Scholar Into Saint

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

Here is a lecture given at Shanti Sadan on 31st May, 1974.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

Scholar Into Saint

 

The year 1973 was the seven-hundredth anniversary of the death of a spiritual

teacher who has been regarded, by some of the most competent to judge, as the

greatest mystical poet of the Islamic tradition. Those who imagine that such a

figure could only live and create his literary masterpieces when conditions were

particularly favourable could hardly be more wrong. Jalal ud-Din Rumi lived in

one of the most troubled times in human history. Before his childhood was over,

he and his family had to leave his homeland of Khorasan, in what is now

Afghanistan, as political fugitives, and the whole of his life was lived against

a background of insecurity and danger.

 

Rumi was born in a town called Balkh which is due south from Samarkand. And

throughout his life he never left the area set midway between Europe and Asia

which stretches from the north-west of India, westwards to the great countries

of the early Arab empire - Persia, Iraq and what is now Saudi Arabia, and

northwards to Turkey and the borders of Russia and Armenia. He was born to the

east of this region on the 30th September 1207, less than two years before the

Mongol army under Genghis Khan first launched their attack against China in AD

1209.

 

[NOTE: Samarkand, the capital of Tamerlane, is situated in the valley of the

river Zarafshan. It is the second largest city of Uzbekistan and is of the same

age as the city of Babylon or Rome. The history of Samarkand is about 2,500

years old and has witnessed a lot of upheavals during the times of Alexander the

Great, the Arabic Conquest, Genghis-Khan Conquest and lastly Tamerlane's. Hence,

the culture of Samarkand was developed and mixed together with the Iranian,

Indian, Mongolian and a bit of the Western and Eastern cultures. Majestic and

beautiful city Samarkand has a marvelous and attractive power. Poets and

historians of the past called it " Rome of the East, The beauty of sublunary

countries, The pearl of the Eastern Moslem World " . Its advantageous geographical

position in Zarafshan valley put Samarkand to the first place among cities of

the Central Asia. " END NOTE]

 

http://www.advantour.com/uzbekistan/samarkand.htm

 

Rumi's family claimed descent through his father from Abu Bakr, foremost of the

followers of the Prophet, who subsequently became the first Caliph of Islam. The

elderly Abu Bakr, a man of indomitable spirit and saintly purity of faith, was

originally a rich man, but had given all that he possessed to his Teacher,

Mohammed, and had served him with unswerving loyalty. The Prophet, during his

life, never touched on the succession, but in his last illness when he could no

longer read the prayer as Imam, he appointed Abu Bakr as Imam in his place. When

Mohammed died there was great consternation among his followers. Umar, who

subsequently became the second Caliph and was a great warrior of Islam, refused

to believe that Mohammed was dead. He insisted that the Prophet could not really

have left them, and that he was only in a swoon. It was then that the wise old

Abu Bakr went to the people gathered there, and said: 'Whose worshippeth

Mohammed, let him know that Mohammed is dead. But whoso worshippeth God, let him

know that God liveth and dieth not.'

 

This was the towering spiritual figure in Islam from whom Rumi's family was

descended, and in his later writings there are many references to Abu Bakr, who

obtained the honorific title from the Prophet of 'the Siddiq'.

 

Companionship with the fortunate is like the Elixir (which changes base metals

into gold). Indeed, how is an Elixir to be compared with their looks of favour?

The eye of Ahmad (Mohammed) was cast upon an Abu Bakr: he by a single act of

faith became a Siddiq. (Mathnavi, I. 2687-8.)

 

In another passage, in reference to Abu Bakr's munificence to Mohammed, he

wrote:

 

Every prophet has said in sincerity to his people: 'I ask not from you the wages

for my message. I am only a guide; God is your purchaser: God has appointed me

to act as broker on both sides. What are the wages of my work? The sight of the

Friend (God) even though Abu Bakr give me forty thousand dirhems. My wages are

not his forty thousand dirhems: how should glass beads be like the pearls of

Aden?' (Mathnave, II. 574-7.)

 

Khorasan was recognised as an important centre of Islamic thought, and both

Rumi's grandfather and father, Baha un-Din Valad, had long been widely esteemed

there as noted scholars and theologians. The latter's book of sermons and

meditations, called Ma'arif (gnoses), which is known to have greatly influenced

his son, has recently been published. He particularly followed the teachings of

the Sufi poet al-Ghazzali, brother of the philosopher, who had died about a

century earlier.

