Figure 1 A page of a copy circa 1503 of Divan-i Kabir.

Divan-i Kabir also contains Arabic and mixed Greek/Persian poems [2].

In this article, we will discuss a lesser known side of Rumi. In particular, we will show that, in his poetry, Rumi (knowingly or not) pointed to an astronomical observation called “gravitational lensing.” We leave it to the reader whether this is only a pure coincidence or not.

We begin by investigating the following poem which illustrates unity and a love of humanity [1]. Originally, this poem comes from Divan-i Kabir. We would especially like to draw attention to the capitalized sentence below. In order to preserve the context and better understand how to interpret this sentence in relation to gravitational lensing, we included most of the neighboring parts of the poem.

Come, come, get closer.
Till when is this banditry going to continue?
Since you are I and I am you, what is this “us” and “them”?
We are God’s holy light; we are God’s mirror.
…
But why are we squint-eyed?
Although we are limbs of the same body,
why do the rich look down on the poor?
…
BUT WE HAVE SEEN ONE AS TWO
BECAUSE OF THE CURVATURE OF THE HEAVENS.
Come, liberate yourself from this selfishness
and reconcile with everybody and be nice to people.
As long as you are in you, you are a grain, a particle.
But when you mix and unite with others, then you become an ocean, a mine.
Every human being carries the same soul,
but the bodies are in hundreds of thousands.
Similarly, there are countless almonds in the world,
but there is the same oil in each of them.
There are many tongues and dialects in this world,
but the meaning of all of them is the same.
Waters put in different containers unite
when the containers are broken
and start to flow together as one stream.

Rumi makes several metaphors in the above poem. He, for example, compares the essence of all humans to individual mirrors serving one truth – that is, the reflection of God’s attributes in them. This truth makes our goals one and the same. We were all created with one thought, one mind, which is to exhibit the manifestations of His Names and Attributes on Earth. Therefore, Rumi says we should act like the limbs of the same body and not look down on the poor. We should give away selfishness and unite around the same goal, so that everyone gains one greater meaning. The reason why we have seen one meaning as two or more lies in the Divine Wisdom of God and the reflections of His Wisdom on subtle details of creation, such as the “curvatures of the heavens.” Despite these curvatures, everything – different bodies, countless almonds, and many tongues and dialects – has but one origin.

One of the Divine Wisdoms behind the diversity in creation is described in Al-Hujurat 13, in the Quran [3]:

“O humankind! Surely We have created you from a single (pair of) male and female, and made you into tribes and families so that you may know one another (and so build mutuality and co-operative relationships, not so that you may take pride in your differences of race and social rank, and breed enmities). Surely, the noblest, most honorable of you in God’s sight is the one best in piety, righteousness, and reverence for God. Surely God is All-Knowing, All-Aware.” [4]

If there would be only one tribe with identical members, skills, and roles, there would be limited motivation to know each other. This would significantly hamper progress on Earth. Imagine a world with one big family with a million members and no other families to compete with, such as the primitive tribes of the Amazon. Imagine another world with a thousand families with ten members in each such as the modern multi-national world. In the latter, it is more likely people will be motivated to know each other, to build mutuality and co-operative relationships, to compete and progress. Thus, it is more likely to manifest the reflections of God’s attributes on Earth through piety, righteousness, and reverence for Him.

“Curvature” in astronomy

Having discussed the poem, now let’s turn our attention to astronomy. In particular, we will point out the relation of “curvature of the heavens” with astronomy. In the original poem, this phrase is given as [5]. The first word, “felek” can be translated as “heavens” and the second word, “munhany,” is Arabic, which can be translated as “curve” or “curved.” An old man with a bent body is also called “munhany.” Although this is an Arabic word, it is used in Persian, too.

In astronomy, every galaxy (or any other mass) deflects light, at least to some extent, coming from a distant light source in space such as a supernova explosion or another galaxy. Due to this deflection of light, if astronomers are lucky enough in terms of their position in space with respect to the deflecting galaxy, they can view two, or even more, images of the same galaxy by pointing their telescope in different directions. This is the result of the gravitational lens in astronomy [6] (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Gravitational lensing. Light coming from a distant quasar behind a massive galaxy is deflected due to gravity. This results in the observation of multiple images from Earth. Credit: NASA/GSFC

A gravitational lens works pretty much the same way as optical lenses (see Figure 3), but uses gravity for refraction (or deflection) of light instead of an optically dense medium such as glass.

Figure 3 An image of the Golden Gate Bridge is refracted and bent by many different drops of water acting as lenses on glass. Credit: Brocken Inaglory

According to general relativity, light follows the curvature of space-time formed by massive objects (see Figure 4) [7]. Therefore, when light travels around a massive object, such as in gravitational lensing, it is bent.

Figure 4 Schematic of the curvature of space-time around a massive object. Credit: Johnstone

In Figure 5, taken by the Hubble telescope, multiple images of a single galaxy are shown [8]. The five blue circles show a unique, gravitationally-lensed quasar. This image is the first-ever picture of such an object. The red circles mark three remarkably different images of the same background galaxy. The galaxy is 12 billion light years away (corresponding to only 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang). The yellow circle marks a supernova that was found by comparing this image to a picture of the cluster obtained by Hubble earlier. It is interesting to note that not only is the Golden Gate Bridge in the background in Figure 3 analogous to the background quasar and the galaxy in Figure 5, but they both resemble the manifestations of the attributes of one God in various forms as metaphorically described by Rumi.

Figure 5 Gravitational lens may result in the observation of multiple images of the same object in space. Credits: ESA, NASA, Keren Sharon (Tel-Aviv University) and Eran Ofek (CalTech).

