(AD 1207–73; AH 604–72)
According to tradition, Jalaluddin Rumi, the greatest mystic poet of Islamic literature, was born in Balkh, one of the major cities of Khorasan (modern Afghanistan). His family moved west to the Anatolian city of Konya (now in modern Turkey), the capital of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum – hence ‘Rumi’ – where he lived most of his life.
When his father died in 1230, Rumi succeeded him as an orthodox professor of theology. The great turning point in his life came when he met the wandering Sufi mystic (or dervish) Shamsuddin Tabrizi, a spiritual guide who aroused Rumi’s passionate devotion. Tabrizi’s mysterious disappearance in 1247 led Rumi to produce some of his most inspired verse.
His six-volume Masnavi is seen by many to be an interpretation of the essence of Islamic thought and ideas and a distillation of many of the verses of the Qur’an. Sometimes referred to as the Qur’an in the Persian language, Rumi’s Maznavi has been translated into many languages and is studied throughout the Islamic world.
Rumi’s major works are his Masnavi and the Divan-e-Shams-e Tabrizi, a collection of ghazals and rubais. His most important prose work is Fihi Ma Fihi (In It What’s In It), a record of his lectures and talks.
Rumi was also the founder of the Mevlevi Order of ‘Dancing Dervishes’. He died on 17 December 1273 in Konya and was laid to rest beside his father. The epitaph on his shrine, the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb), reads: ‘When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.’
If you seek Love
And are a lover of Love,
Take a sharp knife in your hand
And slit the throat of self-restraint.
Nothing is a hindrance more
Than fear of losing your good name;
It’s a saying made without gain;
Accept it with a mind that’s pure.
Why did that madness seize Majnun
In many forms?
Why did beauty choose so many
Wiles?
He rent his robe, he climbed mountains;
He sipped poison, he tasted death.
The spider caught a prey so large;1
How much larger will the Lord’s snare be!
Since Leila’s face had value such,
How much more the worth of the nocturnal journey!2
Have you not heard of Waisa and Ramin
Have you not heard of Wamiq and Azra?3
You gather your garment away from water;
But if need be you must dive in the river!
The way of Love is drunkenness and being low
The torrent runs not upward but from high to low.
You will be the jewel in the ring of lovers
If you are in the circle of the jewel master,
As the sky is enthralled by earth,
As the body is enthralled by the soul.
Beat not your drum that none can hear;
Plant bravely your banner in the desert’s heart!
Listen to the voices with the ear of your soul,
The many voices rising up under the green dome.
When your garment is removed by Love,
The firmament will stare aghast.
The universe is in turmoil because of Love;
It purifies all above and below.
When the Sun rose, the night vanished;
When bounty came, affliction was banished.
I am silent.
Speak, O soul of soul of soul,
Each atom speaks
Desiring your face.
Show us your face;
We desire the garden.
Open your lips;
We desire sweetness.
Show your face, Sun,
From the veil of cloud;
I desire blinding radiance.
O morning breeze, blowing
From the friend’s garden,
Bring me the sweet fragrance
I desire!
Destiny is a treacherous flood.
I am a fish; I desire the ocean!
Like Jacob I in sorrow weep;
I desire fair Joseph’s face!
Without you the city is a prison;
I desire to wander the mountains and deserts!
In one hand the wine cup,
In the other my Beloved’s hair
Dancing in the city square
With all passion afire,
That is my desire!
Every being can great things attain.
That mine of Beauty, I desire
To gain.
Bankrupt I am, but will not accept
A small diamond, I desire the diamond mine!
Full of complaint of mankind,
Weary and weak,
I desire the drunkard’s
Lamentation; that is what I seek!
My soul is weary of Pharaoh’s tyranny
I desire the light of Moses!
They say that he cannot be found;
They have searched long.
I desire that which cannot be found!
My song is stifled by envy,
Sweeter than the nightingale,
But my lips are sealed.
I desire to complain!
The Master roamed the streets
With lamp in hand, crying:
‘I’m tired of devil and beast!
I demand a man!’
My work has gone beyond desire and longing
I want to move from place and being.
I desire the essence of existence!
He is hidden
And the creator of all things;
I desire Him
Who is manifest in everything!
I am intoxicated with the wine of faith
I desire the body, the form, the limbs of faith!
I am love’s lute and love is mine
I desire the hands and style of Uthman!3
Each moment the rabab exclaims:
I desire the Mercy of the Merciful!