 

In the year before Rumi's birth, Khorasan was captured by the powerful and

ambitious Khvarizmshah, who went on to conquer most of Persia and Afghanistan.

The new ruler came under the influence of a noted scholar of orthodox Islam,

Fakhr ud-Din ur-Razi. Razi, who was in his late fifties, was a strong opponent

of the thought of al-Ghazzali, and a champion of Sunni orthodoxy, both in his

speaking and in his numerous and voluminous writings. It was largely due to the

opposition of this influential figure that Khvarizmshah turned against the

Sufis. He even had a prominent member of the Sufi circle, to which Rumi's father

belonged, drowned in the river Oxus. Fakhr ud-Din died in 1210, three years

after Rumi was born, so that he never knew him personally, but his influence was

a major factor in the fall from grace of Rumi's family. In Jalal ud-Din's later

writings there are several references to Fakhr ud-Din, and he became for Rumi

the prototype of the orthodox intellectual who knows how to discuss spiritual

questions, but has no practical knowledge of what he is talking about.

 

For instance, in the Mathnavi, he says:

 

If the intellect could discern the true way in this question (of spiritual

truth) Fakhr-i-Razi would be an adept in religious mysteries. But since he was

an example of the saying that whoso has not tasted does not know, intelligence

and imaginations only increased his perplexity. (Mathnavi, V. 4144-5.)

 

Elsewhere in the Mathnavi Rumi tells the fable of the lion who was terrorising

the animals, demanding that they supply him with a regular sacrificial victim

from among their number. The tyrant lion is discomfited by the cunning of a hare

whose turn comes to be the victim. He persuades the lion that there has appeared

on the scene a rival lion, who is going to deprive him of his sovereignty and

his food supply. And he promises to take him to where his rival is, so that the

lion can vanquish him, and either kill him or drive him away. The hare takes the

lion to a well and makes him look down. The lion sees his reflection, and jumps

in to attack his supposed rival and is caught in the well. At this point the

poem comments:

 

The hare lodged the lion in prison. Shame on a lion who was discomfited by a

hare! He is in such disgrace and still - this is a wonder - he would fain be

addressed by the title Fakhr-i-Din. O thou lion that liest at the bottom of this

lonely well, thy hare-like soul has shed and drunk thy blood. Thy hare-soul is

feeding in the desert, whilst thou art lying at the bottom of this well of

'How?' and 'Why?' That lion-catcher, the hare, ran towards the beasts, crying:

'Rejoice, O people, since the announcer of joy is come. Glad news! Glad news, O

company of merry-makers! That hell-hound has gone back to Hell. Glad news! The

enemy of your lives - his teeth have been torn out by the vengeance of his

Creator. He who smote many heads with his claws - him too the broom of Death has

swept away like rubbish.' (Mathnavi, I. 1349-1356.)

 

In the phrase that he uses about the lion - 'He is in such disgrace and still,

this is a wonder, he would fain be addressed by the title Fakhr-i-Din' - Rumi is

playing on the name which means literally 'Pride of the Religion (of Islam)'.

This too is another, hardly veiled, reference to Fakhr ur-Razi.

 

Very early in his life, then, Rumi experienced the natural antipathy of the

worldly-wise to the spiritual truth; and he associated this attitude

particularly with the Scribes and Pharisees of Islam, with the intellectuals who

rely on their own intellect for understanding. Wisdom and individual

self-interest, however camouflaged, are incompatible. The way of spiritual

enlightenment is by the dethroning of the ego. Many passages in Rumi's writing

make this point.

 

Go therefore, be silent in submission beneath the shade of the command of the

Shaykh and Master. Otherwise, though thou art predisposed and capable, thou wilt

become deformed through boasting of thy perfection. Thou wilt be deprived even

of thy good predisposition, if thou rebel against the Master of the mystery who

is endowed with knowledge...Thou strivest much, and at last even thou thyself

sayest in weariness that the intellect is a fetter, like the philosopher who on

the day of his death perceived his intellect to be very poor and feeble, and in

that hour disinterestedly confessed the truth, saying: 'Impelled by acuteness of

mind we galloped in vain; in delusion we drew scornfully away from the holy men;

we swam in the sea of phantasy.' In the spiritual Sea swimming is of no avail;

here is no resource but the ark of Noah. (Mathnavi, IV. 3348-3357.)

