final celebrations for the 'year of rumi'sufism.critstudies.calarts.edu/final celebrations...
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Final celebrations for the "Year of Rumi"LISTEN | PRINTBY JOHN RICKMAN DEC 18, 2007 IN ENTERTAINMENT
The year 2007 has been marked by a world wide celebration of the 800th birthdayof the poet Rumi. Iran's series of celebrations will finish with the celebrationentitled “500 Days with Molana” on Dec. 19 at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall.
A series of lectures by distinguished scholars is planned featuring such renoundscholars as Ahmad Jalali (Iran’s former UNESCO ambassador in Paris) andGholamreza Avani (Head of the Wisdom and Philosophy Institute). The celebrationwill also feature music concerts, televisions programs and a theater performanceabout Rumi which has recently been staged in Paris.
Earlier this year the United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization declared 2007 "The Year of Rumi" and celebrations have been heldworld wide and currently there are still events in honor of Rumi to be held in suchcountries as Germany, France, Australia and Russia. A movie entitled "RumiReturning" premiered to sold out audiences at the Santa Fe Film Festival onDecember 13th.
An international Rumi-mania has inspired rock bands, high fashion, moderndance, and opera. The 13th century Persian is currently the best-selling poet in theUS, outselling such US born writers as Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and RobertFrost
So who is Rumi? Born Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī in 1207 in the cityof Balk Persian ruled Afghanistan Rumi came from a family of famous scholars,jurists and teachers and claimed descent from Abu Bakr. Both Rumi’s father andgrandfather were renowned intellectuals and his father was so widely acclaimedthat he bore the title Sultan-ul-‘Ulama “King of Scholars. Rumi was a worthysuccessor to this heritage and showed great promise at a very early age.
The story is told that Rumi’s father, who had made a dramatic speech in the GreatMosque of Balkh attended by the king and the local people, predicted the comingof the Mongols and the destruction of the city He then packed up his family andfled to Anatolia (modern Turkey) ahead of the invading armies. On the road thefamily met Farid al-Din Attar, one of the most famous mystic poets in Persianhistory and author of the Conference of the Birds, a story that is still famous in theWest.
The great mystic saw Rumi’s eminent father walking in front of his teenaged sonand exclaimed “Here comes a sea followed by an ocean.” One wonders if the oldmystic had any idea of just how prophetic his remark was for the young man hewas greeting was destined to write more than 3,500 odes, 2,000 quatrains inaddition to the monumental six volume Masnavi-ye Manavi (Spiritual Couplets)
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regarded by Sufis as only slightly less important than the Qur’an itself in spiritualmatters. Before they parted Attar gave Rumi a copy of his book Asrarnama aphilosophical work which was to have a great influence on the young man’sspiritual development.
While it might seem a great coincidence for such celebrated scholars to meet byaccident on the road it must be remembered that the 13th century of the CommonEra was a time of great turmoil in the Middle East. Not only were the Mongols agathering storm in the East but dynastic struggles and border wars wracked thewhole area, staining the map with internecine bloodshed pitting Muslim againstMuslim and weakening the fabric of Islamic society in the face of the growingthreat. In 1212 the fabled city of Samarkand fell to the armies of Khwarizm andthere is evidence that Rumi, who was no more than five at the time, had beenpresent at the time of the siege.
In the West, the Crusaders were still active, though a waning threat to Islam but in1204 they managed what Muslim warriors had not yet archived and sacked theChristian city of Constantinople, causing many Orthodox Christian scholars to fleeto Islamic countries to avoid persecution by the Roman Catholics. Wherever onelooked there was war and the rumor of war and the roads were filled with refugees,many of them scholars looking for a quite corner to pursue their studies.
Bayt al-Hikma-- “The house of wisdom”
Many found work in Baghdad the Bayt al-Hikma or “house of wisdom” one of thelargest, most well stocked libraries in the world. Its mission was not to simplywarehouse books but to translate and disseminate knowledge from a wide varietyof sources. Originally charged with translating Persian manuscripts into Arabic itsoon added the translation and persevering of ancient Greek and Roman works aswell as offering refuge to scholars persecuted fleeing war or persecution regardlessof religion or national origin. In this great bastion of learning Muslims, Christians,Jews, Zoroastrians, men and women worked side by side in the service ofknowledge united by the honored title of scholar.
Rumi and his father were both scholars in the House of Wisdom before movingonce again this time to the city of Konya in the north of modern Turkey. Rumi’sfather set up a madrassa or school, which immediately began to attract a largegroup of students but died soon after leaving the then 23 year old Rumi in charge.Although ostensibly the head of the school Rumi continued his religious trainingunder the tutelage of one of his father’s most learned disciples for the next nineyears until the death of his teacher left him in true command of the school.
