IDEAS

First it was Khayyam, then

First it was Khayyam, then I heard about Hafiz, NOW it's about Rumi and Shams!

How alienated some Iranians are with motherland culture, god knows.

I'm sure the next is going to be our very own Leyli - Leyli mard bood ya zan!!!!!!!!!!

It is very scientific though - The more departed we are from source, the fuzzier objects look and feel!

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Hi! Nur-i-Azal,

      You mentioned "reed" in your post. Is the "reed" from Rumi's poem?

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The Reed Flute's Song 
by Jalalu'ddin Rumi, excerpted from Coleman Barks' translation in The Essential Rumi

-----------------------------

Listen to the story told by the reed, 
of being separated. 

"Since I was cut from the reedbed, 
I have made this crying sound. 

Anyone apart from someone he loves 
understands what I say. 

Anyone pulled from a source 
longs to go back. 

At any gathering I am there, 
mingling in the laughing and grieving, 

a friend to each, but few 
will hear the secrets hidden 

within the notes. No ears for that. 
Body flowing out of spirit, 

spirit up from body: no concealing 
that mixing. But it's not given us 

to see the soul. The reed flute 
is fire, not wind. Be that empty." 

Hear the love fire tangled 
in the reed notes, as bewilderment 

melts into wine. The reed is a friend 
to all who want the fabric torn 

and drawn away. The reed is hurt 
and salve combining. Intimacy 

and longing for intimacy, one 
song. A disastrous surrender 

and a fine love, together. The one 
who secretly hears this is senseless. 

A tongue has one customer, the ear. 
A sugarcane flute has such effect 

because it was able to make sugar 
in the reedbed. The sound it makes 

is for everyone. Days full of wanting, 
let them go by without worrying 

that they do. Stay where you are 
inside such a pure, hollow note. 

Every thirst gets satisfied except 
that of these fish, the mystics, 

who swim a vast ocean of grace 
still somehow longing for it! 

No one lives in that without 
being nourished every day. 

But if someone doesn't want to hear 
the song of the reed flute, 

it's best to cut conversation 
short, say good-bye, and leave.

********************* 

Yolanda

Yes, thank the good Lord-Mistress of the Universe. She is truly Wonderful, Most Wondrous, All-Giving, All-Beneficent! But, boy, does She put one through the proverbial ringer and kick some  serious hide before She ever gives you anything  ;-)

Frank Lewis' book on Rumi

First published some 11 years ago by Oneworld Publications, is by far the definitive study and academic monograph written on Rumi in any language thus far. It surpasses Annemarie Schimmel's THE TRIUMPHAL SUN as well as Furuzanfar's biography of Rumi in Persian. On some critical details, however, Zarrinkub is still unsurpassed.

Ya NUR

Ms. Yolanda

My Pleasure dear, and indeed this is a wonderful blog.

-YT 

.....

Hi! Captain,

    Thank you for the information!

thanks,

This is a great blog! 

Eshq

//www.amazon.com/Rumi-Past-Present-East-West/...

Excerpts:

Professor Franklin Lewis has given an excellent rebuttal to Western fantasies of the relationship between Mevlana and Shams in his excellent book (which recently won an award), "Rumi-- Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalâl al-Din Rumi," 2000, in his section "Modern Myths and Misunderstandings," pp. 317-326. He points out that Mevlana was about 37 when he met Shams, and that according to Mevlevi tradition Shams was 60 years old. He described how the homoeroticism in the Persian culture of Mevlana's time was very different from the homosexuality in ours. The penetrated boy held a socially inferior status. "A stigma attached to being penetrated, and a self-respecting mature male would not allow this to happen to himself." [Lewis, p. 322] A dominant male, who had been attracted to androgynous boys also desired women and would eventually marry and have children. "When a boy passed a certain age and grew facial hair, he himself became a member of the sexually dominant class and would no longer submit to penetration. Violation of these social norms led to scandal and legal prosecution. [Lewis, p. 323]

"The suggestion that the relationship between Shams and Rumi was a physical and homosexual one entirely misunderstands the context. Rumi, as a forty-year-old man engaged in ascetic practices and teaching Islamic law, to say nothing of his obsession with following the example of the Prophet, would not have submitted to the penetration of the sixty-year-old Shams, who was, in any case, like Rumi, committed to following the Prophet and opposed to the worship of God through human beauty. Rumi did employ the symbolism of homoerotic, or more properly, androgynous love, in his poems addressed to Shams as the divine beloved, but this merely adopts an already 300 year-old convention of the poetry of praise in Persian literature." [Lewis, p. 324]

Dear Romana, wonderful post, thanks.

