Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī ( ), also known as
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( ), and popularly
known as
Mowlānā ( ) but known to the
English-speaking world simply as
Rumi, (30
September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century
Persian poet,
jurist,
theologian, and sufi
mystic.
Rūmī is a
descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he lived most of his
life in an area called
Rūm because it was
once ruled by the
Byzantine
Empire.
According
to tradition, Rumi was born in Balkh
, Khorasan (now in Afghanistan
), the hometown of his father's family.
Some
scholars, however, argue that he may have been born in Wakhsh
, a small town located at the river Wakhsh
in what is now Tajikistan
. Wakhsh belonged to the larger province of
Balkh, and in the year Rumi was born, his father was an appointed
scholar there. Both these cities were at the time included in the
Greater Persian cultural sphere of
Khorasan, the easternmost province of
historical Persia, and were part of the
Khwarezmian Empire.
His birthplace and native language both indicate a Persian
heritage. Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorasan,
opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by
Bahā ud-Dīn Walad (Rumi's father) or fear of the impending Mongol
cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards.
Rumi's family traveled
west, first performing the Hajj and eventually
settling in the Anatolian city Konya
(capital of
the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum,
now located in Turkey
).
This was where he lived most of his life, and here he composed one
of the crowning glories of
Persian
literature which profoundly affected the culture of the
area.
He lived most of his life under the Sultanate of Rum, where he
produced his works and died in 1273 CE. He was buried in Konya and
his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Following his death, his
followers and his son
Sultan Walad
founded the
Mawlawīyah Sufi Order, also
known as the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for its
Sufi dance known as the
samāʿ ceremony.
Rumi's works are written all in the New
Persian language. A Persian literary
renaissance (in the 8th/9th century) started in regions of
Sistan,
Khorāsān and
Transoxiana and by the 10th/11th
century, it reinforced the Persian language as the preferred
literary and cultural language in the Persian Islamic world.
Although Rumi's works were written in Persian, Rumi's importance is
considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His original
works are widely read in their original language across the
Persian-speaking world. Translations of his works are very popular
in other countries. His poetry has influenced
Persian literature as well as
Urdu,
literature and other North Western Indian
Muslim languages written in Arabic script e.g. Pashto and Sindhi.
His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's
languages and transposed into various formats; He has been
described as the "most popular poet in America" in 2007.
Life
Rumi was
born in Khorāsān, possibly in or
near the city of Balkh. His
life is described in Shams ud-Din Ahmad Aflāki's
Manāqib
ul-Ārifīn (written between 1318 and 1353). Rumi's father was
Bahā ud-Dīn Walad, a theologian, jurist and a
mystic from Balkh, who was also known during his
lifetime as Sultan al-Ulama or "Sultan of the Scholars". His mother
was Mu'mina Khātūn.
When the
Mongols invaded
Central Asia sometime between 1215 and 1220,
Baha ud-Din Walad, with his whole family and a group of disciples,
set out westwards.
On the road to Anatolia, Rumi encountered one
of the most famous mystic Persian poets, 'Attar, in the Iranian city of Nishapur
, located in
the province of Khorāsān.
'Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the
father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea
followed by an ocean." He gave the boy his
Asrārnāma, a
book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This
meeting had a deep impact on the eighteen-year-old Rumi, and later
on became the inspiration for his works.
From Nishapur, Walad and his entourage set out for Baghdad, meeting
many of the scholars and Sufis of the city.
From there they went
to Baghdad
, and
Hejaz and performed the pilgrimage at Mecca
.
The
migrating caravan then passed through Damascus
, Malatya
, Erzincan
, Sivas
, Kayseri
and Nigde
.
They
finally settled in Karaman
for seven
years; Rumi's mother and brother both died there. In 1225,
Rumi married Gowhar Khatun in Karaman. They had two sons:
Sultan Walad and Ala-eddin Chalabi. When his
wife died, Rumi married again and had a son, Amir Alim Chalabi, and
a daughter, Malakeh Khatun.
On 1 May
1228, most likely as a result of the insistent invitation of
'Alā' ud-Dīn Key-Qobād, ruler of
Anatolia, Baha' ud-Din came and finally settled in Konya in Anatolia
within the westernmost territories of the Seljuk Sultanate of
Rûm.