It is clear from this image that gravitational lens may mislead us into seeing one as two or more. Therefore we find the “curvature of the heavens” phrase in the poem quite striking. Astonishingly, Rumi somehow makes an analogy between the unity of humanity and the unity of a heavenly body that appears more than once to the astronomer due to the gravitational illusion produced by the curvature of the heavens, or perhaps space-time.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Zeki Saritoprak and Mustafa Kaya for their contribution to exploring the original edition of Divan-i Kabir. This article is produced either in part or as a whole at MERGEOUS (mergeous.com), an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

References

1. Can, Sefik. 2004. Fundamentals of Rumi’s Thought, NJ: 2004.

2. Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwan-e_Shams-e_Tabrizi

3. Hucurat 13, Kutub-u Sitte 1.5, Gold Soft, Akcag.

4. Unal, Ali. 2012. The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, NJ: Tughra Books.

5. Foruzanfar, Badi’ ul-Zaman (ed.). 1984. Divan-e Kabir, Tehran: Daneshgah-e Tehran, 3rd reprint, vol. 6, pp. 243-44.

6. Schultz, Bernard F. 2003. Gravity from the Ground Up, Cambridge University Press.

7. Gravitational Lens, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens

8. The European Homepage for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, “http://www.spacetelescope.org/copyright.html”

The best place to begin this discussion is with the Qur’an. There are numerous verses that mention love, but whenever the word love is used “the quality is always ascribed to God and human beings, and nothing else; and God’s love is always directed at human beings.” Not only does this mean that the relationship between God and human beings is unique, but love defines that unique relationship. In the verses that mention love for God, the Qur’an makes two important points. Firstly, God wants people to love him, and secondly, their love for God follows upon His love for them. The verse of the Qur’an most cited for this is “…whom He loves, and who love Him” (5:54). The inferences that Sufi mystics have drawn from this verse is that love cannot be learned, it is the result of divine grace, and the initiative comes from God. This feeling of God’s desire “to love and to be loved” inspired Rumi to suggest:

Not a single lover would seek union if the beloved were not seeking it.

The message of the Qur’an compelled Muslims to understand their relationship with God as one requiring reciprocated love. Sufi poets then searched for a vocabulary to describe their love for God, including words not found in the Qur’an or Hadiths.

In the early period of Sufism “the majority of teachings on love are contained in poems and brief statements that focus upon the human love for God, wherein there is always a duality between the human lover and the Divine Beloved.” This developed into a trend within Sufi thought in which “all aspects of creation and spiritual aspiration are presented in an imaginal language fired by love.” An important development in this trend was the use of the word for passionate love, ishq, rather than the more accepted vocabulary of the Qur’an. The Qur’anic terms for love are hubb and mahabba that describe the measured affection of God. Ishq came into the lexicon of Sufi poetry to describe “the essential desire for God and the love of God as an essential attribute, which fills the heart of the mystic.” Using the word ishq in a religious context means that:

Love is no longer merely an expression of gratitude for the blessings of God; it is no longer content with rigorous asceticism and meticulous ritual observance. It becomes an absolute necessity, entailing neither enjoyment nor alleviation, but intensifying as the reciprocity of the lover and the loved comes into effect.

By redefining their love for God as ishq, the early Sufi poets extended their vocabulary, and by doing this they could more accurately describe their inner response to the revelation of the Qur’an. The recognition of two types of love is expressed by Rabia in the following quatrain:

Two loves I give thee, love that yearns.
And love because thy due is love.
My yearning, my remembrance turns
To Thee, nor lets it from thee rove.

Here, Rabia identifies the spontaneous love for God she feels within herself – and the dutiful love she is obliged to give to God in the performance of her religious responsibilities. As Chittick wrote, “Love pertains to the experiential dimension of Sufism, not the theoretical; it must be experienced to be understood.” Sufism connects experiential knowledge to the belief that “nothing is dearer to God than that man loves him.” A mystic and poet who lived in Anatolia in the same period as Rumi, Yunus Emre, described the intensifying experience of love for God:

Your love has wrested me away from me
You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave.
Day and night I burn, gripped by agony,
You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave.
For Yunus Emre, “love is the most powerful of everything.”

When love for God is described in terms of passion then the language of romantic love is readily accessible to be adapted as the metaphoric language of the spiritual journey. In Sufi poetry there is a convention of the spiritual supplicant being called the lover of God, while God is referred to as the Beloved. Throughout Sufi poetry we read verses that elaborate ideas about the relationship of the lover and the Beloved. A good example of this is seen in this verse by Rumi:

Lovers share a sacred decree –
to seek the Beloved.
They roll head over heels
rushing toward the Beautiful One
like a torrent of water.

Here God has two titles, the Beloved and the Beautiful One, but this poem could easily be read as secular love poetry. In this verse Rumi includes the beliefs that the impetus to love comes from God, as it is a sacred decree, and doing so is as unstoppable as the rush of water.

Another poem of Rumi that can be read as secular love poetry uses less recognizable references to God:

In one sweet moment
She burst from my heart.
There we sat on the floor,
drinking ruby wine.
Trapped by her beauty,
I saw and I touched –
My whole face became eyes,
All my eyes became hands.

Through the use of the conventional poetic symbols of his era, for example, drinking wine as a symbol for spiritual intoxication, the poet again express both secular and spiritual meanings simultaneously. As one of the translators of the above piece comments in his introduction to the selection of Rumi’s poems:

Nothing with Rumi can be taken literally: One must always be aware of the meaning behind the meaning, and the veils behind veils.

The translator Jonathon Star, says that Rumi, like other Sufi poets, at “the deepest level” of his poetry “tells only one story: the soul’s search for the Beloved.”

For Rumi, passionate love, ishq, has two expressions. The first is love in the material world, “like the love between male and female”, and the second is the “real love,” which is the “love felt toward God.” These couplets of Rumi’s explain how the poet signified both aspects of ishq:

Love is the attribute of God, who has no need of anyone. To be in love with other than Him is metaphorical love.
And
Love, be it real or metaphorical,
Ultimately takes humans to God.