O singer, sing the rest of this ode
In this way,
That is my desire, I pray!
Arise, O Sun, you are the glory of Tabriz!
Dawn of Love!
I desire to be the hoopoe bird4
In the court of Solomon!
My soul is mingled with Thee, dissolved in Thee,
A soul to cherish as it has Thy perfume!
Each drop of blood of mine
Is saying to Thy dust,
‘I am the colour for Your love,
Companion of Your affection.
In this house of clay, my heart is desolate
Without Thee!
O Beloved, come into this house
Or else I’ll be gone!’
The voice of Love,
Each moment comes,
From everywhere.
We were in heaven once,
We were friends to angels once,
To that place let us return;
That is our country, our home.
Higher than heavens, we are.
Greater than angels, we are.
Why not leave them both behind?
Our goal is Majesty, Divine.
How far apart, this dust,
From what is substance pure;
Though we came down,
Let’s return up once more.
Youthful fortune is our friend;
Our work: to give our soul to Him.
The leader of our caravan,
Glory of the world, Mustafa!
This sweet fragrance of the breeze
Comes from His flowing tresses.
The radiance of our thought
Illumined ‘by the morning bright’.1
By his look the Moon was cleft;
She could not bear the sight;
Fortunate was the Moon,
That humble beggar of the sky.
Each moment come and see
The cleaving of the Moon, our hearts.
Why does the vision of that vision
Not grace your eyes?
The wave of ‘Am I Not’2
Came and wrecked the body’s ship.
Once more that ship shall wreck
When the body attains union again.
Like fowl and fish, from the ocean
Of the soul,
Man has emerged;
Once risen from the sea
Why should this bird
Make his home the earthly tree?
Yet we are pearls of that sea
And that is where we shall abide.
Why else should waves emerge
From the sea of soul, and create this urge?
The time of Union
Is the time of eternal Beauty.
The time of favour and bounty
Is the ocean of perfect purity.
The wave of Bounty has appeared;
The thunder of the sea arrived.
The dawn of Blessedness has dawned.
Not the Morn, it is the light of God
That’s dawned!
What is this picture, form?
Who the king and who the prince?
What is wisdom?
All are veils.
The veils are removed
Through this ecstasy!
The spring of this wine
Is in your very head and eyes.
In your head itself there’s nothing,
But you have two heads:
One of clay
The other of heaven’s substance
Pure.
So many pure heads
Under the earth do lie
That you can know that this head
Depends on the other head;
The other head is hidden from sight,
This head apparent.
Just as behind the manifest world
Lies the infinite universe!
Tie up the water source, cup-bearer,
Bring wine from the jar;
The vessel of perception
Is narrower than the narrowest pass.
The Sun3 of Truth shone
From Tabriz, and I said to him:
‘Thy light is one with all,
Apart from all.’
Enter the tumultuous night
And from its ocean gather gifts unnamed.
The night hides the Beauty of the hidden;
The day cannot compare with mysterious night.
Sleep he will not want, and sleep unsound
He who has not seen the magical night.
Many pure hearts and minds
Are nothing but slaves to the night.
The night is but an empty black pot
If you haven’t tasted the sweetness offered by night.
The way is long, God speed, O friends,
If you want to discover the mystery of the night.
The trade of day is in commerce;
It’s quite another trade at night!
You are the Sun, O Shamsuddin,
Pride of Tabriz,
The desire of day and night!
Today I sit with wine and drinkers.
Today I do not need the puritan or the chaste.
Today none asks what is the drink or who is drunk.
Today the Saqi hands the wine and smiles.
Talk not of the night of separation today.
Today I meet my Beloved and embrace.
Today is celebration and song and Saqi’s eyes.
Today the cup, the jug and wine.
Today I’m drunk and forget morning, noon and night.
Today time passes, and we do not know it’s passed.
Today all is tumult and all is joy and mischief,
The gathering is alive with presence divine.
Forgetting of our selves, we worship the wine.
Today all we desire is the Saqi’s bounty.
Today Shams of Tabriz showed his rivals the way
By the wine of Oneness, not by trivial talk.
Where is the way that I was treading?
I avoid it as it was the wrong way.
One moment spent away from the Beloved’s street
Is forbidden in the religion of the lovers.
Still I say: the path is not easy,
A thousand traps greet each and every step.
O restless heart, come not this way.
Stay at a place that suits you best.
Stay where life is nourished,
Ask for that wine that lightens the soul.
