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To The Memory of Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has designated 2007 as the Year of Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi to mark the prominent Iranian poet’s 800th birth anniversary. Special ceremonies are going to be held in different countries. Among these countries Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan will have the greatest parts in holding the anniversary.

To The Memory of Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rum

Who is Mevlana?

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the Persian Sufi poet and Mystic was born in Balkh - in the north-eastern provinces of Persia, present day Afghanistan – 800 years ago. He is also known as “Mevlana”(1) and “Molavi”.
He was the son of Baha'u-'d-Din(2), who decided to leave Balkh when Rumi was about 5. The family traveled to Baghdad, to Mecca on pilgrimage, and to Damascus. They eventually settled at Konya (in Turkey).
In Konya, Mevlana lived the rest of his life.

How Mevlana became “Mevlana”?

Jalal al-Din was about 37 when Shams(3) entered Konya. Shams, a wandering dervish, became Mevlana’s mentor.
Mevlana was deeply touched by Shams’ thoughts. He, who was a teacher of religion and a highly attained mystic before, became an inspired poet and a great lover of humanity after meeting Shams.

Death

The poet passed away at sunset of 5th Jamadi-u-'l-Akhar 672 A.H. at the age of 68. Konya was all in black. Even Christians and Jewish people of the city mourned for him.
Rumi was buried beside his father in Konya, Turkey. A tomb was built for the great Sufi poet and remains a sacred site that is visited by visitors from every part of the world, from all walks of life.

Works

- Rumi’s major work is Masnavi-ye Manavi (Spiritual Couplets), a six-volume poem regarded by many Sufis as second in importance only to the Qur'an. In fact, the Masnavi is often called the "Qur'an-e Parsi" (The Persian Qur'an).
It is consist of 206,000 verses.
- Rumi’s other major work is the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i (The Works of Shams of Tabriz - named in honor of Rumi’s great friend and inspiration), comprising some 50,000 verses of love.
- Fihi Ma Fih (In It What's in It) is composed of Rumi’s speeches on different subjects.
- Majalis-i Sab'a (Seven Sessions) contains seven sermons (as the name implies) given in seven different assemblies.
- Robai’yat (the couplets) is consist of some love couplets.
- Makateb (the written pieces) is composed of Rumi’s letters to the commanders, writers and tradesmen.

Modern Man and the Message of Rumi

Morality is lost in the life of today’s man. Mevlana is one of the few great men of literature and meditation, who have invited people to live a moral life in all of their works. Rumi never called himself a poet. He preferred to be known as a man who used the device of poetry to convey his message.
What Mevlana said 800 years ago is still new to the man of 21st century. This is why his works are still being translated to different languages and people in almost every part of the world read and know his works.

Rumi’s 800th Birth Anniversary

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has designated 2007 as the Year of Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi to mark the prominent Iranian poet’s 800th birth anniversary.
Special ceremonies are going to be held in different countries. Among these countries Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan will have the greatest parts in holding the anniversary.
7sang e-magazine, as one of the most active Persian e-zines, is honored to have a role in this commemoration. With the aim of introducing Mevlana, 7sang has published a special issue about him. Most parts of this issue are in Farsi and there are several articles in English. Furthermore, 7sang’s podcast about Mevlana is now available, consists of some sound files about Rumi.

If you want to know more about Jalal al-Din Rumi, you can also visit these websites:

www.rumionfire.com
www.dar-al-masnavi.org
www.rumi.org.uk

(1) Pronounces as “Mowlana” is Farsi.
(2) Baha'u-'d-Din Veled Sultan-'l-Ulema
(3) Shams-e-Din Muhammad Ibn Malik-dad Tabrizi

Let’s Read Rumi in English

If you want to know more about Jalal al-Din Rumi and you don’t know Farsi, don’t worry! Here is a short list of some books about him, all in English.
God bless amazon.com!

Let’s Read Rumi in English

If you want to know more about Jalal al-Din Rumi and you don’t know Farsi, don’t worry! Here is a short list of some books about him, all in English.
God bless amazon.com!

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● Essential Rumi
by Jalal al-Din Rumi (Author), Et Al Coleman Barks (Translator)

According to amazon.com, no translator could do greater justice to the gorgeous simplicity of Rumi's poetry than Coleman Barks has done here. These exquisite renderings of the 13th-century Persian mystic's words into American free verse capture all the "inner searching, the delicacy, and simple groundedness" that characterize Rumi's poetry while remaining faithful to the images, tone, and spiritual message of the originals. Barks's introductions to each of the 27 sections (described as "playful palimpsests spread over Rumi's imagination," and "meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories") are themselves wonderful achievements of a poetic imagination; searching explanations of unfamiliar concepts and funny stories provide colorful background and frame the selections as no dry historical exegesis could.