These two couplets express two fundamental beliefs of Sufism. In the first couplet we read that love is an attribute of God – as stated in the Qur’an. In the second we see that love “takes humans to God.”

While the Qur’an shows that love is an attribute of God, for many adherents of the Sufi tradition love is God’s most important attribute because for the spiritual journey of the wayfarer, love provides the path that takes them to reunion with God. In Rumi’s “spiritual masterpiece,” the Masnavi, the poet seeks to show that “God is known primarily through love.” The significance given to love in this part of the Islamic tradition has allowed some to suggest simply that “God is Love.” However, it is important to note that love is not the only attribute of God:

…He is Mercy, Knowledge, Life, Power and Will. He possesses all these qualities; His Being is the same as their Being; but we may not say that God is Mercy and nothing else, or that He is Knowledge and nothing else… He possesses all His Attributes absolutely, yet in His Essence He is beyond them all.

More than a generation before Rumi the mystic Farid al-Din Attar (d.1220) wrote a variation of the shahada (testimony of faith) as la ilaha illa ishq – No God but Love. In his Divan Rumi shows that he did not believe God could be defined as such. In fact, this excerpt from the Divan could be commenting on the above phrase of Attar:

Others call Thee Love, but I call Thee the Sultan of Love – oh Thou who are beyond the concept of this or that, do not go without me!

Rumi’s poetry not only shows that God cannot be defined but He can only be described with symbol, metaphor or analogy, which eventually also proves to be inadequate:

All of these are symbols – I mean that the other
world keeps coming into this world.
Like cream hidden in the soul of milk, No place
keeps coming into this place.
Like intellect concealed in blood and skin, the
Traceless keeps entering into traces.
And from beyond the intellect, beautiful Love
comes dragging its skirts, a cup of wine in its hand.
And from beyond Love, that Indescribable One
who can only be called “That” keeps coming.

In this piece of sublime verse Rumi uses analogy to communicate a sense of God. We also see an explanation of the variance of love and intellect, but most importantly, embedded in the poetry, Rumi presents the difference between love as an attribute of God, and “the Indescribable One who can only be called ‘That'” which is God.

As we saw in one of the couplets quoted above, Rumi believed that love, “real or metaphorical, ultimately takes humans to God.” The journey to reunion with God was made by “constant purification and, in exchange, qualification with God’s attributes.” For the Sufi mystic, “the qualities of the Beloved enter in the place of the qualities of the lover.” This is a heightened sense of jihad, when jihad is thought of as “the personal struggle against one’s own shortcomings that is required of all Muslims so that they can perfect their submission.”

For the Sufi mystic, however, the demand of reunion with God was to “qualify yourself with the qualities of God,” which was achieved by constant mental struggle to exchange the base qualities of the mystic for the praiseworthy qualities by which God has described himself in the Qur’anic revelation. The Mevlevi Sufi, Sefik Can, suggests this is achieved when “The goal of the Sufi mystic is to understand and love The One who has created humankind.” The connection of love to reunion with God is explained when Sefik Can says “In the Sufi tradition, love is described as annihilation in the Beloved.” Again, the poetry of Rumi makes a vivid representation of this teaching:

Love came and it made me empty.
Love came and it filled me with the Beloved.
It became the blood in my body
It became my arms and my legs.
It became everything!
Now all I have is a name,
The rest belongs to the Beloved.

The verse describes the progressive, experiential knowledge of love. First came abandonment of the ego. Then, came submission whereby one no longer acts according to the ego, but in submission to the Beloved who now becomes “… his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks…” as in the well-known hadith qudsi. The Sufi understanding of the annihilation of the self in the Beloved can be regarded as an expression of the ultimate understanding of tawhid – asserting God’s unity. Annemarie Schimmel suggests that “to declare that God is One is the goal of religious life for the Muslim in general and the Sufi in particular.” An elaboration of this idea leads to the assertion that only God has real existence and hence only God has the right to say “I,” for “God is the only true subject.”

It is the tawhid that underpins the expression of love in Sufi poetry because “the true lover sees everything as pertaining to his beloved.” This is a teaching that Rumi sought to convey in the Masnavi-ye Ma’navi, for he intended

… to coax out of his readers the misapprehension that the world is made up of a multitude of separate selves apart from God and into the knowledge that all reality subsists only in relation to God.

It is a state of mind whereby “the poets recognized God everywhere,” as Annemarie Schimmel said, citing the verse of the Qur’an that inspired this awareness: “Withersoever ye turn, there is the face of God” (Surah 2/109). Two couplets quoted by Schimmel use the above-mentioned symbolism of wine to begin their explanation of tawhid:

The glass is all and the wine is naught,
Or the glass is naught and the wine is all –
but the vocabulary of religion concludes the realization:
That all that is, is He indeed:
Soul and loved one and heart and creed.

Because “love is desire and need,” it is stated that God, at the level of His attributes, created the world because He desired (or “loved”) to be known. Furthermore, God’s love for the Prophet is evident in this saying, “But for thee I would not have made the celestial spheres.” Ultimately, God’s desire to be revealed through the prophets and the saints “was the motivating force in His creation of the universe,” and all the world’s forms, movements and activities result from that original love. On this Rumi wrote:

The creatures are set in motion by Love, Love by Eternity-without-beginning; the wind dances because of the spheres, the trees because of the wind.

When we use the metaphor of the spiritual journey, we know from Sufi poetry that love is the vehicle par excellence for the traveller.