All else is but mere appearance, colour, form;
All else is mere battle for name and fame.
Be silent and sit beside at the feet of he
Who is drunk, and all around him drunk.
O Glory of Belief, Shamsuddin,
To Thee I am enslaved body and soul!
On this path of Love sublime,
Anything else is idolatry;
Anything else but light of union,
On this path is unbelief.
If you only see the Beloved,
Your eyes are faulty;
The truthful eye of the lover
Must look to God alone.
Pass by the world of everyday
And drink the wine of Allah’s Way.
Drink of Love, that is life’s elixir pure.
What use has the lover of this world?
The spirit of the Lover pure
Goes beyond the way of this world.
In the calamity of poverty lies
A kingly secret;
Adopt poverty, O traveller,
For that’s the Prophet’s Way.
He’s worshipped by angels.
He is unique and unrivalled.
His dwelling place, beyond the
World we know.
O Glory of Tabriz, Sun of Truth,
Find not fault in me!
In my heart and soul
A fire burns for Thee!
What can I do my friends, if I do not know?
I am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Muslim nor Hindu.
What can I do? What can I do?
Not of the East, nor of the West,
Not of the land, nor of the sea,
Not of nature’s essence, nor of circling heavens.
What could I be?
Not of earth, nor of water,
Nor of fire, nor of air,
Not of the land, nor of the sky,
Not of being, nor of existence.
Neither Indian nor Chinese, nor Bulgar am I;
Nor do I come from Iraq or Saqsin,
Nor from Khurasan’s earth am I!
I am not of this world or the next,
Nor of paradise or hell am I.
My place is the placeless.
My trace is the traceless.
I have no body or soul,
’Cause I belong to my Beloved
Entire whole.
I have cast aside duality and embraced Oneness.
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call;
He is the first, He is the last, He is the external,
He is the innermost.
I know naught but Him within, without.
Drunk with love, I’ve lost track of the two worlds.
Nothing I know but drunkenness and revelry!
Were I to spend a moment without Thee,
I would repent of that moment and that life.
Were I to win Thy company for a moment,
I would exchange the two worlds and trample on them.
O Shams-e-Tabrizi, I’m so drunk in this world
That I can only talk of drunkenness and love!
Listen to the story that the flute does tell.
Its plaintive song on separation dwells:
‘Ever since I was cut off from the reed,
Men and women, to my sad song pay heed.
A breast riddled with sorrow do I want,
So I can deeply of my sad love chant.
He that is cut off from his roots and torn away
Will yearn to return to that home someday.
In every gathering have I sung my pain.
To every one, good and bad, I was a friend.
Each one befriends me for his own whims,
But none delves deeper to the secret within.
My secret to my song is very near,
But none has the capacity to see or hear.
My being is not so distant from my soul.
They only see a part, but do not see the whole.
It’s a fire that is in my music singing.
He who has not this fire is but hardly living.’
It is the fire of Love that the flute has caught.
It is the passion of Love that wine has got.
The flute is a friend to all who are forlorn.
The strains of its song have my heartstrings undone.
Has anyone seen a poison or an antidote like this?
Has anyone seen a lover or a friend like this?
The flute tells the tale of an arduous way,
It speaks of the love of Majnun, I say.
Break your chains, O son, and free yourself;
How long will you yearn for silver and gold?
Were you to catch, in a cup, a sea,
How much will a day’s portion be?
The cup of greed is never full, greedy of intent.
The oyster never makes a pearl unless content.
He whose robe is torn because of Love,
He is free of all fault and he is pure.
Glory be to Love, my mad, mad Love!
O you, who are the cure of all my ills!
O you, the cure of my ambition and my pride!
O you, my Plato and my spirit’s guide!
The earthly body reached the skies;
The mountain danced and became wise.
Love became the soul of Mount Sinai;
Sinai reeled and Moses fell in a swoon.
A mystery in these ups and downs resides;
Were it revealed, the Universes would collide.
He who is separated from a true friend
Is lost, no matter if he has many friends!
If the rose is gone and the garden lost in rain,
You will not hear the nightingale again.
The universe is the Beloved, the lover veiled;
The Beloved is alive, the lover is dead.
He whom Love has passed by
Is a wingless bird, unable to fly.
What can I say? I cannot tell left from right
Without my friend and his guiding Light!
The sickness of Love is from other illnesses apart;
Love is the barometer of God’s mystery in our hearts.