Rumi was well known for his love, compassion and tolerance. It was virtuallyimpossible to provoke him and he cared little for petty differences in creed. He waseven kind and considerate towards his enemies. Famed as a teacher as well as apoet he assembled about him a devoted cadre of students who gathered to hearhim teach his philosophy of love and toleration.
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One day as Rumi sat in his madrassa in deep meditation, surrounded by his
students, a drunk staggered in off the street shouting. Stumbling he fell on top of
Rumi who did not seem to notice. As a body Rumi’s students rose in wrath and
there is no telling what they would have done to the offending man but the master
waved his hand and silence descended on the room. Smiling, and in a gentle voice
he said: “I had thought that the intruder was drunk but now I see that it is my own
disciples who are drunk.”
So great was Rumi’s fame by this time that kings and princes vied for a place in his
company and many were welcomed but he preferred to spend most of his time in
the market place discussing mystical love with its denizens and his followers
included merchants, butchers, bakers, tailors, carpenters, painters, goldsmiths,
and prostitutes. It is said that it was the rhythmical tapping of the hammer of
Rumi’s friend Salah al-Din Zerkub, a goldsmith that established the cadence of
Rumi’s ecstatic dance.
Rumi dancing
One of the major appeals of Rumi’s philosophy was its latitudinarian approach to
religion believing that God cares more about the moral state of a person’s soul
than in the finer points of dogma. Rumi, and the order founded by his followers
appealed directly to the religious sensitivity of common people by means of music,
dance, poetry, and the use of the vernacular language of their converts. This was in
strong contrast to the stuffy legalistic wrangling of the Ulema, the community of
legal scholars of Islam and the Sharia and was instrumental in the wholesale
conversion of many Central Asian Steppe Nomads such as the Seljuqs and,
eventually, even the dreaded Mongols themselves.
When Rumi’s light passed from the world, at sunset on December 17, 1273 CE and
his body was placed on the litter a crowd Muslims drawn from the great and
humble alike gathered and, weeping marched in procession to the cemetery. To
their surprise they were joined on the way by crowds of people of every
description, Christians, Jews, Greeks, Arabs, Turks in solemn convocation, each
group bearing their sacred scriptures before them, singing Psalms or reciting
verses from the Gospels or the Pentateuch, crying in lamentation each according
to their customs.
A disturbance arose and the sultan, summoning the chief religious leaders of each
group before him, demanded that they explain what possible connection they
could have with this funeral. They replied:" In seeing him we have comprehended
the true nature of Christ, of Moses, and of all the prophets. . .such as we have read
about in our books. If you Muslims say that our Master [Rumi] is the Muhammad of
his period, we recognize him similarly as the Moses and Jesus of our times. Just as
you are his sincere friends, we also are one thousand times over his servants and
disciples.”
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One Greek priest spoke for all the men and women who have basked in the beautyof Rumi’s poetry and his message of love down through the centuries: "Our Masteris much like unto bread which is indispensable to all the world. Has a hungry manever been seen to flee from bread ?”
Rumi's tomb in Konya
Rumi’s impact on the art and philosophy of Central Asia, and most Islamiccountries, is almost too great to measure. In the West, Rembrandt was inspired todraw him and Dante, Fredrick Hegel, Goethe and Gandhi have all paid tribute tohis genius and his message. Pope John XXIII in a special tribute declared “In thename of the Catholic world, I bow with respect before the memory of Mevlana.”
Today, many consider Rumi to be the “poet of all nations” and a search of thelistings under his name on Amazon.com, will reveal more than 14 pagescontaining 8,915 books either by or about the great Iranian mystic. In the modernworld of cultural ignorance, violence and warmongering, Rumi's life work is a callto turn one’s back on hatred and revenge.
Some poems by Rumi:
Love’s nationality is separate from all other religions,
The lover’s religion and nationality is the Beloved (God).
The lover’s cause is separate from all other causes
Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries.
Terrible destruction dances and the world’s days darken.
If you want Supreme Reality, hide form fame.
You’re looking for the Pearl? Plunge, now to the sea’s bottom.
What is on shore is only foam.
Come, come, come again,
Whoever you may be,
Come again, even though
Yu may be a pagan or fire worshipper.
Our hearth is not the threshold of despair.
Come again, even if you may have
Violated your vows a hundred times,
Come again
"The lamps are different, but the light is the same."
----------------
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