Bibliography

• Can, Sefik. 2005. The Fundamentals of Rumi’s Thought: A Mevlevi Sufi Perspective. Translated by Cuneyt Eroglu and Zeki Saritoprak, New Jersey: The Light Inc.
• Chittick, William C. 1983. The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Lumbard, J.E.B. 2007. “From Hubb to Ishq: The Development of Love in Early Sufism.” Journal of Islamic Studies, 18:3, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Murata, S. and Chittick, W.C. 1994. The Vision of Islam, London: I.B. TAURIS.
• Rumi. 1992. A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi, translated by Jonathon Star and Shahram Shiva, New York: Bantam Books.
• Rumi. 2006. Spiritual Verses: The First Book of the Masnavi-ye Ma’navi, translated by Alan Williams, London: Penguin,.
• Schimmel, A. 1975. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. University of North Carolina Press.
• Schimmel, A. 1982. As Through a Veil, Mystical Poetry in Islam. New York: Columbia University Press.
• von Donzel, E., Lewis, B., and Pellat, C. (eds). 1978. The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 4, Leidin, Netherlands: E.J. Brill.
• Yunus Emre, trans. Turgut Durduran. http://www.stwing.upenn.edu. Accessed 17/5/08.

Prompted by that visit, it seemed useful to explore what Rumi had written about the subject of faith and reason because of the importance of the topic in the Catholic religious tradition which has always recognized a potential for tension about the role of reason in one’s faith. This tension has usually been resolved in the insight that the expression of faith in God cannot diminish the importance of human reason in providing a conceptual framework by which that faith can be expressed and shared with others. However, the more one delves into Rumi’s life and his mystical poetry it becomes clear that for him, the issue of faith and reason is incomplete unless one includes the central theme of love.

Rumi’s poetry and parables are not a product of academic theological reflection but emerge from a deeply felt experience of God’s presence and God’s love in his life. I was curious to know what role human reason might play in Rumi’s thought and writings and whether he thought purely rational reflection and discourse about God is valuable. I propose to show in this essay that for Rumi, human reason is valuable in the search for God. Reason cannot be ignored, but it has only an instrumental value in one’s faith and relationship with God. The starting point for my argument is Rumi’s view of human knowledge.

Knowledge in general: Two perspectives

A. The need for knowledge:

According to Rumi, the human person cannot reach the final goal of human existence, which is union with God, without adequate knowledge. Perfect union with God however will be fully achieved only in the afterlife when knowledge will recede in importance. According to the biographer Cihan Okuyucu, for Rumi, the mind is like a torch and knowledge is its light. But he adds that for Rumi there is an even stronger light for the mind and that is love. (Okuyucu, 2007, p. 79)

B. Autonomy:

Regarding the use of one’s mind, Rumi has great respect for the autonomy of the individual’s mind. Rumi urges each of us to pursue our own insights and not to depend simply on what others have said. He explains by using this metaphor: Does a mountain produce any sound on its own? The answer is no. Whatever sounds we hear in the mountains are echoes of voices made by others. So too the person who does not set out to learn and understand on his own is simply an echo chamber. But “…if your words begin to flow from a source within, only then you will fly with your own wings” (Masnawi 6: 175 quoted in Okuyucu 2007, p. 84).

Knowledge ultimately is only an instrumental value. It is one of the necessary means for attaining full human “maturity,” not the sole necessary means.

Further, not all knowledge is equally valuable. It depends in great part on the character of the person who claims to have knowledge. Rumi illustrates this by recounting the story of an arrogant scholar and an uneducated sailor on board a ship. The scholar berated the sailor for what he had done with his life, for essentially wasting it because the sailor was unlettered. Later a fierce storm arose and the ship began to founder. The sailor asked the anxious scholar if he knew how to swim. The latter replied no. “Too bad” commented the sailor, “it looks like you may lose your life despite all your knowledge” (Masnawi 1:112 quoted in Okuyucu 2007, p. 79). The story illustrates that knowledge must be tempered with humility if one is to reach full maturity. This is profound advice for anyone who studies philosophy or theology or any academic discipline for that matter. Knowledge therefore can be a mixed blessing, but it can also be a fine instrument in assisting the individual to become what God wants that person to be. With this understanding of the role of knowledge in general, the next focus is the role of reason in gaining knowledge.

An important practical role for reason

Reason has an important practical or regulatory role for Rumi. One of its primary functions is to serve as master of “carnal” desires. It is disputed, but I believe that Rumi offers a dualistic vision of the human person which is not unlike that of Plato’s body and soul. According to Rumi, the rational side of human nature must conquer and control the carnal. Rumi says that there is an opposition between body and spirit, a kind of warfare in which the body prevails in most people. But in Prophets and saints, reason triumphs. He urges his followers to let reason gain the upper hand. (Chittick, 1983, p. 34) The following lines express the struggle between reason and the carnal self:

The (carnal) nature desires to take revenge on its adversary: reason is an iron chain upon the flesh.
It comes and prevents it (the flesh) and restrains it: reason is like a police-inspector controlling its good and evil (actions).
Reason that is allied to Faith is like a just police-inspector; it is the guardian and magistrate of the city of the heart. (Masnawi: 2181 quoted in Can, 2005, p. 182)

Rumi’s vision is that a person who uses reason wisely, that is in its regulatory role, will discover the true path to human fulfillment in God. (Can, 2005 p. 182) The words of the poem The Sunrise Ruby, illustrate this theme:

The Sunrise Ruby
In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, lover and beloved wake
and take a drink of water.
She asks, “Do you love me or yourself more?
Really, tell the absolute truth.”
He says, “There’s nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight.”
This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!
The ruby and the sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself.
Completely become hearing and ear,
and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.
Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
(Rumi, The Essential Rumi Coleman Barks retrieved from http://www.khamush.com/sufism/hallaj.html)

The limits of reason and the existence of God

Rumi is sometimes puzzling in his views on the value of reason in grappling with the existence of God. He seems satisfied that human reason can know God’s existence (yet reason cannot reveal the nature of God) but he doesn’t engage in any rigorous defense of that position. (Okuyucu, 2007, pp. 93-94). Instead, he proposes parables as guides for his readers’ own reflection, creating a convergence of probabilities, to use the happy phrase of John Henry Newman. In one such parable, he recounts the story of an atheistic philosopher (the choice of a philosopher as atheist is revealing) and a doctor. The philosopher was feeling ill and so consulted a doctor for help. The doctor asked what the philosopher wanted and the latter replied that he sought health. To that the doctor replied: “Tell me what it is and I’ll get it for you.” The philosopher was perplexed and admitted that he could not tell the doctor what health was (Okuyucu, 2007, p. 93).