-YT 

......

Wikipedia said that Shams was murdered with the help of Rumi's son:

***************** 

It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed Rumi's life. Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice said to him, "What will you give in return?" Shams replied, "My head!" The voice then said, "The one you seek is Jalal ud-Din of Konya." On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is rumored that Shams was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.[4]

************** 

Hi! Massoud,

   I learned a lot from your previous blog and thank you for posting the link here. I watched the Farsi "Only Breath" video again on You-tube last night. It has a lot of hits!

Hi! Nur,

    Thank you for your long posts. They are very interesting! So sorry for your loss. I am glad that you found your new love! Thank God for providing everything!

Your question

As far as I have heard, Shams married Molana's step daughter, which didn't last long. On some accounts she died of internal injuries inflicted on her by Shams. On other accounts, she got ill and died. I do not have referneces that I can provide you.

Dear fussygorilla

Thank you for your very kind words - I deliberately posted the link to the other blog in my comment below for the benefit of those who do not speak Farsi :)

There are three (3) very different English translations of the poem posted there ... by three (3) very distinguished people: Coleman Barks, Reynold A. Nicholson, and Shahriar Shariari - Please look in the comment section of the blog for these translations :) 

Regarding Rumi (Mowlana)'s faith, I believe that the poem is pretty  self-explanatory - Best, Massoud

fussygorilla

It has nothing to do with faith, but rather with what is beyond it.

To experience such love is a sacrifice not many people are willing to make, and with some it can often drive you to madness or even death if one is not careful. Within yourself, you must forego everything, name, reputation, status, material well-being, everything you've ever cherished or held dear, even everything you have understood about or held as a notion of love itself. You must burn, burn, burn and burn some more in the fires of this love until what you were is no more. You must experience the ecstatsies of this love, its overturning passions, its absolutely maddening terrors, everything. In short it is an emotional roller coaster ride of cosmic proportions -- and many don't make it! That danger is all too real and always present.

For me it was part of my first journey to the Divine (3 more to go at that stage), and the price I paid for its first stage of completion was a heavy one: i.e. the tragic physical death in an automobile accident of my embodied Beloved, the Mirror to my soul, the sweetness of my being, the reed bed (neyestaan) to my separated reed (ney), my sugarland (shekarestaan) itself. Providence had to make my Shams at the time and I separate permanently in order for me to annihilate my own soul in the essence of the NUR that she was to me! As you see, this stuff is not easy, and conventional religious notions of faith don't quite cut it.

khaam boodam, pokhtam, sookhtam - Mowlana

I was raw, I cooked and I was burned! This is what the sweet ecstasies of such Love are all about :-)

Ya NUR

Nur

Thanks for your response. There is absolutely no way that I can understand such love as you explain and express. It can ONLY come from a person like yourself who has experienced scuh personally.  It can only be understood by BELIEVERS, which I am not and would never claim to be. 

To me, the most fascinating is that such people exist and believe in "fact" as they see it. I am impressed with people like you who live in a higher level of real spirituality. 

Ala'uddin

Was Mowlana's son, not Shams'. Shams had no known children. Even Shaykh Ahmad Aflaki in his Manaqib'ul-'Arifin attests to this. Forget Ali Dashti's scholarship on Rumi. Look at Furuzanfar and Zarrinkub instead. QED

Ya NUR

fussygorilla

If you have ever entered a khanaqah and spent quality time there with the dervishes, like I have, and made baya't with a Sufi shaykh and so been initiated into the Path, as I have, you would know the love of Shams and Mowlana had nothing earthly, physical or sexual about it whatsoever, and that this sort of love occurs quite regularly between disciple and master in other contexts within this milieu. The love of Shams and Mowlana was the love of two spiritual equals who found in each other perfect spiritual mirrors to contemplate the One whereby in this relationship the uncreated Love which is the essence and energy of this One Itself permeated and reflected through both of them. Yet this Love had nothing of a sexual undercurrent to it whatsoever. If you were amongst bona fide Sufis serious about their practice, you would know this as certain fact as I do.