 

The persecution of the Sufis under Khvarizmshah continued and in 1219, when the

young Jalal ud-Din was twelve years old, the family had to flee from Balkh. This

was a blessing conferred on him by divine Providence, for in doing so they just

escaped from the complete destruction of the city in the following year, when

the Mongol armies under Genghis Khan stormed down from the north-east and

ravaged the city. An eye-witness said of this:

 

It was in the year 1220 that the God-forsaken army of the Tartar infidels, may

God forsake and destroy them, gained the mastery over those territories. The

confusion and slaughter, the devastation and conflagration that followed at the

hands of those accursed creatures was such as had never before been witnessed in

any age, whether in the lands of heathendom or Islam. How could slaughter ever

be vaster than this that they wrought from the gates of Turkistan to the gates

of Syria and Rum, wherein they laid waste so many cities and provinces, so that

in one city alone - Raiy, where I myself was born and brought up - it has been

estimated that 700,000 mortals were slain or made captive.

 

By being driven out of Balkh in disfavour, Jalal ud-Din and his father escaped

this fate by barely a year. Well could he say in later life: 'Show me the evil

things in this world wherein no good is contained, and the good things wherein

no evil is contained!' 'So all things though appearing opposite in relation to

their opposites, in relation to the wise man are all performing the same work

and are not opposed.' He goes on to say:

 

This is the substance of our quarrel with the Magians - they say that there are

two Gods: one the Creator of Good and one the Creator of Evil. Now show me the

good without the evil, that I may acknowledge that there is a God of Evil and a

God of Good. This is impossible, for good does not exist apart from evil and

vice-versa. Since good and evil are not two, and there is no separation between

them, therefore it is impossible that there should be two creators.

 

Leaving Balkh, the family made its way westward to Nishapur, just over the

border of Afghanistan into Persia. There they visited the great poet and mystic

Farid ud-Din Attar, who was already an old man. It is said that Attar recognised

in the young Jalal ud-Din the signs of spiritual greatness and that he gave him

a copy of his Asrar-nama (The Book of Secrets), a long poem dealing with the

mystical life, which Rumi studied deeply and from which he quoted with delight

in later years.

 

The fugitives did not stop at Nishapur (another town soon to be decimated by the

armies of Genghis Khan), but pressed on westwards across Persia to the capital

of the Arab empire, Baghdad, to the north of the Persian Gulf in what is now

Iraq. They were putting a safe distance between themselves and the advance of

the Mongol army, which did not reach Baghdad until thirty-eight years later.

Baghdad was captured in 1258 by Hulagu Khan and the ruling Caliph of the Arab

empire was executed. After that, the western provinces of the Arab empire,

although they escaped actual invasion, were simply vassals of the Mongol

emperors. But in 1219, when Rumi's family arrived in Baghdad, they stayed for

only three days, and then turned southwards to make the pilgrimage to Mecca,

which it is the duty of every Mohammedan to make once in his lifetime. Mecca

lies about half-way down the Arabian peninsula near to the Red Sea. Having

carried out this spiritual obligation, they turned north-westwards again, still

looking for somewhere to settle. It is said that they spent a year or two in a

province of Armenia in what would now be that part of Russia immediately to the

east of Turkey, but it cannot have been more than four years at the outside,

because by 1225 they had moved on to the small Turkish town of Laranda, which is

some thirty-five miles to the south-east of Konia, the ancient city of Iconium,

made famous by its association with St. Paul.

 

In Laranda Rumi's father arranged a marriage between his son, Jalal ud-Din, now

eighteen years old, and the daughter of one Lala of Samarkand. A year later in

1226 a son was born to them who, as Sultan Valad, was in later life to write a

spiritual biography of his father, and to collect his scattered discourses after

his death. While they were living in Laranda, Jalal ud-Din's father, who had

been a noted scholar in his native town of Balkh, was invited by the Saljuq

ruler of the province to move to the nearby capital of Konia, where he was given

a post as a preacher and teacher. He held this for four years until his death in

1230. Konia was the capital of the Turkish Saljuqs of Rum, situated some 5,000

feet above sea-level and crowned by a new royal palace and citadel. According to

the Arab tradition it is the place where Plato was buried. It was a thriving,

up-and-coming city, and a great mosque had been completed there only in 1220

just before Rumi's family arrived. The official position given to Rumi's father

was an important one, and involved preaching to the ruler and teaching some of

the local notables. He was much honoured and respected during his four brief

years there.