Rumi is saying that like the philosopher, we can know that health exists, but we struggle to understand what it is. So too with God’s existence. We can know that God exists, but we will never understand the nature of God. Moreover, knowing that God exists through rational proof will not sustain a lasting faith or faithful union. Reason can bring a person only so far and then that person has to move beyond the limits of reason and simply abandon themselves to God. Rumi uses the example of going to a tailor shop for new clothes. Your mind can get you to the threshold of the shop, but once there, you need to let the tailor do his work (Furuzanfar 168, quoted in Okuyucu, 2007, p. 94). There comes a time when reason is of no further use, even though it helps control the carnal self, raises us above the animals to the level of humanity, and provides a path to faith.

Rejection of reason

Having lauded reason’s role in achieving human enrichment and fulfillment, Rumi startles the reader by advising us to abandon reason as a mischief maker. “Sell reason and mind and buy excitement,” he says. What you call reason and intellect are a guess and an illusion but excitement is insight. Sacrifice reason in the presence of Mustafa (the Prophet of Islam) and say “God is enough for me” (Masnawi 1408 quoted in Can, 2005, pp.184-185).

In a wonderfully descriptive phrase reminiscent of how Nietzsche can startle his reader, Rumi writes in the Divan: “I grabbed reason by its ear and said: ‘O reason! Get out. Today I am saved from you. O reason, take your hand off me. Today I attained insanity, and held on to it” (Divan-i Kabir no. 1185 quoted in Can, 2005, p. 186). Ultimately, the ability to reason which we have been discussing shows itself to be only a faculty of a material mind. Rumi had indeed praised this material mind, which provides us with many benefits, and distinguishes us from the animals. But to finally attain God, we have to follow another path, the path of love. The poem Secret Places illustrates this point:

Secret Places

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.
Reason says, Nonsense.
I have walked and measured the walls here.
There are no places like that.
Love says, There are.
Reason sets up a market
and begins doing business.
Love has more hidden work.
Hallaj steps away from the pulpit
And climbs the stairs of the gallows.
Lovers fell a truth inside themselves
That rational people keep denying.
It is reasonable to say, Surrender
Is just an idea that keeps people
From leading their lives.
Love responds, No. This thinking
Is what is dangerous.
Using language obscures
What Shams came to give.
Every day the sun rises
Out of low word-clouds
Into burning silence.
(Rumi, 2007, p. 48)

The right path

There is another path, not the one illuminated by reason, which we must follow in order to attain union with God, who is the purpose of human existence. There is a “spiritual reason” superior to “material reason” (Ibid., p. 187). In fact, calling this faculty reason is really only a metaphor for a mystical love and understanding of God. There is an even stronger light for the mind than material reason and that is love (Okuyucu op. cit., p. 79). Elsewhere Rumi says, “May the people with reason be far from the lovers of God… If someone with reason comes to our assembly, do not let him in, but if a lover of God comes, welcome him and say, ‘Welcome’… Love shies away from the light of reason. It is a very bad thing to become old at a young age” (Divan-i Kabir 172 quoted in Can, op. cit., p. 186).

What does Rumi mean by Love?

Since my religious tradition maintains that we are truth seekers by nature, it behooved me to ask what Rumi means by “love”. There are several ways to understand the term. It is something that has to be experienced to be understood (Chittick op. cit., p. 194). The experience to which Rumi refers however is that of a Sufi mystic in ecstasy, and thus love ultimately is ineffable, it proves to be beyond words. Despite this caution, we can try to frame some meaning for the term.

First, God is love but that does not exhaust who God is. God is the source of all love, just as He is the source of everything. Second, love is the divine creative force which permeates the universe (rather like the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology). Rumi says:

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.”
(Masnawi, V 3843 quoted in de Vitray-Meyerovitch, 1987, p. 102)

Third, love also is understood as that force which is strong enough to forge the union of two individuals, whether that “one” is the union of God and a creature or the union of two human creatures. The unitive power of love between friends is illustrated in the following verse:

Your soul is so close to mine
That what you dream, I know. …
I know everything you think of: your heart is so close to mine!
(Divan–i Kabir quoted in de Vitray-Meyerovitch, 1987, p. 106)

The ultimate goal of the union of friends is to achieve union or oneness with the ultimate being, God. “Love is that flame which when it rises, burns everything, only God remains” (de Vitray-Meyerovitch 1987, p. 101). “Love is the attribute of God, who has no need of anyone. To be in love with other than Him is metaphorical love” (Can 2005, p. 150). Thus we come to understand that the love of friendship is transient and must open the way to the unitive love with God that is eternal. Union with the ultimate beloved, God, is every person’s goal, their “maturity.” We all share the same “spark of the divine.”

In the 11th century, St. Anselm’s coined the phrase fides quaerens intellectum, (faith seeking understanding) which means that it is natural for a person of faith to continue to seek understanding of that faith through reason. If we were to use a similar Latin phrase about Rumi, it would be amor donans intellectum (Love providing understanding). By that we mean that in the last analysis, only love can create and give the faithful one true understanding. For Rumi, the simple faithful love of God trumps all efforts of reason to understand God or to articulate the elements of one’s faith. The final path to God is not through the mind but through the heart. It is a very challenging lesson for anyone of faith to contemplate.