Baha' ud-Din became the head of a
madrassa (religious school) and when he died,
Rumi, aged twenty-five, inherited his position. One of Baha'
ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued
to train Rumi in the religious and mystical doctrines of Rumi's
father. For nine years, Rumi practiced Sufism as a disciple of
Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public
life then began: he became a teacher who preached in the mosques of
Konya and taught his adherents in the
madrassa.
During
this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years
there.
It was his meeting with the dervish
Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that
completely changed Rumi's life. Shams had traveled throughout the
Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my
company". A voice said to him, "What will you give in return?"
Shams replied, "My head!" The voice then said, "The one you seek is
Jalal ud-Din of Konya." On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi
and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went
out, never to be seen again. It is rumored that Shams was murdered
with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams
indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical
friendship.
[2299]
Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found
their expression in an outpouring of music, dance, and lyric poems,
Divan-e Shams-e
Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and
journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:
For more than ten years after meeting Shams, Mawlana had been
spontaneously composing
ghazals
(Persian poems), and these had been collected in the
Divan-i
Kabir or Diwan Shams Tabrizi. Rumi found another companion in
Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death,
Rumi's scribe and favorite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the
role of Rumi's companion. One day, the two of them were wandering
through the Meram vineyards outside Konya when Hussam described to
Rumi an idea he had had: "If you were to write a book like the
Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the
Mantiq ut-Tayr of
'Attar, it would become the companion of many troubadours. They
would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to
accompany it." Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which
were written the opening eighteen lines of his
Masnavi,
beginning with:
Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve
years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this
masterwork, the
Masnavi, to Hussam.
In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and
composed the well-known
ghazal, which begins with the
verse:
Rumi died
on 17 December 1273 in Konya; his body
was interred beside that of his father, and a splendid shrine, the
Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb, قبه الخضراء; today the Mevlana Museum), was erected over his place
of burial. His epitaph reads:
Teachings
The general theme of Rumi's thought, like that of other mystic and
Sufi poets of Persian literature, is essentially that of the
concept of
tawhīd – union
with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut
off and become aloof – and his longing and desire to restore
it.
The
Masnavi weaves fables, scenes from everyday life,
Qur’anic revelations and exegesis, and metaphysics into a vast and
intricate tapestry. Rumi is considered an example of
Insan-e
Kamil — Perfect Man, the perfected or completed human
being. In the East, it is said of him that he was "not a
prophet — but surely, he has brought a scripture".
Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry, and dance
as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to
focus their whole being on the divine, and to do this so intensely
that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these
ideas that the practice of "whirling" dervishes developed into a
ritual form. His teachings became the base for the order of the
Mevlevi which his son Sultan Walad
organized. Rumi encouraged
samāʿ,
listening to music and turning or doing the sacred dance. In the
Mevlevi tradition,
samāʿ represents a mystical journey of
spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this
journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows
through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth, and arrives at the
Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with
greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of
creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races,
classes, and nations .
In other verses in the
Masnavi, Rumi describes in detail
the universal message of love:
Major works
Rumi's poetry is often divided into various categories: the
quatrains (
rubayāt) and odes
(
ghazal) of the
Divan, the
six books of the
Masnavi, The Discourses, The Letters, and
the almost unknown
Six Sermons.
Poetic works
- Rumi's major work is the Maṭnawīye Ma'nawī
(Spiritual Couplets; ), a six-volume poem regarded by some
Sufis as the Persian-language Qur'an. It is
considered by many to be one of the greatest works of mystical
poetry.
- Rumi's other major work is the Dīwān-e
Kabīr (Great Work) or Diwan-e Shams-e
Tabrizi|Dīwān-e Shams-e Tabrīzī (The Works of Shams of
Tabriz
; named
in honor of Rumi's master Shams.
Prose works
- Fihi Ma Fihi (In It
What's in It, Persian: فیه ما فیه) provides a record of
seventy-one talks and lectures given by Rumi on various occasions
to his disciples. It was compiled from the notes of his various
disciples, so Rumi did not author the work directly. An English
translation from the Persian was first published by A.J. Arberry as
Discourses of Rumi(New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972), and a
translation of the second book by Wheeler Thackston, Sign of
the Unseen(Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1994).
