The melody of Jalaludin Rumi

V SUNDARAM
e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com

'A white flower grows in the quiet/ let your tongue become that flower' ? Jalaludin Rumi

Recently I have been writing only wretched stories about Congress-sponsored pseudo secularism and sadistic acts of Islamic terrorism in India and elsewhere. When my inner-self was getting tortured and tormented by doubt and confusion, I was delighted to read certain beautiful lines of poetry by a great Sufi poet and mystic Jalaludin Rumi. Mysticism has been defined as the journey of the soul from the darkness of worldly confusion to the blissful light of ecstatic experience when the seeker and the self are known to be one. In this context, Evelyn Underhill has rightly observed: 'The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the vision of reality: On the other, as a form of prophesy. As it is the special vocation of the mystical consciousness to mediate between two orders, going out in loving adoration towards God and coming home to tell the secrets of Eternity to other men; so that the artistic self-expression of this consciousness has also a double character. It is love-poetry, but love-poetry which is often written with a missionary intention'. Jalaluddin Rumi belonged to this tradition of mystical verse in history.

Jalaludin Rumi

Jalaludin Rumi, a poet and mystical genius of the Sufi tradition within Islam, has been called the greatest mystical poet of any age. His father was a well-known scholar in Balkh, a cosmopolitan centre of both Islamic and Buddhist learning located near the legendary Silk Road in what is now Afghanistan.

Jalaludin Rumi was born in 1207 in the small town of Wakhsh which is now part of the new nation of Tajikistan (the country north of Afghanistan). His father was a Muslim preacher and scholar. He too was a great mystic or Sufi master. He named his son Muhammad, but later called him by the additional name, Jalalu 'd-deen ('the glory of thefaith'). His full name was Jalalu 'd-deen Muhammad bin (son of) Husayn al-Balkhî. Later, when he moved to Anatolia (present-day Turkey) with his family, he became known as Jalalu 'd-deen Muhammad al-Roomee. In 1219 the family moved to the West and reached a town called Konya in Anatolia (modern Turkey). Anatolia had been called for centuries 'Rum' (a form of 'Rome') which meant 'the land of the Greeks', who had long ruled the area from Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire. Tradition has it that the family ran away from Wakhsh to Konya in Turkey only to avoid the terrorist attacks of Chengizkhan. In the East, Jalaludin Rumi has always been known as Mawlana (pronounced 'Mowlana' in Iran, India, and Pakistan; pronounced as 'Mevlana' in Turkey). This means 'our Master' in Arabic, and was traditionally a title given to Muslim scholars. However, due to his great fame, the respectful title 'Mawlana' quickly came to refer primarily to Jalaluddin Rumi. Only in the West he has been called 'Rumi' for centuries.
Rumi's first Sufi master was Sayyid Burhanu 'd-dîn Termezî, who himself was a disciple of Rumi's father. Sayyid Burhanu'd-din Termezi came to Anatolia (Turkey) after hearing of the death of Rumi's father. Rumi was his Sufi disciple for ten years, during part of which he was sent to Syria to obtain a traditional Islamic education. Sayyid Burhanuddin was also a profound mystic who instilled in Rumi a love of Persian Sufi poetry. He also took Rumi on a number of lengthy solitary prayer retreats.

At the age of 37, Rumi met his second Sufi master Shamsu'd-deen Muhammad al-Tabreezee (from Tabriz), traditionally believed to have been about 60 years old. It is now known that Shams was not an illiterate and 'wild' dervish as previously thought by Western scholars, but had a solid Islamic education and was literate and fluent in Arabic as well as Persian. Shams was not only a profound mystic, but also very knowledgeable about traditional and mystical interpretations of verses in Persian and Arabic.

Aflaki wrote a magnificent biography of Rumi, the mystic poet, containing many miracle stories about Rumi as a poet and mystic. It is in the masterpiece of his later life, the Mathnawi-ye Ma'nawi (literally, 'rhymed couplets of deep spiritual meaning') that Rumi reveals himself as both a profound mystic and an extremely devout Muslim.

Jalaludin Rumi
Jalaludin Rumi died in 1273. He was buried next to his father's tomb in Konya, Turkey. The anniversary of his death has been commemorated for centuries in Turkey according to the Islamic lunar calendar. During last 50 years, it has been celebrated in Turkey according to the Western solar calendar on 17 December every year.

Rumi's major works of mystic poetry like: 'Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi' and 'Mathnawi' (Rhyming couplets) transmute the sorrow of human loss into the joy of union with the divine beloved. When I read the following poem called 'A Garden Beyond Paradise', in his great work 'Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi', I only felt that I was re-reading all the great Upanishads of Vedic India:

Everything you see has its roots

In the unseen world.

The forms may change

Yet the essence remains the same.

Every wondrous sight will vanish,

Every sweet word will fade,

But do not be disheartened,

The Source they come from is Eternal,

Growing, branching out,

Giving new life and new joy.

Why do you weep?

That source is within you

And this whole world

Is springing up from it.

The source is full,

Its waters are ever-flowing;

Do not grieve,

Drink your fill!

Don't think it will ever run dry,

This is the endless ocean.

From the moment you came into this world

A ladder was placed in front of you

That you might escape

From earth you became plant,

From plant you became animal,

Afterwards you became a human being,

Endowed with knowledge, intellect and faith.

Behold the body, born of dust,

How perfect it has become!

Why should you fear its end?

When were you ever made less by dying?

When you pass beyond this human form,

No doubt you will become an angel

And soar through the heavens!

But don't stop there.

Even heavenly bodies grow old.

Pass again from the heavenly realm

And plunge into the vast ocean of consciousness.

Let the drop of water that is you

Become a hundred mighty seas.

But do not think that the drop alone

Becomes the ocean,

The ocean, too, becomes the drop!

'The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart,' Rumi said. His philosophy, considered an eloquent voice of the Muslim East and Christian West, now speaks across all cultures and traditions of the world. He seems to tell us that 'my affair is with God to whom only I am accountable and of whom is my reward'. Through all his mystic poems he proclaims for all mankind that unconditional love is the energising elixir of the universe, the cause and effect of all harmonies.

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