While Barks's stamp on this collection is clear, it in no way interferes with the poems themselves; Rumi's voice leaps off these pages with an ecstatic energy that leaves readers breathless. There are poems of love, rage, sadness, pleading, and longing; passionate outbursts about the torture of longing for his beloved and the sweet pleasure that comes from their union; amusing stories of sexual exploits or human weakness; and quiet truths about the beauty and variety of human emotion. More than anything, Rumi makes plain the unbridled joy that comes from living life fully, urging us always to put aside our fears and take the risk to do so. As he says: "The way of love is not / a subtle argument. / The door there is devastation. / Birds make great sky-circles / of their freedom. / How do they learn it? / They fall, and falling, / they're given wings." --Uma Kukathas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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● Jewels of Remembrance: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance Containing 365 Selections from the Wisdom of Mevlana Jalaluddin
by Camille Adams Helminski, Kabir Helminski

Jewels of Remembrance presents 365 concise selections from Rumi's Mathnawi, one of the world's greatest spiritual masterpieces, in a translation that touches the heart and mind. In these passages Rumi explores and celebrates the qualities of truth, beauty, generosity, forgiveness, strength, compassion, purity, gratitude, and patience—always patience, for as Rumi says, "Patience is the key to joy."
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● The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
by Kabir Helminski

A wonderfully rich introduction to the work of the great mystical poet, featuring the leading literary translations of his verse. Translators include Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, Andrew Harvey, Kabir and Camille Helminski, Daniel Liebert, and Peter Lamborn Wilson. The Rumi Collection also includes a biography of Rumi by Andrew Harvey, as well as an introductory essay by Kabir Helminski on the challenges of translating Rumi into English.

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● The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
by Coleman Barks (Author)

When Rumi was born in Afghanistan in 1207, it was a time of tremendous political turmoil in the Near East. Paradoxically, it was also a time of "brilliant mystical awareness," writes translator Coleman Barks in The Soul of Rumi. This brilliance shines through in every passage, as Barks celebrates the ecstatic nature of Rumi's poetry. Barks (The Essential Rumi) has been given much credit for leading modern Westerners to this astounding poet.

His sensitivity to the reader is evidenced in how he organizes the poetry according to themes. Since Rumi is often quoted at public gatherings, such as weddings and memorial services, this makes referencing especially easy. In the section entitled "When Friend Meets Friend," readers find the poem "The Soul's Friend":
The most living moment comes when those who love each other meet each other's eyes and in what flows between them then. To see your face in a crowd of others, or alone on a frightening street, I weep for that….
Barks offers a gracefully rendered introduction to each section, providing personal and historical background of the poetry. Elegantly designed and printed on cream-colored, heavy-stock paper, this is a delight for Rumi fans. --Gail Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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● The Illuminated Rumi
by Michael Green (Contributor), Jalal Al-Din Rumi (Author), Coleman Barks (Translator)

Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings...

In the mid-thirteenth century, in a dusty marketplace in Konya, Turkey, a city where Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist travelers mingled, Jelaluddin Rumi, a popular philosopher and scholar, met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish. Their meeting forever altered the course of Rumi's life and influenced the mystical evolution of the planet. The bond they formed was everlasting--a powerful transcendent friendship that would flow through Rumi as some of the world's best-loved ecstatic poetry.
Rumi's passionate, playful poems find and celebrate sacred life in everyday existence. They speak across all traditions, to all peoples, and today his relevance and popularity continue to grow. In The Illuminated Rumi, Coleman Barks, widely regarded as the world's premier translator of Rumi's writings, presents some of his most brilliant work, including many new translations. To complement Rumi's universal vision, Michael Green has worked the ancient art of illumination into a new, visually stunning form that joins typography, original art, old masters, photographs, and prints with sacred images from around the world.
The Illuminated Rumi is a truly groundbreaking collaboration that interweaves word and image: a magnificent meeting of ancient tradition and modern interpretation that uniquely captures the spiritual wealth of Rumi's teachings. Coleman Barks's wise and witty commentary, together with Michael Green's art, makes this a classic guide to the life of the soul for a whole new generation of seekers.
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● Selected Poems of Rumi
by Jalalu'l-Din Rumi (Author)

Over 100 of Rumi’s finest lyrics, including "The Marriage of True Minds," "The Children of Light," "The Man Who Looked Back on His Way to Hell," "The Ascending Soul," "The Pear-Tree of Illusion," "The Riddles of God," and many more. "In some of these poems," says A. J. Arberry in the Introduction, "the mystic’s passion is so exuberant, his imagination so overflowing, that we catch glimpses of the very madness of Divine experience." Translated by R. A. Nicholson.