- Majāles-e Sab'a (Seven Sessions, Persian:
مجالس سبعه) contains seven Persian sermons (as the name implies) or
lectures given in seven different assemblies. The sermons
themselves give a commentary on the deeper meaning of Qur'an and
Hadeeth. The sermons also include quotations
from poems of Sana'i, 'Attar, and other poets, including Rumi
himself. As Aflakī relates, after Shams-e Tabrīzī, Rumi gave
sermons at the request of notables, especially Salāh al-Dīn
Zarkūb.
- Makatib (The Letters, Persian: مکاتیب) is the
book containing Rumi's letters in Persian to his disciples, family
members, and men of state and of influence. The letters testify
that Rumi kept very busy helping family members and administering a
community of disciples that had grown up around them.
Philosophical outlook
- See also: Spiritual
evolution
Rumi was an evolutionary thinker in the sense that he believed that
the spirit after devolution from the divine
Ego
undergoes an evolutionary process by which it comes nearer and
nearer to the same divine Ego. All matter in the universe obeys
this law and this movement is due to an inbuilt urge (which Rumi
calls "love") to evolve and seek enjoinment with the divinity from
which it has emerged. Evolution into a human being from an animal
is only one stage in this process. The doctrine of the
Fall of Adam is reinterpreted as the devolution
of the Ego from the universal ground of divinity and is a
universal, cosmic phenomenon. The French philosopher
Henri Bergson's idea of life being creative
and evolutionary is similar, though unlike Bergson, Rumi believes
that there is a specific
goal to the process: the
attainment of God. For Rumi, God is the ground as well as the goal
of all existence.
However a point to note is that Rumi need not be considered a
biological
evolutionary
creationist. In view of the fact that Rumi lived hundreds of
years before Darwin, and was least interested in scientific
theories, it is probable to conclude that he does not deal with
biological evolution at all. Rather he is concerned with the
spiritual evolution of a human being: Man not consciousness of God
is akin to an animal and true consciousness makes him divine.
Nicholson has seen this as a
Neo-Platonic doctrine: the universal soul
working through the various spheres of being, a doctrine introduced
into Islam by Muslim philosophers like
Al
Farabi and being related at the same time to
Ibn Sina's idea of love as the magnetically working
power by which life is driven into an upwards trend..
از جمادی مُردم و نامی شدم —وز نما مُردم بحیوان سرزدم
مُردم از حیوانی و آدم شدم —پس چه ترسم کی ز مردم کم شدم
حملهء دیگر بمیرم از بشر —تا برآرم از ملایک بال و پر
وز ملک هم بایدم جستن ز جو —کل شییء هالک الاوجهه
بار دیگر از ملک پران شوم —آنچه اندر وهم ناید آن شوم
پس عدم گردم عدم چو ارغنون —گویدم کانا الیه راجعون
Rumi's universality
It is often said that the teachings of Rumi are ecumenical in
nature. For Rumi, religion was mostly a personal experience and not
limited to logical arguments or perceptions of the senses. Creative
love, or the urge to rejoin the spirit to divinity, was the goal
towards which every thing moves. The dignity of life, in particular
human life (which is conscious of its divine origin and goal), was
important.
Rumi as a Muslim
However, despite the aforementioned ecumenical attitude, and
contrary to his contemporary portrayal in the West as a proponent
of non-denominational spirituality, Rumi insisted on the importance
of outward religious observance, the primacy of the Qur'an and what
he believed to be superiority of Islam.
Rumi's approach to Islam is further clarified in this
quatrain:
Seyyed Hossein Nasr states:
One of the greatest living authorities on Rûmî in
Persia today, Hâdî Hâ'irî, has shown in an unpublished work that
some 6,000 verses of the Dîwân and the Mathnawî are practically
direct translations of Qur'ânic verses into Persian
poetry.
Rumi states in his
Dīwān:
The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr.
Legacy
Rumi's importance transcends national and ethnic borders.
Readers
of the Persian language in Iran
, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
see him as one of their most significant classical
poets and an influence on many poets through history.
Rumi's poetry forms the basis of much classical
Iranian and
Afghan music. Contemporary classical
interpretations of his poetry are made by
Muhammad Reza Shajarian,
Shahram Nazeri,
Davood
Azad (the three from Iran) and
Ustad Mohammad Hashem Cheshti
(Afghanistan). To many modern Westerners, his teachings are one of
the best introductions to the philosophy and practice of
Sufism. Pakistan's
National
Poet,
Muhammad Iqbal, was also
inspired by Rumi's works and considered him to be his spiritual
leader, addressing him as "Pir Rumi" in his poems (the honorific
Pir literally means "old man",
but in the sufi/mystic context it means founder, master, or
guide).