Donald Casey is an associate professor at the departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Felician College

References

• Can, Sefik. 2005. Fundamentals of Rumi’s Thought, New Jersey: The Light.
• Chittick, William C. 2005. The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi, Bloomington: World Wisdom.
• Chittick, William C. 1983. The Sufi Path of Love, Albany: State University of New York Press.
• de Vitray-Meyerovitch, Eva. 1987. Rumi and Sufism, Sausalito: The Post Apollo Press.
• Gülen, M. Fethullah. 2006. Love and Tolerance, New Jersey: The Light.
• Okuyucu, Cihan. 2007. Rumi, Biography and Message, New Jersey: The Light.
• Rumi. 2007. Bridge to the Soul, trans. Coleman Barks, New York: Harper One.
• Rumi, The Essential Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks. Retrieved from http://www.khamush.com/sufism/hallaj.html
• Rumi. The Mathnawî-yé Ma`nawî, Rhymed Couplets of Deep Spiritual Meaning of Jalaluddin Rumi. trans. Ibrahim Gamard. Retrieved from http://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/n-I-0109.html
• Rumi. 2002. The Soul of Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks, New York: Harper One.
• Schimmel, Annemarie. 1992. Islam: An Introduction, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Rumi is one such personality. Despite the vast amount of time that separates his life from ours, Rumi continues to hear and to listen to us, to share our feelings, to present solutions to our problems in a voice that is without equal. Despite the fact that he lived some centuries ago, he remains absolutely alive among and with us today. He is a man of light-one who receives his light from the spirit of the Master of Humanity (Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him), distributing this light in a variety of manners to just about everywhere. He was chosen to be one of the world’s saints and to be pure of heart; a blessed one whose words are outstanding among those of the heroes of love and passion. He was and continues to function as Israfil; blowing life into dead spirits. He did and continues to provide the water of life to the barren hearts of many; a spiritual irrigation. He was and continues to provide light for the travelers on their paths. He was and continues to be the perfect heir of the Prophet.

Jalaladdin al-Rumi, a man of God, hastened toward God on his own spiritual journey; but in addition to this he evoked similar journeys in countless others-journeys marked by an eager striving toward God. He was a balanced man of ecstasy who sprang alive with love and excitement; he did this to such an extent that he inspired in others these significant feelings; he continues to do so. In addition to his passion for God, along with his knowledge and love of Him, Rumi is further renowned as a hero in terms of both his respect and fear of God. He was and continues to be one who beckons; whose powerful voice invites everyone to the truth and the ultimate blessed reality. Rumi was an inclusive master whose joy was a direct consequence of His joy, whose love and passion were the result of His special favors to Rumi. His life provides real evidence of the Truth. At the same time as he spoke to those of his own times in an effective manner, Rumi was even more influential in that he made his voice and breath, which reflected the voice and breath of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, continue to be heard for centuries after. He spoke with such an enchanting voice that he was able to guide not only his blessed contemporaries, but also people of our time, centuries removed from his physical existence. God bestowed upon him this important duty. For this purpose, God blessed him with impeccable inner and outer qualities so that he would prove successful in this undertaking. His heart was full of the Divine light. As such, his essence is marked by his wisdom, which shines like a light reflected through a precious gem. His inner-most self was enveloped with Divine mysteries. His inner eyes were enlightened by this special light.

On this horizon, Jalaladdin al-Rumi represents the North Star, the heart of the circle of guidance for his time. He embodies the characteristics of the lamp of sainthood, taking its light from that of the truth of the Prophet. Many of God’s blessed creatures are instinctively attracted to light; Rumi’s light has attracted hundreds of thousands spiritual butterflies; they are drawn to the light. He represents a guide for humanity’s quest for the perfection of human qualities. Rumi was a careful exegete of the truths presented in the Qur’an. A fluent interpreter of love and zeal for Prophet Muhammad, Rumi was able to use a mysterious language to guide others to a love of God. Those who enter his sphere are able to reach an ultimate sense or feeling in the presence of God. Those who examine the Qur’an by his guideposts underwent changes (and continue to undergo changes) similar to those witnessed by the people who lived in the era of the Prophet himself, peace and blessings be upon him. When the verses of the Qur’an were interpreted by Rumi’s closest associates, all hearts benefited from the illumination provided by his wisdom; it was as if all of heaven’s mysteries were opened by his wholehearted recitation of that one word-God.

Rumi’s love for God was a fiery one, with a constant moaning and longing for the mysteries of God. He experienced a love and passion both in his solitary asceticism and his activities in the community. It was in his solitariness that he became most open to the truest union with God, and it was in such cases of separation from all things except God that he became like a ball of fire. And while such a sense of burning would prove difficult for many to bear, Rumi never showed any signs of discontent. Rather, such a burning was considered a requirement for passion, and refraining from complaint was seen to be in the tradition of loyalty. For Rumi, those who profess a love of God must necessarily accompany their statement of “I love” with a sense of furious burning-this is the price one must willingly pay for being close or in union with God. Additionally, one must engage in behavior that is to a large extent ascetic, such as moderated eating, drinking, sleeping, and a constant awareness and orientation toward God in one’s speech, and one must inevitably experience bewilderment when endowed with God’s bounties.

Rumi cannot understand how a lover can sleep in an immoderate way, as it takes away from the time that can be shared with the Beloved. For him, excessive sleep is offensive to the Beloved. As God instructed David, saying, “O David, those who indulge in sleep without contemplating Me and then claim to be in love are liars” so too did Rumi state; “When the darkness falls, lovers become intense.” Rumi continually recommended this not only in words, but also in his actions.