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- All Book Descriptions and Reviews are taken from http://www.amazon.com/

Mathnavi-e Maanavi

Mathnavi or Mathnavi-e Maanavi is the best known work of Rumi consisting of 24,660 couplets in seven books. Rumi himself defined his work as a work of destruction, destruction of the worldly for the sake of embracing the Divine. He warns the reader in advance to be prepared to let go of everything.

Mathnavi or Mathnavi-e
Abridged and Translated by E.H. Whinfield

Mathnavi or Mathnavi-e Maanavi is the best known work of Rumi consisting of 24,660 couplets in seven books. Rumi himself defined his work as a work of destruction, destruction of the worldly for the sake of embracing the Divine. He warns the reader in advance to be prepared to let go of everything.

Story From Mathnavi or Mathnavi-e
The Lion and the Beasts.

In the book of Kalila and Damna a story is told of a lion who held all the beasts of the neighborhood in subjection, and was in the habit of making constant raids upon them, to take and kill such of them as he required for his daily food. At last the beasts took counsel together, and agreed to deliver up one of their company every day, to satisfy the lion's hunger, if he, on his part, would cease to annoy them by his continual forays. The lion was at first unwilling to trust to their promise, remarking that he always preferred to rely on his own exertions; but the beasts succeeded in persuading him that he would do well to trust Providence and their word. To illustrate the thesis that human exertions are vain, they related a story of a man who got Solomon to transport him to Hindustan to escape the angel of death, but was smitten by the angel the moment he got there. Having carried their point, the beasts continued for some time to perform their engagement.
One day it came to the turn of the hare to be delivered up as a victim to the lion; but he requested the others to let him practice a stratagem. They scoffed at him, asking how such silly beast as he could pretend to outwit the lion. The hare assured them that wisdom was of God, and God might choose weak things to confound the strong. At last they consented to let him try his luck. He took his way slowly to the lion, and found him sorely enraged. In excuse for his tardy arrival he represented that he and another hare had set out together to appear before the lion, but a strange lion had seized the second hare, and carried it off in spite of his remonstrances. On hearing this, the lion was exceeding wroth, and commanded the hare to show him the foe who had trespassed on his preserves. Pretending to be afraid, the hare got the lion to take him upon his back, and directed him to a well.
On looking down the well, the lion saw in the water the reflection of himself and of the hare on his back; and thinking that he saw his foe with the stolen hare, he plunged in to attack him, and was drowned, while the hare sprang off his back and escaped. This folly on the part, of the lion was predestined to punish him for denying God's ruling providence. So Adam, though he knew the names of all things, in accordance with God's predestination, neglected to obey a single prohibition, and his disobedience cost him dearly.
Trust in God, as opposed to human exertions.
The beasts said, "O enlightened sage, Lay aside caution; it cannot help thee against destiny;
To worry with precaution is toil and moil;
Go, trust in Providence, trust is the better part.
War not with the divine decree, O hot-headed one,
Lest that decree enter into conflict with thee.
Man should be as dead before the commands of God
Lest a blow befall him from the Lord of all creatures."
He said, "True; but though trust be our mainstay,
Yet the Prophet teaches us to have regard to means.
The Prophet cried with a loud voice,
'Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg.' l
Hear the adage, 'The worker is the friend of God;'2
Through trust in Providence neglect not to use means.
Go, O Quietists, practice trust with self-exertion,
Exert yourself to attain your objects, bit by bit.
In order to succeed, strive and exert yourselves;
If ye strive not for your objects, ye are fools."
They said, "What is gained from the poor by exertions
Is a fraudulent morsel that will bring ill luck.
Again, know that self-exertion springs from weakness;
Relying on other means is a blot upon perfect trust.
Self-exertion is not more noble than trust in God.
What is more lovely than committing oneself to God?
Many there are who flee from one danger to a worse;
Many flee from a snake and meet a dragon.
Man plans a stratagem, and thereby snares himself;
What he takes for life turns out, to be destruction.
He shuts the door after his foe is in the house.
After this sort were the schemes of Pharaoh.
That jealous king slew a myriad babes,
While Moses, whom he sought, was in his house.
Our eyes are subject to many infirmities;
Go! annihilate your sight in God's sight.
For our foresight His foresight is a fair exchange;
In His sight is all that ye can desire.
So long as a babe cannot grasp or run,
It takes its father's back for its carriage.
But when it becomes independent and uses its hands,
It falls into grievous troubles and disgrace.
The souls of our first parents, even before their hands,
Flew away from fidelity after vain pleasure.
Being made captives by the command, 'Get down hence,' 3
They became bond-slaves of enmity, lust, and vanity.
We are the family of the Lord and His sucking babes.
The Prophet said, 'The people are God's family;'
He who sends forth the rain from heaven,
Can He not also provide us our daily bread?"
The lion said, "True; yet the Lord of creatures
Sets a ladder before our feet.
Step by step must we mount up to the roof!
The notion of fatalism is groundless in this place.
Ye have feet why then pretend ye are lame?
Ye have hands why then conceal your claws?
When a master places a spade in the hand of a slave,
The slave knows his meaning without being told.
Like this spade, our hands are our Master's hints to us;
Yea, if ye consider, they are His directions to us.
When ye have taken to heart His hints,
Ye will shape your life in reliance on their direction;
Wherefore these hints disclose His intent,
Take the burden from you, and appoint your work.
He that bears it makes it bearable by you,
He that is able makes it within your ability.
Accept His command, and you will be able to execute it;
Seek union with Him, and you will find yourselves united.
Exertion is giving thanks for God's blessings;
Think ye that your fatalism gives such thanks?
Giving thanks for blessings increases blessings,