Rumi's work has been translated into many of the world's languages,
including Russian, German, Urdu, Turkish, Arabic, French, Italian,
and Spanish, and is being presented in a growing number of formats,
including concerts, workshops, readings, dance performances, and
other artistic creations.
The English interpretations of Rumi's poetry
by Coleman Barks have sold more than
half a million copies worldwide, and Rumi is one of the most widely
read poets in the United
States
.
Recordings of Rumi poems have made it to Billboard's Top 20 list. A
selection of
Deepak Chopra's editing
of the translations by Fereydoun Kia of Rumi's love poems has been
performed by Hollywood personalities such as
Madonna,
Goldie
Hawn,
Philip Glass and
Demi Moore.
Shahram
Shiva's CD,
Rumi: Lovedrunk, has been very popular in
the Internet's music communities.
Rumi and the Persian world
پارسی گو گرچه تازی خوشتر است — عشق را خود صد زبان
دیگر است
Say all in Persian even if Arabic is better – Love
will find its way through all languages on its own.
These cultural, historical and linguistic ties between Rumi and the
Iranian world have made Rumi an iconic
Persian and Iranian poet . Rumi's poetry is displayed on the walls
of many cities across the Persian-speaking world, sung in Persian
music, and read in school books .
The Mawlawī Sufi Order
The Mawlawī Sufi order (
Mawlawīyah or
Mevlevi, as it is known in Turkey) was founded
in 1273 by Rumi's followers after his death. His first successor in
the rectorship of the order was
Husam
Chalabi himself , after whose death in 1284 Rumi's younger and
only surviving son,
Sultan Walad (died
1312), favorably known as author of the mystical
Maṭnawī
Rabābnāma, or the
Book of the Rabab, was installed as grand master of the
order. The leadership of the order has been kept within Rumi's
family in Konya uninterruptedly since then.The Mawlawī Sufis, also
known as Whirling Dervishes, believe in performing their
dhikr in the form of
samāʿ. During the time of Rumi (as attested in the
Manāqib ul-Ārefīn of Aflākī), his followers gathered for
musical and "turning" practices.
Rumi was himself a notable musician who played the
robāb, although his favorite instrument was
the
ney or reed flute. The music
accompanying the
samāʿ consists of settings of poems from
the
Maṭnawī and
Dīwān-e Kabīr, or of Sultan
Walad's poems. The Mawlawīyah was a well-established Sufi order in
the
Ottoman Empire, and many of the
members of the order served in various official positions of the
Caliphate. The center for the Mawlawiyyah was in Konya.
There is
also a Mawlawī monastery ( , dargāh) in Istanbul
near the Galata Tower
in which the samāʿ is performed and
accessible to the public. The Mawlawī order issues an
invitation to people of all backgrounds:
During Ottoman times, the Mawlawīyah produced a number of notable
poets and musicians, including Sheikh Ghalib, Ismail Rusuhi Dede of
Ankara, Esrar Dede, Halet Efendi, and Gavsi Dede, who are all
buried at the Galata Mawlawī Khāna (Turkish:
Mevlevi-Hane)
in Istanbul. Music, especially that of the ney, plays an important
part in the Mawlawiyyah, and thus much of the traditional, oriental
music that Westerners associate with Turkey originates from the
Mawlawī order.
With the
foundation of the modern, secular Republic of Turkey
, Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk removed religion from the sphere of public policy
and restricted it exclusively to that of personal morals, behavior,
and faith. On 13 December 1925, a law was passed closing all
the
tekkes (or
tekeyh)
(dervish lodges) and
zāwiyas (chief dervish lodges), and
also the centers of veneration to which pilgrimages
(
ziyārat) were made. Istanbul alone had more than 250
tekkes as well as small centers for gatherings of various
fraternities; this law dissolved the Sufi Orders, prohibited the
use of mystical names, titles and costumes pertaining to their
titles, impounded the Orders' assets, and banned their ceremonies
and meetings. The law also provided penalties for those who tried
to re-establish the Orders. Two years later, in 1927, the Mausoleum
of Mevlana in Konya was allowed to reopen as a Museum.