Love, whether it be of this world or the other,
Leads us to the Lord who is the Lord of all!
However must I describe Love’s qualities?
When I am in it, my words aren’t adequate.
The tongue can throw some light on it,
But Love is most illumined by silence.
When the pen was busy writing it was fluent;
When it reached the word of Love, it broke down.
When it wanted to explain this word,
It broke in two and the paper tore to shreds!
Reason like a donkey stuck in mud became;
Only Love and Loving could give Love a name.
The rising Sun best describes the Sun;
The Sun gives life and light to our souls.
The Shadow makes you sleep like a baby,
But when the Sun appears, the Moon is in shade.
There is no traveller like the Sun;
The Sun of the soul is yet to shine!
Though the Sun is outwardly unique,
Even then, one can imagine another like it.
But that Sun which has the world enraptured,
There is no imagined equal of that Sun!
Imagination is paltry indeed to conceive of such
A Sun as he is beyond imagination and intellect.
Shams-e-Tabrizi, who is light, perfect and complete,
He is indeed the Sun and the light of Truth.
When we reached the mention of Shamsuddin
The Sun of the fourth heaven hid his face…
I’m drunk with the wine of the Wine-maker;
My body drunk with the Beloved!
I am not the only one who’s drunk, what’s more
This wine has intoxicated many others before!
When I passed the tavern I could see
The wine-maker, the judge, the sermonizer – drunk!
This pure wine has been tasted by the pure in spirit
This is the wine that Mansur3 drank
And with the words of Truth got drunk!
With the spirit of Shamsuddin Tabriz,
I, too, dance in the bazaar, drunk!
Through Love, bitterness becomes sweet.
Through Love, bronze turns into gold.
Through Love, dregs turn to tasteful wine.
Through Love, pain turns into a balm.
Through Love, the thorns become the rose.
Through Love, vinegar turns to wine.
Through Love, the cross becomes a throne.
Through Love, the burden becomes a fortune.
Through Love, the prison becomes a garden.
Through Love, the garden becomes an oven.
Through Love, the fire turns to light.
Through Love, the demon becomes a fairy.
Through Love, the stone becomes butter.
Without Love, wax turns into steel.
Through Love, sorrow becomes happiness.
Through Love, the follower becomes the leader.
Through Love, the sting becomes honey.
Through Love, the lion becomes a mouse.
Through Love, illness becomes health.
Through Love, a curse becomes a blessing.
Through Love, the thorn becomes a needle.
Through Love, the home is lit up.
Through Love, the dead man becomes alive.
Through Love, the king becomes a slave.
The Lover’s love is apparent, his Beloved hidden.
The Friend is absent, his signs are everywhere.
Leave this desire for outward forms.
Love should go beyond form and face.
The one you love is not mere form,
Whether it be of heavenly or earthly kind.
Whatever the form that is the object of your love,
You do not forsake it because life leaves it!
The form is still there. Why the disgust at it?
Lover, realize what your true Beloved is.
And since love increases fidelity
How can you fail when form abides beyond the apparent?
When the Sun shines on a wall
The wall is lit up, but by the Sun’s borrowed light.
O ignorant one! Love not the brick or stone.
Seek out the source that lights it up!
Doing kindness is the game and quarry of good men,
A good man seeks in the world only pains to cure.
Wherever there is a pain there goes the remedy,
Wherever there is poverty there goes relief.
Seek not water, only show you are thirsty,
That water may spring up all around you.
That you may hear the words, ‘The Lord gives them t0 drink,’1
Be athirst! Allah knows what is best for you.
Seek you the water of mercy? Be downcast,
And straightway drink the wine of mercy to intoxication.
Mercy is called down by mercy to the last.
Withhold not, then, mercy from any one, O son!
… If of yourself you cannot journey to the Kaaba,
Represent your helplessness to the Reliever.
Cries and groans are a powerful means,
And the All-merciful is a mighty nurse.
The nurse and the mother keep excusing themselves,
Till their child begins to cry.
In you too has God created infant needs;
When they cry out, their milk is brought to them;
God said, ‘Call on God’;2 continue crying,
So that the milk of His love may boil up.
E. H. Whinfield
… Say not, then, that all these creeds are false,
The false ones ensnare hearts by the scent of truth.
Say not that they are all erroneous fancies,
There is no fancy in the universe without some truth.
Truth is the ‘night of power’ hidden amongst other nights,
In order to try the spirit of every night.
Not every night is that of power, O youth,
Nor yet is every night quite void of power.
