JALALUDDIN RUMI
Jalaluddin Rumi has been called by Professor Ethé (in the Encyclopædia Britannica) "the greatest pantheistic writer of all ages." However that may be, he is certainly the greatest mystical poet of Persia, though not so well known in Europe as Saadi, Hafiz and Omar Khayyam. Saadi, Jalaluddin's contemporary, seems to have been conscious of this, for when asked by the Prince of Shiraz to send him the finest poem which had been published in Persia, he sent an ode from Jalaluddin's "Diwan."
Jalaluddin ("the glory of religion") was born at Balkh, in Central Asia (1207 AD), where his father, Behauddin, was a professor of theology under the Sultan Khwarezm Shah. His discourses were largely attended by great and small, but for some reason he seems to have excited the Sultan's displeasure. He therefore left Balkh with the whole of his family and dependants, taking an oath not to return thither while the Sultan was on the throne. Behauddin's way led him to Nishapur, where he met the Sheikh Fariddudin Attar, who, pointing to Jalaluddin, said, "Take care! This son of yours will light a great flame in the world." Attar also presented the boy with his Asrarnama, or "book of secrets." In every town which they visited the chief men came to see Behauddin and listened to his teaching. Behauddin and his son made the pilgrimage to Mecca, after which the former settled at Konia (Iconium), in Asia Minor ("Roum"), whence the poet received the title "Rumi." Here Behauddin obtained as great a reputation as he had done at Balkh, and on his death Jalaluddin succeeded him as "Sheikh," or spiritual instructor. He soon grew tired of the ordinary round of Mohammedan learning and gave himself up to mysticism. This tendency of his received an additional impulse from the arrival in Iconium of an extraordinary man, the fakir Shams-i-Tabriz, a disciple of the celebrated Sheikh Ruknuddin.
One day Ruknuddin, when conversing with Shams-i-Tabriz, had said to him, "In the land of Roum is a Sufi who glows with divine love; thou must go thither and fan this glow to a clear flame." Shams-i-Tabriz immediately went to Iconium. On his arrival he met Jalaluddin riding on a mule in the midst of a throng of disciples who were escorting him from the lecture hall to his house. He at once intuitively recognised that here was the object of his search and his longing. He therefore went straight up to him and asked, "What is the aim of all the teaching that you give, and all the religious exercises which you practise?" "The aim of my teaching," answered Jalaluddin, "is the regulation of conduct as prescribed by the traditions and the moral and religious law." "All this," answered Shams-i-Tabriz, "is mere skimming the surface." "But what then is under the surface?" asked Jalaluddin. "Only complete union of the knower with the known is knowledge," answered Shams-i-Tabriz and quoted the following verse of Hakim Sanai:—
Only when knowledge frees thee from thyself, Is such knowledge better than ignorance.
These words made a most powerful impression on Jalaluddin, so that he plied Shams-i-Tabriz with questions and resorted with him to lonely desert places for uninterrupted converse. This led to a neglect of teaching on his part, and his pupils and adherents persecuted and ridiculed Shams-i-Tabriz, calling him "a bare-footed and bare-headed fakir, who has come hither to lead the pattern of believers astray." Their treatment caused Shams-i-Tabriz to flee to his native city without telling Jalaluddin. The latter, however, overcome by love and longing, went after him, found him and persuaded him to return.
Shams-i-Tabriz did so, and for some time longer they lived in friendly intercourse together; but Jalaluddin's disciples again began to persecute the former, who departed to Syria, where he remained two years. During this interval, in order to soften the pain of separation, Jalaluddin instituted mystical dances, which he ordered to be accompanied by the flute. This was the beginning of the celebrated order of Mevlevis, or dancing dervishes, which has now existed for over six hundred years, successively presided over by descendants of Jalaluddin. Their gyrations are intended to symbolise the wheelings of the planets round their central sun and the attraction of the creature to the Creator. They exist in large numbers in Turkey, and to this day the coronation of the Sultan of Turkey is not considered complete till he is girded with a sword by the head dervish of the Mevlevi order.
Shams-i-Tabriz subsequently returned to Konia and perished there in a tumult, the details of which are not known. To commemorate his friend Jalaluddin composed his "Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz," putting the latter's name in place of his own as the author. It is a collection of spirited odes setting forth the doctrines of Sufistic Pantheism. The following lines on pilgrimage to the Kaaba afford a good instance of the way in which the Sufi poets endeavour to spiritualise the rites of Islam:—
Beats there a heart within that breast of thine, Then compass reverently its sacred shrine: For the essential Kaaba is the heart, And no proud pile of perishable art. When God ordained the pilgrim rite, that sign Was meant to lead thy thoughts to things divine; A thousand times he treads that round in vain Who gives one human heart a needless pain. Leave wealth behind; bring God thy heart, Whose light Will guide thy footsteps through the gloomiest night God spurns the riches of a thousand coffers, And says, 'The saint is he his heart who offers; Nor gold nor silver seek I, but above All gifts the heart, and buy it with My love: Yea! one sad, contrite heart which men despise More than My throne and fixed decree I prize'; The meanest heart that ever man has spurned Is a clear glass where God may be discerned.
The following ode, translated by the late Professor Falconer, is frankly pantheistic:—