 

What seems extraordinary to us now is that after Baha ud-Din's death Jalal

ud-Din was invited to take over his father's position, though he was only

twenty-four years old at the time. He must have already been an impressive

scholar even at this age, and of course 'scholar' in the Arab tradition means a

theologian - an expert exponent of the traditions of the Prophet, the Koran and

the Law. Nonetheless, Jalal ud-Din still had much to learn. He was fortunate in

that a year after his father's death, one of his old teachers from Balkh arrived

and guided his further studies, initiating him, among other things, into the

meetings of the Sufis. In his company Jalal ud-Din later left Konia, and

travelled to further his knowledge to Syria, studying at Aleppo and Damascus for

seven years. The name of this elderly teacher was Burhan ud-Din, and Rumi speaks

of him with obvious respect and reverence in the discourses that he has left.

 

After this period Jalal ud-Din returned, and from 1240 to 1244 taught and

preached in Konia, as a traditional Islamic scholar and theologian. He had a

considerable reputation, but there was nothing to suggest that he would be a

poet, still less a great poet. He no doubt prepared himself for writing learned

commentaries on the Koran, or collecting the Traditions of the Prophet as did

most of the orthodox theologians of the time. Then suddenly in 1244, when he was

already thirty-seven years old, something quite extraordinary happened to him.

 

Jalal ud-Din, hitherto a conventional and highly-respected figure of the

Establishment, Professor at four of the colleges in the city, was one day riding

through the town on a mule, accompanied by a crowd of his students and some of

the congregation who had just been listening to him lecturing in the sacred

college or Madrassa. They passed in front of an inn at the gate of which sat a

wild-looking dervish, dressed in a tattered cloak of coarse black felt and a

peculiar looking hat. As Jalal ud-Din approached the dervish got up, came

forward and caught hold of the bridle of Jalal ud-Din and said: 'O exchanger of

the small change of learned meanings! You who know the names of the Lord! Tell

me, was Mohammed the greater servant of God, or Bayazid of Bestam? (Bayazid was

another great figure in Islamic history - one of the Sufi saints). One can

imagine that Jalal ud-Din was somewhat relieved that he was only being asked a

question, and rather a simple question at that. He replied: 'Mohammed was

incomparably the greater - the greatest of all prophets and saints.' And no

doubt he expected to have his answer approved by all his pupils and followers

there. 'Then how is it', asked the dervish, 'that Mohammed said, " We have not

known " , whereas Bayazid said, " Glory unto Me, how very great is My glory! " ?

 

The impact of these words on Jalal ud-Din was so great that he is said to have

fainted away. Why? Who was this extraordinary figure? We know very little about

him, except that he was a dervish called Shams ud-Din, and that he was a native

of Tabriz in northern Persia. At the time nothing could have seemed stranger or

more improbable than the impact of this meeting between the conventional and

successful scholar, surrounded by his followers, and the wild unorthodox

wandering dervish who owned nothing and had come alone. But Shams-i-Tabriz was a

spiritually enlightened man who knew as a matter of direct personal experience

that spiritual wisdom of which he, Jalal-ud-Din, had only spoken theoretically.

 

It is said in spiritual circles that the Teacher only comes when the disciple is

ready. Aflaki, the historian of the Sufis, tells us that Jalal ud-Din had in

fact already encountered Shams-i-Tabriz many years before when he was a student

in Damascus, but that he had turned away from this extraordinary figure, and

then paid no more attention to him. But now at the age of thirty-seven he

recognised in Shams-i-Tabriz a perfect Man of God, and he at once accepted him

as his spiritual Teacher (Pir).

 

This encounter changed the whole course of Jalal ud-Din's life. He gave up his

formal teaching at the religious college and returned to his home where he

installed his Pir and became his spiritual pupil. For a year or two they

remained inseparable, and Rumi withdrew entirely from his life in the world in

Konia. This was very much resented by many students of Rumi's at the college,

who were so annoyed that they began to abuse Shams-i-Tabriz and even to threaten

violence against him. Their enmity became so intense that the Teacher eventually

disappeared. Rumi was distraught and grief-stricken, so much so that he sent his

son, Sultan Valad, who was then nearly twenty, to find his Teacher and bring him

back again. He was discovered in Damascus and persuaded to return. The college

students of Rumi were said to have repented. Rumi forgave them, his Pir was

reinstalled and a new regime began. But very soon their jealousy and resentment

burst out again, and the Teacher disappeared for a second time, again going to

Damascus. Again Rumi sent his son and persuaded him to return. Then somewhere

about 1247, only three years after his meeting with Rumi, the dervish

disappeared altogether. We have no record of what happened, although there is a

tradition that he was secretly assassinated by his opponents in Konia.

