Reading Rumi in Modern Times
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, known simply as Rumi, is arguably the most popular poet in the world. He is a global cultural figure, and since his death, his writings have inspired spiritual seekers from every tradition. His teachings remain relevant today due to their universal and timeless nature. Thousands of books have been written about him, and from social media to real life, he is the most quoted poet in the world. However, the fact is that he is also the most misunderstood, largely due to a lack of solid understanding of his life, his theology, and the socio-cultural background of the medieval Islamicate world in which he wrote. Time Magazine called him the “bestselling poet in the U.S.”, a phenomenon driven in part by his commercialization. Rumi, a devout Muslim, has often been misunderstood and commodified by commercial ventures. This popularization is largely thanks to Coleman Barks, whose influential translations are based loosely on the original Persian.
For seven hundred years, Rumi’s verses have inspired millions of people. Jami, the celebrated Persian poet, considered him a saint who, though not a prophet, possessed a book. Even Philosopher Hegel considered him the greatest poet and thinker in the world. Most experts in Rumi studies assert that he is the greatest mystic poet the world has ever known. Professor E.G. Browne writes that, “He is without doubt the most eminent Sufi poet whom Persia has produced while his Mathnavi deserves to rank amongst the great poems of all time.” Similarly, R.A. Nicholson called him “the greatest mystical poet of any age.”
Rumi was born in Balkh on 6 Rabi’ al-Awwal 604 AH (corresponding to September 30, 1207 CE). He was not born into obscurity; his family descended from Abū Bakr, the first Caliph of Islam. His father was a renowned jurist, known by the title “Sultan al-Ulama” (King of Scholars). Rumi was also greatly influenced by his grandfather, Hussain Ibn Ahmad Khatibi, a respected scholar acknowledged as a spiritual leader to the rulers. Rumi and his family left Konya during the Mongol invasion, and his childhood was far from normal. As a child, he witnessed a gruesome massacre by the Khwarzmian king, which left a deep impression on his poetry.
The young Rumi was intelligent and full of curiosity, a child of extraordinary promise. When he was 34, his father passed away, and Rumi took his position, addressing huge audiences on religion, philosophy, and jurisprudence. He also taught his father’s work, Kitab ul Ma’arif, continuing the family’s scholarly tradition. He saw himself as the successor of the great Sufi poets Sanā’ī and ‘Attār, and was the heir of an impressive heritage of Sufism. His near-contemporary was the great Sufi Sheikh al-Akbar Ibn Arabi. By the age of 34, he was already acknowledged as a regional authority on religion.
Rumi’s path was dramatically altered by his encounter with the wandering dervish, Shams-i Tabrīzī. Legend recounts that Rumi was once walking with his students when Shams stopped him and posed a question: “What is the purpose of knowledge and wisdom?” Shams answered that true knowledge is that which draws you to the Source, quoting Sanā’ī: “Ignorance is far better than the knowledge which doesn’t take you away from yourself.” Rumi was profoundly impressed and immediately became Shams’s disciple.
Rumi’s Mathnavi was hailed as a unique revelation of esoteric truth, with the great poet Jami calling it the “Quran in Persian.” Rumi himself describes his work in the introduction to Book 4: “It is the grandest of gifts and the most precious of prizes. It is the light of our friends and treasure of our descendants.” He drew inspiration from the Prophet, believing that “the world was created in order [that] the perfect man—the soul of the world—might be evolved.”
Khalifa Abdul Hakim, in his book The Metaphysics of Rumi: A Critical and Historical Sketch, summarizes the Mathnavi’s profound scope: “a crystal of many facets in which we see the broken lights of Semitic monotheism, Greek intellectualism with Pythagorean elements and Eleatic theories of being and becoming, Plato’s theory of Ideas and Aristotle’s theory of causation and development, the One of Plotinus and the ecstasy that unites the One, the controversial question of the Mutakallimūn, the epistemological problems of Ibn Sīnā and Al-Fārābī, Ghazzālī’s theory of consciousness and Ibn Arabi’s monism.”
The study of Rumi is compelling not just because he is the greatest mystic poet ever produced, but because his work leaves virtually no problem of philosophical and religious life untouched. The study of Rumi represents a pinnacle of philosophical and religious achievement in Islam. His Mathnavi is an unsystematic epitome of all the philosophical and theological thoughts developed in Islam from its advent down to the thirteenth century of the Common Era. He himself acknowledges in the Mathnavi that his thoughts arise from the Quran and Hadith.
Rumi’s philosophy holds that “the basis of all existence is spiritual.” Man is the most beautiful creation of God, created in His own image with a part of the Divine Spirit breathed into him. The spirit and soul are intimately linked to the body. The integrated personality, or ego, which emerges from the Cosmic Ego, inherently recognizes this connection. He calls saints the “intellect of the intellect.”
In Book 5 of the Mathnavi, he calls himself a “creative evolutionist.” To him, evolution is the metamorphosis of the spirit. He suggests that when a man’s spirit becomes the “ape-spirit,” his body is consequently debased. He believed: “The world is one thought emanating from the universal intellect. The intellect is like a king; the ideas are his envoys.” Rumi believes that: “The body is manifest. Intellect is more concealed than the spirit. The spirit of divine inspiration is more concealed than the Intellect.” He offers the example of the Prophet: The intellect of the Prophet was not hidden from anyone, but his spirit of Prophethood was not comprehended by everyone. He is a believer in free will, seeing it as the capacity of man to choose his actions for himself. He refers to this act of choice as devotion. Rumi is an uncompromising theist and rejects the Pantheist ideas of emanation. He calls the Prophet a man, a Perfect Man, despite his ascent to the highest heaven and his personal vision of God.
Rumi was a legend in his own lifetime. His stature has grown over the years and he is now universally acknowledged as the greatest mystic poet of any age. The Poet-Philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, widely considered Rumi’s greatest modern commentator, writes in Asrār-i Khudī that he “owes his maturity of thought and loftiness of his vision to none else than Rumi.” In Payām-i Mashriq, Iqbal further writes that Rumi “provides answers to the ills of modern man,” inspiring humanity with faith and courage.
