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Jalal
ad-Din ar-Rumi
 Encyclopædia
Britannica Article |
born , c. September 30, 1207, Balkh, Ghurid
empire [now in Afghanistan]
died
December 17, 1273
also called by the honorific
Mawlana the greatest S
ufi mystic
and poet in the Persian language, famous for his lyrics and for his
didactic epic Masnavi-ye
Ma‘navi (“Spiritual Couplets”), which widely
influenced Muslim mystical thought and literature.
Rumi's influence on Turkish cultural life can scarcely
be overstated. After his death, his disciples were organized as the
Mawlawiyah order, called in the West the Whirling
Dervishes.
Jalal ad-Din's father,
Baha’ ad-Din Walad, was a noted mystical theologian,
author, and teacher. Mainly because of the threat of the approaching
Mongols, Baha’ ad-Din and his family left their native
town in about 1218. According to a legend, in
Nishapur, Iran, the family met Farid
od-Din ‘At t ar, a Persian author of
mystical epics, who blessed young Jalal ad-Din. After
a pilgrimage to Mecca and journeys through the Middle East,
Baha’ ad-Din and his family reached Anatolia
(Rum, hence the surname Rumi), a region that
enjoyed peace and prosperity under the rule of the Turkish Seljuq
dynasty. After a short stay at Laranda (Karaman), where Jalal
ad-Din's mother died and his first son was born, they were
called to the capital, Konya, in 1228. Here, Baha’
ad-Din Walad taught at one of the numerous madrasahs
(religious schools); after his death in 1231 he was succeeded in
this capacity by his son.
A year later, Burhan ad-Din
Muhaqqiq, one of Baha’ ad-Din's former
disciples, arrived in Konya and acquainted Jalal
ad-Din more deeply with some mystical theories that had
developed in Iran. Burhan ad-Din, who contributed
considerably to Jalal ad-Din's spiritual formation,
left Konya about 1240. Jalal ad-Din is said to have
undertaken one or two journeys to Syria (unless his contacts with
Syrian S ufi circles were already established
before his family reached Anatolia); there he may have met Ibn
al-‘Arabi, the leading Islamic theosophist whose
interpreter and stepson, Sadr ad-Din al-Qunawi,
was Rumi's colleague and friend in Konya.
The decisive moment in Rumi's
life occurred on November 30, 1244, when in the streets of Konya he
met the wandering dervish—holy man—Shams
ad-Din (Sun of Religion) of Tabriz, whom he may have
first encountered in Syria. Shams ad-Din cannot be connected
with any of the traditional mystical fraternities; his overwhelming
personality, however, revealed to Jalal ad-Din the
mysteries of divine majesty and beauty. For months the two mystics
lived closely together, and Rumi neglected his
disciples and family so that his scandalized entourage forced Shams
to leave the town in February 1246. Jalal ad-Din was
heartbroken; his eldest son, Sult an Walad, eventually
brought Shams back from Syria. The family, however, could not
tolerate the close relation of Jalal ad-Din with his
beloved, and one night in 1247 Shams disappeared forever. It has
recently been established that he was indeed murdered, not without
the knowledge of Rumi's sons, who hurriedly buried him
close to a well that is still extant in Konya.
This experience of love, longing, and loss
turned Rumi into a poet. His mystical poems—about
30,000 verses and a large number of
roba‘iyat (“quatrains”)—reflect the
different stages of his love, until, as his son writes, “he found
Shams in himself, radiant like the moon.” The complete
identification of lover and beloved is expressed by his inserting
the name of Shams instead of his own pen name at the end of most of
his lyrical poems. The Divan-e Shams (The
collected Poetry of Shams) is a true translation of his
experiences into poetry; its language, however, never becomes lost
in lofty spiritual heights or nebulous speculation. The fresh
language, propelled by its strong rhythms, sometimes assumes forms
close to popular verses. There would seem to be cause for the
belief, expressed by chroniclers, that most of this poetry was
composed in a state of ecstasy, induced by the music of the flute or
the drum, the hammering of the goldsmiths, or the sound of the water
mill in Meram, where Rumi used to go with his
disciples to enjoy nature. He found in nature the reflection of the
radiant beauty of the Sun of Religion and felt flowers and birds
partaking in his love. He often accompanied his verses by a whirling
dance.
A few years after Shams ad-Din's
death, Rumi experienced a similar rapture in his
acquaintance with an illiterate goldsmith, S
ala h ad-Din Zarkub. It is said
that one day, hearing the sound of a hammer in front of
Sala h ad-Din's shop in the bazaar of
Konya, Rumi began his dance. The shop owner had long
been one of Rumi's closest and most loyal disciples,
and his daughter became the wife of Rumi's eldest son.
This love again inspired Jalal ad-Din to write poetry.
After S ala h ad-Din's death,
Husam ad-Din Chelebi became his spiritual love
and deputy. Rumi's main work, the
Masnavi-ye Ma‘navi , was composed under
his influence. Husam ad-Din had asked him to
follow the model of the poets ‘At t ar and
Sana’i, who had laid down mystical teachings in long poems,
interspersed with anecdotes, fables, stories, proverbs, and
allegories. Their works were widely read by the mystics and by
Rumi's disciples. Jalal ad-Din followed
Husam ad-Din's advice and composed nearly
26,000 couplets of the Maanavi during the
following years. It is said that he would recite his verses even in
the bath or on the roads, accompanied by Husam
ad-Din, who wrote them down. The Masnavi
, which shows all the different aspects of S ufism
in the 13th century, often carries the reader away with loose
associations of thought, so that one understands what subjects the
master had in mind at a particular stage of his life. The work
reflects the experience of divine love; both Sala
h ad-Din and Husam ad-Din were,
for Rumi, renewed manifestations of Shams
ad-Din, the all-embracing light. He called
Husam ad-Din, therefore, Diya’
al-Haqq (Light of the Truth); diya’ is
the Arabic term for sunlight.
Rumi lived for a short while
after completing the Masnavi . He always
remained a respected member of Konya society, and his company was
sought by the leading officials as well as by Christian monks.
Husam ad-Din was his successor and was in turn
succeeded by Sult an Walad, who organized the loose
fraternity of Rumi's disciples into Mawlawiyah,
known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes because of the mystical
dance that constitutes their principal ritual. Sult an
Walad's poetical accounts of his father's life are the most
important source of knowledge of Rumi's spiritual
development.
Besides his poetry, Rumi left a
small collection of occasional talks as they were noted down by his
friends; in the collection, known as Fihi ma
fihi (“There is in it what is in it”), the main ideas of
his poetry recur. There also exist some letters directed to
different persons. It is impossible to systematize his ideas, which
at times contradict each other; and changes in the use of symbols
often puzzle the reader. His poetry is a most human expression of
mystical experiences, in which each reader can find his own
favourite ideas and feelings—from enthusiastic flights into the
heavens to matter-of-fact descriptions of daily life.
Rumi's influence on Turkish cultural life can scarcely
be overstated; his mausoleum, the Green Dome, today a museum in
Konya, is still a place of pilgrimage for thousands.
Annemarie
Schimmel
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