In the 1950s, the Turkish government began allowing the Whirling
Dervishes to perform once a year in Konya. The Mawlānā festival is
held over two weeks in December; its culmination is on 17 December,
the Urs of Mawlānā (anniversary of Rumi's death), called
Šabe
Arūs (شب عروس) (Persian meaning "nuptial night"), the night of
Rumi's union with God. In 1974, the Whirling Dervishes were
permitted to travel to the West for the first time.
Rumi's religious denomination
According to
Edward G. Browne, the three most prominent mystical
Persian poets Rumi,
Sana'i and
Attar were all Sunni Muslims and their
poetry abound with praise for the first two caliphs
Abu Bakr and
Umar ibn al-Khattāb. According to
Annemarie Schimmel, the tendency
among
Shia authors to include leading mystical
poets such as Rumi and Attar among their own ranks, became stronger
after the introduction of
Twelver Shia
as the state religion in the
Safavid
Empire in 1501.
Eight hundredth anniversary celebrations
In Afghanistan, Rumi is known as "Mawlana" and in Iran as
"Mowlavi".
An Afghan Postage Stamp honors
Rumi.
At the
proposal of the Permanent Delegations of Afghanistan, Egypt, and
Turkey, and as approved by its Executive Board and General
Conference in conformity with its mission of “constructing in the
minds of men the defences of peace”, UNESCO
was
associated with the celebration, in 2007, of the eight hundredth
anniversary of Rumi's birth. The commemoration at UNESCO
itself took place on 6 September 2007; UNESCO issued a medal in
Rumi's name in the hope that it would prove an encouragement to
those who are engaged in research on and dissemination of Rumi's
ideas and ideals, which would, in turn, enhance the diffusion of
the ideals of UNESCO.
The Afghan Ministry of Culture and Youth established a national
committee which organized an international seminar to celebrate the
birth and life of the great ethical philosopher and world-renowned
poet.
This grand gathering of the intellectuals,
diplomats, and followers of Maulana was held in Kabul
and in
Balkh.
On 30 September 2007, Iranian school bells were rung throughout the
country in honor of Mowlana. Also in that year, Iran held a Rumi
Week from 26 October to 2 November.
An international ceremony and conference
were held in Tehran
; the event
was opened by the Iranian president and the chairman of the
Iranian parliament.
Scholars from twenty-nine countries attended the events, and 450
articles were presented at the conference. Iranian musician
Shahram Nazeri was awarded the
Légion d'honneur and Iran's
House of Music Award in 2007 for his renowned works on Rumi
masterpieces. 2007 was declared as the "International Rumi Year" by
UNESCO..
Also on 30 September 2007, Turkey celebrated Rumi’s eight-hundredth
birthday with a giant Whirling Dervish ritual performance of the
samāʿ, which was televised using forty-eight cameras and
broadcast live in eight countries.
Ertugrul Gunay, of the
Ministry of Culture
and Tourism of Turkey, stated, "Three hundred dervishes are
scheduled to take part in this ritual, making it the largest
performance of sama in history."
See also
- Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm
- On Persian culture
- Spiritual Islam
- Other
- Rumi experts
- English translators of Rumi poetry
Bibliography
English translations
- "MA-AARIF-E-MATHNAVI A commentary of the Mathnavi of Maulana
Jalaluddin Rumi (R.A.)", by Hazrat Maulana Hakim Muhammad Akhtar
Saheb (D.B.), 1997.
- The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of
Rumi, by William Chittick,
Albany: SUNY Press, 1983.
- The Mysteries of the Universe and Rumi's Discoveries on the
Majestic Path of Love, by Majid M. Naini, Universal Vision
& Research, 2002 ISBN 0-9714600-0-0 www.naini.net
- The Mesnevi of Mevlānā Jelālu'd-dīn
er-Rūmī. Book first, together with some account of the life
and acts of the Author, of his ancestors, and of his descendants,
illustrated by a selection of characteristic anecdotes, as
collected by their historian, Mevlānā Shemsu'd-dīn Ahmed el-Eflākī
el-'Arifī, translated and the poetry versified by James W.
Redhouse, London: 1881. Contains the translation of the first book
only.