In the crowd of rag-wearers there is but one Faqir;1
Search well and find out that true one.
Tell the wary and discerning believer
To distinguish the king from the beggar.
If there were no bad goods in the world,
Every fool might be a skilful merchant;
For then the hard art of judging goods would be easy.
If there were no faults, one man could judge as well as another.
Again, if all were faulty, skill would be profitless.
If all wood were common, there would be no aloes.
He who accepts everything as true is a fool,
But he who says all is false is a knave.
E. H. Whinfield
The eye of outward sense is as the palm of a hand,
The whole of the object is not grasped in the palm.
The sea itself is one thing, the foam another;
Neglect the foam, and regard the sea with your eyes.
Waves of foam rise from the sea night and day,
You look at the foam ripples and not the mighty sea.
We, like boats, are tossed hither and thither,
We are blind though we are on the bright ocean.
Ah! you who are asleep in the boat of the body,
You see the water; behold the Water of waters!
Under the water you see there is another Water moving it,
Within the spirit is a Spirit that calls it.
Where were Moses and Jesus when that Sun
Showered down water on the fields sown with corn?
Where were Adam and Eve what time
God Almighty fitted the string to His bow?
The one form of speech is evil and defective;
The other form, which is not defective, is perfect.
If I speak thereof your feet stumble,
Yet if I speak not of it, woe be to you!
And if I speak in terms of outward form,
You stick fast in that same form, O son.
You are foot-bound like the grass in the ground,
And your head is shaken by the wind uncertainly.
Your foot stands not firmly till you move it,
Nay, till you pluck it not up from the mire.
When you pluck up your foot you escape from the mire,
The way to this salvation is very difficult.
When you obtain salvation at God’s hands, O wanderer,
You are free from the mire, and go your way.
When the suckling is weaned from its nurse,
It eats strong meats and leaves the nurse.
You are bound to the bosom of earth like seeds,
Strive to be weaned through nutriment of the heart.
Eat the words of wisdom, for veiled light
Is not accepted in preference to unveiled light.
When you have accepted the light, O Beloved,
When you behold what is veiled without a veil,
Like a star you will walk upon the heavens;
Nay, though not in heaven, you will walk on high.
…
Keep silence, that you may hear Him speaking
Words unutterable by tongue in speech.
Keep silence, that you may hear from that Sun
Things inexpressible in books and discourses.
Keep silence, that the Spirit may speak to you…
E. H. Whinfield
In the prayers and adorations of righteous men
Praises of all prophets are together bound.
All their praises mingle into a single stream,
As the water from several cups poured in a jug.
Because the praised is none but the One,
All religions by this token are the same.
Remember, all praise is directed to God’s light
And the various worshipped forms are from this light.
Men do not praise that which is not worthy,
They only err in mistaking another for Him.
Just as when moonlight falls on a wall,
The wall is merely a link to reflect its beams;
Yet when it reflects back to its source, it seems
They forget the Moon and worship the wall.
Or when a Moon is reflected in a well,
They look into the well and praise the image;
In truth they are praising the Moon,
But mistakenly only praising its reflection.
The object of their praise is the Moon, not its guises,
But when this does happen, infidelity arises.
The well-meaning person, in this way, goes astray,
The Moon is in the heavens, but he only sees it in the well.
Because of such idols, mankind is confused,
And driven by vain desires, they reap sorrow!
O Giver of stability and sustenance,
Set free mankind from uncertainty and doubt.
In work which is worthy of performance,
Let them be steadfast and certain.
Give them patience and weigh down their scales
And set them free from vile deceivers all.
O Merciful One, save them from envy
So they do not become like envious Iblis.
How foolish man is envious over all these passing
Things: wealth, comforts, bodies that will die!
See how kings full of envy battle,
And kill their kith and kin!
How lovers full of desire for false forms
Spill each other’s blood in vain!
The knowledge of people of the heart
Carries them high;
The knowledge of worshippers of the flesh
Is like a burden on them.
When knowledge tempers the heart,
It is a helper.
When knowledge caters to the flesh,
It becomes a destroyer.
God has said ‘as an ass bearing a load of books’1
Is he whose knowledge has not come from Him.
Beware! Carry not this burden
To satisfy the flesh, instead gain true knowledge.
Mount the steed of true knowledge
And let this burden of false knowledge fall from you.
Unless you drink from this cup of Godly love
You will not be free from lust,
Which will weigh you down.