The following quotation from his Divan al-Kabir best represents several droplets from the ocean of his feelings and excitement, erupting like a volcano:

I am like Majnun(1) in my poor heart, which is without limbs, because I have no strength to contest the love of God. Every day and night I continue in my efforts to free myself from the bounds of the chain of love; a chain which keeps me imprisoned. When the dream of the Beloved begins I find myself in blood. Because I am not fully conscious, I am afraid in that I may paint Him with the blood of my heart. In fact, You, O Beloved, must ask the fairies; they know how I have burned through the night. Everyone has gone to sleep. But I, the one who has given his heart to You, do not know sleep like them. Throughout the night, my eyes look at the sky, counting the stars. His love so profoundly took my sleep that I do not really believe it will ever come back.

If the spirit of the anthology of Rumi’s poems, which are the essence of love, passion, divine presence, and excitement, were to be extracted, what would exude are the cries of love, longing, and hope. Throughout his life Rumi expressed love, and in turn, he believed he was beloved because of this. Accordingly, he spoke of his love and relationship with Him. When he did so, he was not alone-he took along with him many blessed individuals who were his audience. He thought that his offering, cup by cup, the drinks presented to him on the heavenly table to others who were in his circle of light to be a sign of loyalty.

Thus, the following quotation represents the ambiguous chanting that is reflected in his heavenly travels:

The Buraq(2) of love has taken my mind as well as my heart, do not ask me where. I have reached such a realm that there is no moon, nor day. I have reached a world where the world is no longer the world.

This spiritual journey of Rumi was an ascension in the shadow of the Ascension of the Prophet, which is described by Suleyman Celebi (the author of the Turkish Mevlid-recited in the commemoration of the birth of the Prophet) in these words: “There was no space, no Earth, and no heavens.” What his soul heard and watched was a special reflection of His courtesy, which cannot be seen by the eyes, cannot be heard by the ears, and cannot be comprehended by one’s mind or thought. Such reflections are not attainable by all. Rumi spiritually ascended and saw, tasted, and knew all that was possible for a mortal being. Those who do not see cannot know. Those who do not taste cannot feel. Those who are capable of feeling in this manner generally do not divulge the secrets that they have attained. And those who do reveal these secrets often find them to be above the level of the comprehension of most people. As the famous Turkish poet Seyh Galib said, “The Beloved’s candle has such a wonderful light, its light does not fit into the lamp glass of Heaven.”

The love, relationship, and warmth toward all creation as expressed by Rumi is a projection of a deeply-rooted divine love. Rumi, whose nature was intoxicated by the cup of love, embraced all of creation with a projection of that love. He was involved in a dialogue with every creature, and all of these were a result of nothing but his deep love of God and his relationship with the Beloved.

I believe that these disordered and somewhat confused explanations are far from adequate to describe Rumi. This disorder is an inevitable result of my search for a relationship with him. A droplet cannot describe the ocean, nor can an atom describe the Sun. Even so, since his light falls once again on this Earth, I would like to say, within a few sentences, some words about Jalaladdin al-Rumi.