- Masnaví-i Ma'naví, the Spiritual Couplets of Mauláná
Jalálu'd-din Muhammad Rúmí, translated and abridged by E. H.
Whinfield, London: 1887; 1989. Abridged version from the complete
poem. On-line editions at sacred-texts.com and on wikisource.
- The Masnavī by Jalālu'd-din Rūmī. Book II,
translated for the first time from the Persian into prose, with a
Commentary, by C.E. Wilson, London: 1910.
- The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, edited from the
oldest manuscripts available, with critical notes, translation and
commentary by Reynold A.
Nicholson, in 8 volumes,
London: Messrs Luzac & Co., 1925–1940. Contains the text in
Persian. First complete English translation of the
Mathnawí.
- Rending The Veil: Literal and Poetic Translations of
Rumi, translated by Shahram Shiva
Hohm Press, 1995 ISBN 0-934252-46-7. Recipient of Benjamin Franklin
Award.
- Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of
Rumi, translated by Shahram Shiva
Jain Publishing, 1999 ISBN 0-87573-084-1.
- The
Essence Of Rumi's Masnevi (Including His Life and Works),
from Prof. Dr. Erkan TÜRKMEN
- The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry,
Reynold Nicholson, San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996 ISBN
0-06-250959-4; Edison (NJ) and New York: Castle Books, 1997 ISBN
0-7858-0871-X. Selections.
- The Illuminated Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, Michael Green contributor, New
York: Broadway Books, 1997 ISBN 0-7679-0002-2.
- The Masnavi: Book One, translated by Jawid Mojaddedi,
Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2004 ISBN
0-19-280438-3. Translated for the first time from the Persian
edition prepared by Mohammad Estelami with an introduction and
explanatory notes. Awarded the 2004 Lois Roth Prize for excellence
in translation of Persian literature by the American Institute of
Iranian Studies.
- Divani Shamsi Tabriz, translated by Nevit Oguz Ergin
as Divan-i-kebir, published by Echo Publications, 2003 ISBN
188799128X.
- The rubais of Rumi: insane with love, translations and
commentary by Nevit Oguz Ergin and Will Johnson, Inner Traditions,
Rochester, Vermont, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59477-183-5.
- The Masnavi: Book Two, translated by Jawid Mojaddedi,
Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN
978-0-19-921259-0. The first ever verse translation of the
unabridged text of Book Two, with an introduction and explanatory
notes.
- The quatrains of Rumi: Complete translation with Persian
text, Islamic mystical commentary, manual of terms, and
concordance, translated by Ibrahim W. Gamard and A. G. Rawan
Farhadi, 2008.
- The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of ECS+A+IC Poems,
translations by Coleman Barks,Harper One, 2002.
Further reading
On Rumi's life and work
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality,
Albany: SUNY Press, 1987, chapters 7 and 8.
- William Chittick, The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi: Illustrated
Edition, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2005.
- Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works
of Jalaloddin Rumi, Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
- Majid M. Naini, The Mysteries of the Universe and Rumi's
Discoveries on the Majestic Path of Love, Universal Vision
& Research, 2002, ISBN 0-9714600-0-0
- Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West,
Oneworld Publications, 2000. ISBN 1-85168-214-7
- Leslie Wines, Rumi: A Spiritual Biography, New York:
Crossroads, 2001 ISBN 0-8245-2352-0.
- Rumi's Thoughts, edited by Seyed G Safavi, London:
London Academy of Iranian Studies, 2003.
- Şefik Can, Fundamentals of Rumi's Thought: A Mevlevi Sufi
Perspective, Sommerset (NJ): The Light Inc., 2004 ISBN
1-932099-79-4.
RUMI: His Teachings and Philosophy by R M Chopra Published by Iran
Society, Kolkata
On Persian literature
- E.G. Browne, History of Persia, four volumes, 1998 ISBN
0-7007-0406-X. 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the
writing.
- Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, Reidel
Publishing Company; 1968 . ISBN 90-277-0143-1
References
- NOTE: Transliteration of the Arabic alphabet into
English varies. One common transliteration is Mowlana Jalaluddin
Rumi; the usual brief reference to him is simply Rumi or Balkhi.
