Rumi

Jalĝl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (Template:Lang-fa), also known as Jalĝl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (Template:Lang-fa), and popularly known as Mowlĝnĝ (Template:Lang-fa) but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi[1] (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Perhaps the most famous Sufi who is known to many Muslims even today by his title alone is the seventh/13th century Persian mystic Rumi

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.[citation needed]  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 Mawlawi which his son Sultan Walad organized. Rumi encouraged samĝʿ, listening to music and turning or doing the sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, samĝʿ 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 (rubayĝt) and odes (ghazal) of the Divan, the six books of the Masnavi. The prose works are divided into The Discourses, The Letters, and the Seven Sermons. === Poetic works ===

*Rumi's major work is the Maṭnawīye Ma'nawī (Spiritual Couplets; مثنوی معنوی), a six-volume poem regarded by some Sufis^[4] as the Persian-language Qur'an. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of mystical poetry.^[5] It contains approximately 27000 lines of Persian poetry.^[6] Template:Further *Rumi's other major work is the Dīwĝn-e Kabīr (Great Work) or Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi|Dīwĝn-e Shams-e Tabrīzī (The Works of Shams of Tabriz; دیوان شمس تبریزی named in honor of Rumi's master Shams. Besides approximately 35000 Persian couplets and 2000 Persian quatrains,^[7] the Divan contains 90 Ghazals and 19 quatrains in Arabic,^[8] a couple of dozen or so couplets in Turkish (mainly macaronic poems of mixed Persian and Turkish)^[9][10] and 14 couplets in Greek(all of them in three macaronic poems of Greek-Persian).^[11][12] Template:Further === Prose works === *Fihi Ma Fihi (In It What's in It, Persian: ٝیه ما ٝیه) 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.^[13] 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). *Majĝles-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 Salĝh al-Dīn Zarkūb.^[14] *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

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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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 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 conscious 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 upward trend.^[17] Template:Lquote از جمادی مٝردم و نامی شدم — وز نما مٝردم به‌حیوان سرزدم مٝردم از حیوانی و آدم شدم — پس چه ترسم؟ کی ز مردن کم شدم؟ حمله دیگر بمیرم از بشر — تا برآرم از ملائک بال و پر وز ملک هم بایدم جستن ز جو — کل شیء هالک الا وجهه بار دیگر از ملک پران شوم — آنچه اندر وهم ناید آن شوم پس عدم گردم عدم چو ارغنون — گویدم کانا الیه راجعون Template:Clr

Universality

It is often said that the teachings of Rumi are ecumenical in nature.^[18] For Rumi, religion was mostly a personal experience and not limited to logical arguments or perceptions of the senses.^[19] Creative love, or the urge to rejoin the spirit to divinity, was the goal towards which every thing moves.^[19] The dignity of life, in particular human life (which is conscious of its divine origin and goal), was important.^[19]

Islam

However, despite the aforementioned ecumenical attitude, and contrary to his contemporary portrayal in the West as a proponent of non-denominational spirituality, a number of Rumi poems suggest the importance of outward religious observance, the primacy of the Qur'an.^[20]

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.^[23]

Rumi states in his Dīwĝn:

The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr.^[24]

His Masnavi contains anecdotes and stories derived largely from the Quran and the hadith, as well as everyday tales. On the first page of the Masnavi, Rumi states:

"Hadha kitâbu 'l- mathnawîy wa huwa uSûlu uSûli uSûli 'd-dîn wa kashshâfu 'l-qur'ân."
This is the book of the Masnavi, and it is the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion and it is the Explainer of the Qur'ân.

The famous (15th century) Sufi poet Jâmî, said of the Masnavi,

"Hast qur'ân dar zabân-é pahlawî"
It is the Qur'ân in Persian.

== Legacy == Rumi's poetry forms the basis of much classical Iranian and Afghan music (Eastern-Persian, Tajik-Hazara music).^{[citation needed]} 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). Today, Rumi's legacy is expanding in the West as well through the work of translators and performers such as Shahram Shiva, who has been presenting bilingual Persian/English Rumi events in the US since 1993. 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).^[25] "Rumi deals with the human condition and that is always relevant," says Shahram Shiva. "Rumi is able to verbalize the highly personal and often confusing world of personal growth and development in a very clear and direct fashion. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. The world of Rumi is neither exclusively the world of a Sufi, nor the world of a Hindu, nor a Jew, nor a Christian; it is a state of an evolved human. A human who is not bound by cultural limitations; a one who touches every one of us. Today Rumi's poems can be heard in churches, synagogues, Zen monasteries, as well as in the downtown New York art/performance/music scene." According to Professor Majid M. Naini,^[26] "Rumi's life and transformation provide true testimony and proof that people of all religions and backgrounds can live together in peace and harmony. Rumi’s visions, words, and life teach us how to reach inner peace and happiness so we can finally stop the continual stream of hostility and hatred and achieve true global peace and harmony.” Rumi's work has been translated into many of the world's languages, including Russian, German, Urdu, Turkish, Arabic, Bengali, French, Italian, and Spanish, and is being presented in a growing number of formats, including concerts, workshops, readings, dance performances, and other artistic creations.^[27] The English interpretations of Rumi's poetry by Coleman Barks have sold more than half a million copies worldwide,^[28] and Rumi is one of the most widely read poets in the United States.^[29] Recordings of Rumi poems have made it to the USA's Billboard's Top 20 list. A selection of American author 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 amongst users of internet websites like MySpace and Facebook. There is a famous landmark in Northern India, known as Rumi Gate, situated in Lucknow (the capital of Uttar Pradesh) named after Rumi. Rumi and his mausoleum were depicted on the reverse of the 5000 Turkish lira banknotes of 1981-1994.^[30]