Rumi was born in the city of Balkh in 1207, at a time when all of Asia was suffering from social, political, and military problems. His father, Muhammad Bahauddin al-Siddiqi, was part of the tenth generation of the descendants of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first caliph of Islam. According to Tahir al-Mawlawi, Rumi”s mother was also from the descendants of the Prophet. He was the blessed fruit of a hallowed family tree. Being known as the Sultan al-Ulama (the Leader of Scholars), his father was a man of truth and an heir of the Prophet. Like many friends of God, he was persecuted and eventually compelled to migrate. Accordingly, he left the land of Kharzam, where he was born, and underwent a lengthy journey that encompassed various destinations. First, he and his family visited the Holy Land, the cities of Makka and Madina. From here, he traveled and remained for some time in Damascus, where he met many pious persons, such as Ibn Arabi, and exchanged spiritual enlightenment with them. Accompanying his father, the young Rumi, six or seven years in age, witnessed these and other events; his inquisitive senses enabled him to experience all of these with remarkable clarity. The young Rumi was able to understand his environment even at such a tender age and he was able to penetrate into the secret world of Ibn Arabi. As an endowment of his presence with Ibn Arabi, the child received kindness and favors. Despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding their migration and the many difficulties that accompanied them, the family”s journey provided them with a variety of favors and inspiration. Like Abraham, Moses, and the Prophet of Islam, may God”s blessings be upon all of them, Rumi was able to continuously find these blessings and favors. Welcoming what fate gave him, he became a receiver of numerous bounties provided by God. The journey took this blessed family to the city of Erzincan, and later to that of Karaman. It was during his time in the latter city that Rumi studied, for a short period, in the Halaveye School. In addition to this school, he studied Islamic Sciences in several religious schools in Damascus and Aleppo. After graduating, he returned to the city of Konya, which he considered his hometown and a place of special regard. It was there that he married Gevher Hatun, the daughter of Shamsaddin Samarqandi. After some time Rumi”s father, Sultan al-Ulama, died, returning to God. Under the supervision of Burhanneddin al-Tirmidhi, Rumi began his long spiritual journey. After several years, at the suggestion of Ruknuddin Zarqubi, Rumi met with Shams al-Tabrizi who was then on a visit to Konya. It was through his meeting with Shams that he furthered his spiritual journey and eventually developed into the person who is now known the world over for his spiritual depth. What has been mentioned so far, in fact, represents an attempt to open a few small windows on the life of an exceptional personality in this creation, whose capacity is open to the lofty world. This is also an attempt to present the life of an important representative of the Muhammadi spirit (i.e., the practice of the Sunna)—displaying several snapshots of a man determined to dedicate his existence to the world of the afterlife. It is not my intention to stir the waters that comprise the lives of such remarkable and pure personalities with debates and questions that ultimately will only agitate and obscure. However, one must wonder whether Rumi opened the horizon of Shams or whether Shams took Rumi to the world of the unseen. Who took whom to the realty of realities—the peak of love and joy? Who directed whom to the real Besought and the real Beloved? Answering these questions is beyond the capacity of most ordinary people. One can say, at least, the following: During this period of time, two skillful and acute spirits came together, like two oceans merging into one another. By sharing the Divine bounties and gifts received from their Lord, they both reached peaks that most people would not be able to reach easily on their own accord. Through their spiritual cooperation, they established camps on the peaks of knowledge, love, compassion, and joy for God. As much as they enlightened those of their own age, they also influenced all centuries to follow; an effect that is still present today. The spring of sweet water which they represent continues to nourish the thirsty. They have been continuously remembered over the centuries for their beautiful contributions to countless lives. Here it is important to note that Rumi was informed by numerous sources in the flow of ideas, including his father, the great master of scholars. During his journey, he seemed to leave many of his contemporaries behind—his love and compassion flowed like the waters of the world”s oceans; so much so that while continuing to live physically among humans, he managed to become ever closer to God. It seems he never elevated himself above others except through his writings, both during his life and after his entering the life of eternity; he provides a star of guidance that echoes the spiritual life of the Prophet of Islam. Accordingly, he is among the few people who have exerted a great influence through both space and time. Rumi, the Master, was not a pupil, a dervish, a representative, or master as is known amongst traditional Sufis. He developed a new method that was colored with revivalism and personal independent reasoning by taking the Qur’an, the Sunna, and Islamic piety as his points of reference. With a new voice and breath, he successfully brought both those of his generation and those of times to follow to a new divine table. As far as his relationship with God is concerned, he was a man of love and passion. As for those who turn to him for the sake of God, he represents a compassionate bearer of God”s divine cup of love. Yes, as the rains of mercy fall forth from the clouds of the sky, if the collections of his poems were to be wrung out, God”s love and the love of His Messenger would gush forth in showers. His Mathnawi, exuberant with his spirit, a book which is in part didactic and was put in the form of a book by his disciple Husameddin Celebi, represents his largest, most monumental treatise. While it stems from his involvement with the floods of a high level love and passion, it was presented in smaller waves so that their essence might be understood by a larger part of humanity who did not share the same capacity. His other work, Divan al-Kabir, is both informed by and presented in this higher level of love and passion and better represents his own abilities. In the Mathnawi, feelings and thoughts are put in such a way that they do not confuse our intelligence and in such a style that it does not surpass our understanding. As for the Divan al-Kabir, everything is like an erupting volcano. Its meaning is not easily understood by most. A careful investigation will show that this great book of Rumi”s thought will explain such concepts as baqa billah maallah (to live by God with God) and fana fillah (annihilation in God) in the context of a larger understanding of the world of the unseen. Those who are capable of realizing this excitement in Rumi”s Divan will find themselves in extreme bewilderment before a flood of love and ecstasy that is comparable to an erupting volcano. In these poems of the master, which are not easily accessible for most people, the limits of reason are surpassed, the meanings of the poems are elevated above the norms for humanity, and the eternal nature of the unseen world shadows the ephemeral colors and forms of what one encounters in their physical being. Jalaladdin al-Rumi was nourished by the fruit of numerous sources of ideas, including religious seminaries, Sufi lodges, and Sufi hermitages associated with strict Sufi asceticism. Rumi attained an understanding of the Ultimate Reality. He cultivated the heavenly through his own methods. Eventually, he became a central star, the North Star, in the sky which houses sainthood. He was like a bright moon that rotates on its own axis. He was a hero who reached the places where he should have reached and stopped where he should have stopped. He read carefully what he saw and evaluated well what he felt. He never displayed or participated in any improper behavior during his journey to God. Even though the numbers were vast, Rumi never lost any of the bountiful gifts he received from the world of the unseen, not even to the weight of an atom. Like many of his predecessors, he voiced these divine bounties through his poetry in an impressive manner. He often voiced his love and excitement in seemingly magic words which resembled the finest of precious gems. Within the vagueness of the poetry, he mastered the art of explaining his ambiguous statements in ways that opened their meaning to friends, but remained obscured to outsiders. These statements which were at times both clear and ambiguous are the voice and breath of his own horizon—he was not acquainted with other pens or the wells of ink which supplied them. Although one can find a few foreign words or works falsely attributed to him, Rumi”s anthology represents a warmth, the music of his own heart, a music which brings all who hear it under its influence with a captivating control. Rumi possessed a very delicate disposition, often appearing more compassionate than a mother to her child. In short, he was an exceptional personality, particularly in his projection of the spirit of God”s Messenger in his own time. This is illustrated in his collected works, including Mathnawi, Divan al-Kabir, some collected letters associated with familial relations, and his special behavior with friends. Those who witnessed this were greatly excited to see the perfect heir of the Prophet and would say with great humility and respect, —This is a grace from God. He gives it to whom He wants— (al-Maida, 5:54). Rumi was a man of genuine sincerity and loyalty. He lived by what he felt in his heart as long as it did not contradict the teachings and laws of religion. While making his faith the focus of his life, while showing the others the way of life, while blowing into the ney, while dancing like a butterfly, his heart was burning with love and longing; it had always ached and moaned like the monotone ney. Those who were not aching could not understand him. Those who were rude and tactless could not feel what he felt. He said, —I want a heart which is split, part by part, because of the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longing and complaint to it.— Saying this, he searched for friends who had similar longings and complaints.

Footnotes

1. Majnun is a legendary personality of love found in Islamic literature 2 Buraq is the name of the mount which carried Prophet Muhammad during his Ascension