His given name, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad, literally means "Majesty of
Religion"
-
http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/R/RUM/jalal-ad-din-rumi.html
-
http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/Jalal_al-Din_Muhammad_Rumi
- http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Jalal_ad-Din_Rumi.aspx
- C.E. Bosworth/B.G. Fragner,
"Tādjīk", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online
Edition: "... In Islamic usage, eventually came to designate the
Persians, as opposed to Turks [...] the oldest citation for it
which Schaeder could find was in verses of Djalāl al-Dīn Rūmī
..."
- Ritter, H.; Bausani, A. "ḎJ̲alāl al- Dīn Rūmī b. Bahāʾ al-Dīn
Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ Walad b. Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad Ḵh̲aṭībī ."
Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E.
Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill
Online. Excerpt: "known by the sobriquet Mawlānā (Mevlânâ), Persian
poet and founder of the Mawlawiyya order of dervishes"
- Schwartz, Stephen (May 14, 2007) "The Balkin Front." Weekly
Standard.
- Annemarie Schimmel, "I Am Wind, You Are
Fire," p. 11. She refers to a 1989 article by the German scholar,
Fritz Meier: Professor Lewis has devoted two pages of his book to
the topic of Wakhsh, which he states has been identified with the
medieval town of Lêwkand (or Lâvakand) or Sangtude, which is about
65 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe, the capital of present-day
Tajikistan. He says it is on the east bank of the Vakhshâb river, a
major tributary that joins the Amu Daryâ river (also called Jayhun,
and named the Oxus by the Greeks). He further states: "Bahâ al-Din
may have been born in Balkh, but at least between June 1204 and
1210 (Shavvâl 600 and 607), during which time Rumi was born, Bahâ
al-Din resided in a house in Vaksh (Bah 2:143 [= Bahâ' uddîn
Walad's] book, "Ma`ârif."). Vakhsh, rather than Balkh, was the
permanent base of Bahâ al-Din and his family until Rumi was around
five years old (mei 16-35) [= from a book in German by the scholar
Fritz Meier--note inserted here]. At that time, in about the year
1212 (A.H. 608–609), the Valads moved to Samarqand (Fih 333; Mei
29–30, 36) [= reference to Rumi's "Discourses" and to Fritz Meier's
book--note inserted here], leaving behind Baâ al-Din's mother, who
must have been at least seventy-five years old."
- Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld
Publications, 2000.
- Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of
Jalaloddin Rumi, SUNY Press, 1993, p. 193: "Rumi's mother tongue
was Persian, but he had learned during his stay in Konya, enough
Turkish and Greek to use it, now and then, in his verse"
- Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld
Publications, 2000. Chap1
- Encyclopedia Iranica, "Baha Al-Din Mohammad Walad" [1], H. Algar.
- C.E. Bosworth, "Turkish Expansion towards the west" in UNESCO
HISTORY OF HUMANITY, Volume IV, titled "From the Seventh to the
Sixteenth Century", UNESCO Publishing / Routledge, 2000. p. 391:
"While the Arabic language retained its primacy in such spheres as
law, theology and science, the culture of the Seljuk court and
secular literature within the sultanate became largely Persianized;
this is seen in the early adoption of Persian epic names by the
Seljuq Rulers (Qubad, Kay Khusraw and so on) and in the use of
Persian as a literary language (Turkish must have been essentially
a vehicle for every days speech at this time). The process of
Persianization accelerated in the thirteenth century with the
presence in Konya of two of the most distinguished refugees fleeing
before the Mongols, Baha al-din Walad and his son Mawlana Jalal
al-din Rumi, whose Mathnawi, composed in Konya, constitutes one of
the crowning glories of classical Persian literature."
- Barks,
Coleman, Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and
Longing, HarperCollins, 2005, p. xxv, ISBN 0-06-075050-2
- Note: Rumi's shrine is now known as the Mevlana Museum
in Turkey
- Lazard, Gilbert "The Rise of the New Persian Language", in
Frye, R. N., The Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995, Vol. 4, pp. 595–632. (Lapidus,
Ira, 2002, A Brief History of Islamic Societies, "Under Arab rule,
Arabic became the principal language for administration and
religion. The substitution of Arabic for Middle Persian was
facilitated by the translation of Persian classics into Arabic.