But fatalism snatches those blessings from your hands.
Your fatalism is to sleep on the road; sleep not
Till ye behold the gates of the King's palace.
Ah! sleep not, O unreflecting fatalists,
Till ye have reached that fruit-laden Tree of Life
Whose branches are ever shaken by the wind,
And whose fruit is showered on the sleepers' heads.
Fatalism means sleeping amidst highwaymen.
Can a cock who crows too soon expect peace?
If ye cavil at and accept not God's hints,
Though ye count yourselves men, see, ye are women.
The quantum of reason ye possessed is lost,
And the head whose reason has fled is a tail.
Inasmuch as the unthankful are despicable,
They are at last cast into the fiery pit.
If ye really have trust in God, exert yourselves,
And strive, in constant reliance on the Almighty."
Wisdom is granted often times to the weak.
He said, "O friends, God has given me inspiration.
Often times strong counsel is suggested to the weak.
The wit taught by God to the bee
Is withheld from the lion and the wild ass.
It fills its cells with liquid sweets,
For God opens the door of this knowledge to it.
The skill taught by God to the silkworm
Is a learning beyond the reach of the elephant.
The earthly Adam was taught of God names, 4
So that his glory reached the seventh heaven.
He laid low the name and fame of the angels, 5
Yet blind indeed are they whom God dooms to doubt!
The devotee of seven hundred thousand years (Satan)
Was made a muzzle for that yearling calf (Adam), 6
Lest he should suck milk of the knowledge of faith,
And soar on high even to the towers of heaven.
The knowledge of men of external sense is a muzzle
To stop them sucking milk of that sublime knowledge.
But God drops into the heart a single pearl-drop
Which is not bestowed on oceans or skies!"
"How long regard ye mere form, O form-worshippers?
Your souls, void of substance, rest still in forms.
If the form of man were all that made man,
Ahmad and Abu Jahl would be upon a par.
A painting on a wall resembles a man,
But see what it is lacking in that empty form.
'Tis life that is lacking to that mere semblance of man.
Go! seek for that pearl it never will find.
The heads of earth's lions were bowed down
When God gave might to the Seven Sleepers' dog. 7
What mattered its despised form
When its soul was drowned in the sea of light?"
Human wisdom, the manifestation of divine.
On his way to the lion the hare lingered,
Devising a stratagem with himself.
He proceeded on his way after delaying long,
In order to have a secret or two for the lion.
What worlds the principle of Reason embraces!
How broad is this ocean of Reason!
Yea, the Reason of man is a boundless ocean.
O son, that ocean requires, as it were, a diver. 8
On this fair ocean our human forms
Float about, like bowls on the surface of water;
Yea like cups on the surface, till they are. filled;
And when filled, these cups sink into the water.
The ocean of Reason is not seen ; reasoning men are seen;
But our forms (minds) are only as waves or spray thereof.
Whatever form that ocean uses as its instrument,
Therewith it casts its spray far and wide. 9
Till the heart sees the Giver of the secret,
Till it espies that Bowman shooting from afar,
It fancies its own steed lost, while in bewilderment
It is urging that steed hither and thither; 10
It fancies its own steed lost, when all the while
That swift steed is bearing it on like the wind.
In deep distress that blunder head
Runs from door to door, searching and inquiring,
"Who and where is he that hath stolen my steed?"
They say, "What is this thou ridest on, O master?"
He says, "True, 'tis a steed; but where is mine?"
They say, "Look to thyself, O rider; thy steed is there."
The real Soul is lost to view, and seems far off; 11
Thou art like a pitcher with full belly but dry lip;
How canst thou ever see red, green, and scarlet
Unless thou seest the light first of all?
When thy sight is dazzled by colors,
These colors veil the light from thee.
But when night veils those colors from thee,
Thou seest that colors are seen only through light.
As there is no seeing outward colors without light,
So it is with the mental colors within.
Outward colors arise from the light of sun and stars,
And inward colors from the Light on high.
The light that lights the eye is also the heart's Light;
The eye's light proceeds from the Light of the heart.
But the light that lights the heart is the Light of God,
Which is distinct from the light of reason and sense.
At night there is no light, and colors are not seen;
Hence we know what light is by its opposite, darkness.
At night no colors are visible, for light is lacking.
How can color be the attribute of dark blackness?
Looking on light is the same as looking on colors;
Opposite shows up opposite, as a Frank a Negro.
The opposite of light shows what is light,
Hence colors too are known by their opposite.
God created pain and grief for this purpose,
To wit, to manifest happiness by its opposites. 12
Hidden things are manifested by their opposites;
But, as God has no opposite. He remains hidden.
God's light has no opposite in the range of creation
Whereby it may be manifested to view.
Perforce "Our eyes see not Him, though He sees us." 13
Behold this in the case of Moses and Mount Sinai. 14
Discern form from substance, as lion from desert,
Or as sound and speech from the thought they convey.
The sound and speech arise from the thought;
Thou knowest not where is the Ocean of thought;
Yet when thou seest fair waves of speech,
Thou knowest there is a glorious Ocean beneath them.
When waves of thought arise from the Ocean of Wisdom,
They assume the forms of sound and speech.
These forms of speech are born and die again,
These wa,ves cast themselves back into the Ocean.
Form is born of That which is without form,
And goes again, for, "Verily to Him do we return." 15
Wherefore to thee every moment come death and "return."
Mustafa saith, "The world endureth only a moment."
So, thought is an arrow shot by God into the air.
How can it stay in the air? It returns to God.
Every moment the world and we are renewed, 16
Yet we are ignorant of this renewing forever and aye.
Life, like a stream of water, is renewed and renewed,
Though it wears the appearance of continuity in form.
That seeming continuity arises from its swift renewal,
As when a single spark of fire is whirled round swiftly. 17
If a single spark be whirled round swiftly,
It seems to the eye a continuous line of fire.
This apparent extension, owing to the quick motion,
Demonstrates the rapidity with which it is moved.
If ye seek the deepest student of this mystery,
Lo! 'tis Husamu-'d-Din, the most exalted of creatures!