 

The three years spent at the feet of his Pir transformed Rumi from a

conventional worldly scholar and theologian into the greatest of mystical poets.

Something of the quality of ecstatic inspiration evoked in Jalal ud-Din by his

encounter with Shams-i-Tabriz is expressed in the following passage from the

Mathnavi. It begins as a description of the intoxication of divine love, in

terms which would surely have seemed very familiar to St. John of the Cross.

There is a play with the meanings of the names 'Shams' which also means 'the

sun', and at the end of the passage he names the spiritual Sun openly as the Sun

of Tabriz:

 

Being in love is made manifest by soreness of heart: there is no sickness like

heart-sickness. The lover's lament is separate from all other ailments: love is

the astrolabe of the mysteries of God. Whether love be from this earthly side,

or from that heavenly side, in the end it leads us yonder. Whatever I say in

exposition and explanation of Love, when I come to Love itself I am ashamed of

that explanation. Although the commentary of the tongue makes all clear, yet

tongueless love is clearer. Whilst the pen was making haste in writing, it split

upon itself as soon as it came to Love. In expounding Love the intellect lay

down helplessly like an ass in the mire: it was Love alone that uttered the

explanation of love and loverhood. The proof of the sun is the sun himself: if

thou require proof do not avert thy face from him! If the shadow gives an

indication of him, the sun himself gives spiritual light every moment. The

shadow, like chat in the night-hours, brings sleep to thee; when the sun rises

the moon is cloven asunder. There is nothing in the world so wondrous strange as

the sun, but the Sun of the spirit is everlasting: it hath no yesterday.

Although the external sun is unique, still it is possible to examine one

resembling it; the spiritual Sun, which is beyond the ether, hath no peer in the

mind or externally. Where is room in the imagination for His essence, that the

like of Him should come into the imagination?

 

When news arrived of the face of Shams ud-Din (the Sun of Religion), the sun of

the fourth heaven drew in its head and hid itself for shame. Since his name has

come to my lips, it behoves me to set forth some hint of his bounty. At this

moment my soul has plucked my shirt; he has caught the perfume of Joseph's vest.

He said: 'For the sake of our years of companionship, recount one of those sweet

ecstasies, that earth and heaven may laugh with joy, that intellect and spirit

and eye may increase a hundredfold'. I said: 'Do not lay tasks on me, for I have

passed away from myself; my apprehensions are blunted and I know not how to

praise. Everything that is said by one who has not returned to consciousness, if

he constrains himself or boastfully exaggerates, is unseemly. How should I - not

a vein of mine is sensible - describe the Friend who hath no peer? The

description of this severance and this heart's blood, do thou at present leave

over until another time.'

 

He said: 'Feed me, for I am hungry, and make haste, for Time is a cutting sword.

The Sufi is the son of the present time, O comrade: it is not the rule of the

Way to say " Tomorrow " . Art thou not indeed a Sufi, then? That which is in hand

is reduced to naught by postponing the payment.'

 

I said to him: 'It is better that the secret of the Friend should be disguised:

do thou hearken to it as implied in the contents of the tale. It is better that

the lovers' secret should be told in the talk of others.'

 

He said: 'Tell it forth openly and nakedly, and without unfaithfulness: do not

put me off, O trifler! Lift the veil and speak nakedly, for I do not wear a

shirt when I sleep with the Adored One.'

 

I said: 'If He should become naked in (thy) vision, neither wilt thou remain nor

thy bosom nor thy waist. Ask thy wish, but ask with measure: a blade of straw

will not support the mountain. If the Sun, by whom this world is illumined,

should approach a little nearer, all will be burned. Do not seek trouble and

turmoil and bloodshed: say no more concerning the Sun of Tabriz! This mystery

hath no end.' (Mathnavi, I. 109-143)

 

Freedom through Self-Realisation

A.M. Halliday

A Shanti Sadan Publication - London

ISBN 0-85424-040-3

Pgs. 137-149