Arabic became the main vehicle of Persian high culture, and
remained such will into the eleventh century. Parsi declined and
was kept alive mainly by the Zoroastrian priesthood in western
Iran. The Arab conquests however, helped make Persian rather than
Arabic the most common spoken language in Khurasan and the lands
beyond the Oxus River. Paradoxically, Arab and Islamic domination
created a Persian cultural region in areas never before unified by
Persian speech. A new Persian evolved out of this complex
linguistic situation. In the ninth century the Tahirid governors of
Khurasan began to have the old Persian language written in Arabic
script rather than in pahlavi characters. At the same time, eastern
lords in the small principalities began to patronize a local court
poetry in an elevated form of Persian. The new poetry was inspired
by Arabic verse forms, so that Iranian patrons who did not
understand Arabic could comprehend and enjoy the presentation of an
elevated and dignified poetry in the manner of Baghdad. This new
poetry flourished in regions where the influence of Abbasid Arabic
culture was attenuated and where it had no competition from the
surviving tradition of Middle Persian literary classics cultivated
for religious purposes as in Western Iran." "In the western
regions, including Iraq, Syria and Egypt, and the lands of the far
Islamic west including North Africa and Spain, Arabic became the
predominant language of both high literary culture and spoken
discourse." pp. 125–132, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.)
- Ahmed, Nazeer, Islam in Global History: From the Death of
Prophet Muhammed to the First World War, p.58, Xlibris
Corporation (2000), ISBN 0-7388-5962-1
- Abdul Rahman Jami notes:
(Khawaja Abdul Hamid Irfani, "The Sayings of Rumi and Iqbal",
Bazm-e-Rumi, 1976.)
- Franklin Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and
West – The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalal al-Din
Rumi, Oneworld Publications, 2000, Chapter 7.
- Franklin Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and
West – The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalal al-Din
Rumi, Oneworld Publications, 2000.
- M.M. Sharif, A History of Muslim Philosophy, Vol II,
p. 827.
- M.M. Sharif, A History of Muslim Philosophy, Vol II,
p. 828.
- The triumphal sun By Annemarie Schimmel. Pg 328
- Various Scholars such as Khalifah Abdul Hakim (Jalal al-Din
Rumi), Afzal Iqbal (The Life and Thought of Rumi),
and others have expressed this opinion; for a direct secondary
source, see citation below.
- Khalifah Abdul Hakim, "Jalal al-Din Rumi" in M.M. Sharif, ed.,
A History of Muslim Philosophy, Vol II.
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "Rumi and the Sufi Tradition," in
Chelkowski (ed.), The Scholar and the Saint, p. 183
- Quoted in Ibrahim Gamard, Rumi and Islam: Selections from
His Stories, Poems, and Discourses — Annotated and
Explained, p. 171.
- Rumi
Yoga
- Life
of Rumi
- fUSION Anomaly. Whirling Dervish
- The Diploma of Honorary Doctorate of the University of
Tehran in the field of Persian Language and Literature will be
granted to Professor Coleman Barks
- Curiel,J onathan, San Francisco Chronicle Staff
Writer, Islamic verses: The influence of Muslim literature in
the United States has grown stronger since the Sept. 11
attacks (February 6, 2005), Available online (Retrieved Aug 2006)
- Sufism
- ISCA - The Islamic Supreme Council of
America
- About the Mevlevi Order of America
- Web Page Under Construction
- Mango, Andrew, Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of
Modern Turkey, (2002), ISBN 1585670111.
- Kloosterman Genealogy, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Edward
G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia from the Earliest
Times Until Firdawsh, 543 pp., Adamant Media Corporation,
2002, ISBN 1402160453, 9781402160455 (see p.437)
- Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the
Signs of God, 302 pp., SUNY Press, 1994, ISBN 0791419827,
9780791419823 (see p.210)
- Today'S Zaman
- UNESCO: 800th Anniversary of the Birth of Mawlana
Jalal-ud-Din Balkhi-Rumi. – Retrieved on 22 April 2009.
- UNESCO. Executive Board; 175th; UNESCO Medal in honour of
Mawlana Jalal-ud-Din Balkhi-Rumi; 2006
- http://www.iran-daily.com/1385/2690/pdf/i12.pdf
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs Afghanistan - Rumi's 800
Anniversary
- همشهری آنلاین
- Int'l congress on Molana opens in Tehran
- Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 10/03/06
- CHN | News
- Podcast Interview with Coleman Barks on
Rumi
- tehrantimes.com, 300 dervishes whirl for Rumi in
Turkey
External links
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