston, W. M.
Jr. (tr) |