NOTES:

1. "Trust in God and keep your powder dry."
2. "Laborare est orare."
3. Koran ii. 341.
4. "And He taught Adam the names of all things" (Koran ii. 29).
5. The angels said, "We have no knowledge but what thou hast given us to
know" (Koran ii. 30).
6. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 543.
7. Koran xviii. 17.
8. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 575: The ocean of Reason is the same as what is
elsewhere called the ocean of Being, viz., the Noumenon, or Divine
substratum of all phenomenal being and thought.
9. "Those arrows were God's, not vours" (Koran viii. 17); i.e., Man's reason
proceeds from God, the "Only Real Agent."
10. Alluding to the "Believer's lost camel " (Book II. Story XII., infra.).
Men seek wisdom, and do not know that in themselves is the reflected wisdom
of God (Gulshan i Raz, I. 435).
11. The real Soul, i.e., the spirit which God "breathed into man" (Koran xv.
29). "In yourselves are signs; will ye not behold them?" (Koran li, 21).
12. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 92. Mr. Mansel (Bampton Lectures, p. 49) says: "A
thing can be known as that which it is only by being distinguished from that
which it is not." But the Infinite Deity ex hypothesi includes all things;
so there is nothing to contrast Him with.
13. Koran vi. 103.
14. Koran vii. 139: "He said, 'Thou shalt not see me.'"
15. Koran ii. 151.
16. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 645: All phenomena are every moment renewed by
fresh effluxes of being from the Divine Noumenon.
17. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 710.