 Call me bigheyrat
I
have been a zealot for too long to demand poetic justice
now
By Anoosh Ariapour
October 29, 2003
The Iranian
One of the Iranian.com's
readers was kind enough to send me an email, regarding "Wanting
to be found". He writes, "The name Rumi is conjured
up by Turks who accept the false notion that Molana was actually
a turk hence
the name. I am disappointed every time I see the name Rumi especially
when uttered by an Iranian. Please do a bit more research before
writing about our great, unmatched Iranian poets."
Please allow me to give my response in public,
I feel very methodic today.
1- I truly and whole heartedly appreciate your
email, I really do. It is conducive to open debate and motivates
me
to
write.
As an "emigre" writer with a massive
readership, receiving any email is a time for celebration.
I am not being sarcastic. It is just an oxymoron, "emigre" writer,
a negative metaphor, consider it my Iranian sense of humor.
2-
Personally, I don't give a rat's arse who is from where, what
nationality, what pedigree, or, what is
color of one's passport. But I can understand a cry for national
self-identity, whatever that means. Especially, when I see
many
Iranians are sick and tired of their government, which behaves
more like a foreign invader from another cultural zone and
time than the guardian of the Iranian cultural treasures.
3- In the older, more traditional orthography,
Rumi or Molana's name was printed as Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi, and
sometimes,
just Mawlana. Encyclopedia Britannica is one such an academic
source
which uses a simplified version of the International Phonetic
Association's rendering (I am not using the ligatures
here).
Others, including my humble self, go with the modernized,
Americanized, Internety flock and call him Rumi, to facilitate
the communication. Variably, his name is also given as
Molavi, Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad, Molana Balkhi and Mowlana
Jalaloddin
Rumi (Annemarie Schimmel, Ehsan Yarshater). 4- In a visit to Turkey, in particular Konya,
I never heard anyone call him Rumi, they all said: Mevlana, or,
Hazrat
Mevlana. It is true however that Turks try a Turkish identity
for Rumi.
Tomb robbery has been a profitable and delicious human endeavor
throughout history. It is for a reason that the Mathnavi is
called the 'Persian Koran'.
Under Ataturk, the Molavi
cult was practically banned in Turkey, Sufi music was performed
in secret and the dancing dervish would have been better
off learning foxtrot or samba. But who knows, maybe living seven
hundred
years with Rumi's teachings and breathing in the same air
as he did, has impressed the Turkish psyche in a positive
way
and
helped them build the only secular -- albeit not free
from tyranny -- country among Muslim nations.
5- Rumi was
born in Balkh, part of the greater Khorasan, and therefore, legally
speaking, Afghans can claim him too. I
hope we won't
have to fight our Afghan brothers and sisters over that;
they have had enough.
6- I have witnessed how self-conscious some Arab
exchange students become when, before a Western audience they
have
to come up
with names of Arab bigshots. Seven out of ten names they
give, are
not really Arab, but were those who flourished under Islamic
civilization and wrote in lingua franca which happened to
be Arabic.
I can see my Arab friends' plight. I will gladly
give them Omar Khayyam, only if they could see that evil-is-us.
I'd also declare Rumi a Turk, if Turks could recite Rumi
in Persian. Yes, I am being generous at a cost to our national
heritage. Call me bigheyrat if you must, but I
have been a zealot for too long to demand poetic justice
now.
7- Right now, the only joy and pride I take in
my Iraniyat, aside from the fact that I was born in
the same land as
Shirin
Ebadi,
is that I am able to read Beyhaghi, Attar and Nasser Khosro,
in their original Persian. The rest is just the pust, worthy
of
a donkey's munching.
True power and beauty emanates from
the language throughout the centuries. As Doris Lessing put
it, and I am quoting from memory, Persian language is capable
of
expressing ideas and concepts that English language has yet
to learn.
9- To paraphrase Zara Houshmand's Rumi
translations, "you asked for one kiss, and I
gave you six", therefore I must beg your pardon. Author
Anoosh Ariapour is an Iranian born journalist based in Washington
DC.
* Send
this page to your friends
|
Call me bigheyrat