Many folks don't understand such things because folks have forgotten what love truly is and because love seems to be in the minds of many contemporary people reduced to the mere sexual component, such that they then candidly attribute  to two of the greatest spiritual Lights who have ever walked the face of the earth such crass notions, so it is easy to get confused when you have no personal comparison.  Note Rumi vigorously (nay, mercilessly) criticized the practice of Shaahid-Baazee in his contemporary Awhaduddin Kirmani who used to bring young, pre-pubescent boys to his own Sufi halqas/circles in Konya and get sexually ecstatic contemplating their faces. Kirmani was certainly a homosexual and his practice pretty much testament to his lack of spiritual completion. But not so with Rumi, Shams, Sadruddin Qunyavi, Najmuddin Daayeh, and others of the time. Why, then, would Rumi and Shams engage in a similar practice if they were vigorously criticizing it elsewhere in Kirmani? Na, janam, folks have gotten it all wrong if they think there was any kind of a hanky-panky homosexual relationship going on between the Great Sun of Tabriz (sa) and Hazrate Khodavandagar (sa)!

Note I have been blessed to personally experience the kind of intoxicating spiritual love Rumi and Shams experienced as spiritual equals together, and, luckily in my case, with a woman! So I know this reality, as rare and precious as it is to find, is very, very real! Would that more people found it as well!

Ya NUR

To Nur

Yes, he did have a son. It is alleged in fact that this son became jealous of his father's absolute love for Shams and that he was the one who killed him in secret thus the "disappearance" of Shams.

Ali Dashti in the introduction to his A Voyage Through Divan-e Shams states that he in fact had three sons and that it was the oldest son, Alladin, who "arranged Shams's disappearance".

To Masoud

Thank you for posting this.  There are many such pieces which, in my mind, demonstrate his earthly love of Shams not any God.

Therefore, the questions is, doesn't it point in the direction of man-to-man love? If so, why hasn't there been any research on this?

....

Hi! Nur-i-Azal,

    Thank you for the correction!

Thanks,

Yolanda

No, dear one. Shams had no children so far as is known.

Ya NUR

Sufism

    was shunned by the Islamic ecclesiastics ( Main stream Islamic establishment ) . same is going on presently . It is a different path . Sufi Scholars detested the facade of the established religion .

     I am anxiously waiting to read more  comments and contributions regarding this subject .

Dear Ramona

Please visit this blog

مولـوی - "چه تدبیر ای مسلمانان که من خود را نمیدانم"

چه تدبیر ای مسلمانان که من خود را نمیدانم

چه تدبیر ای مسلمانان که من خود را نمیدانم
نه ترسا و یهودیم نه گبرم نه مسلمانم

نه شرقیم نه غربیم نه بریم نه بحریم
نه ارکان طبیعیم نه از افلاک گردانم

نه از خاکم نه از بادم نه از ابم نه از اتش
نه از عرشم نه از فرشم نه از کونم نه از کانم

نه از دنیی نه از عقبی نه از جنت نه از دوزخ
نه از ادم نه از حوا نه از فردوس رضوانم

مکانم لا مکان باشد نشانم بی نشان باشد
نه تن باشد نه جان باشد که من از جان جانانم

دویی از خود بیرون کردم یکی دیدم دو عالم را
یکی جویم یکی گویم یکی دانم یکی خوانم

ز جام عشق سرمستم دو عالم رفت از دستم
بجز رندی و قلاشی نباشد هیچ سامانم

اگر در عمر خود روزی دمی بی او بر اوردم
از ان وقت و از ان ساعت ز عمر خود پشیمانم

الا ای شمس تبریزی چنان مستم در ین عالم
که جز مستی و قلاشی نباشد هیچ درمانم

Hope You Enjoy It :) - Massoud

Figures of Love

"After all, Mowlana admitted that his only religion is the religion of Love"

So far as I have researched there is no official religion known as the religion of Love. 

It's not important their sects affiliation

At the time, that was Iranian way of thought and mysticism. That's the important factor, Iranian culture that in it embeds religions, thoughts, languages, arts, etc.

Any religion would have behaved in a higher sense than its origins in that society. 

......

Thank you for your article. I am very interested in this topic!

Thanks, 

I read somewhere that Rumi's 2nd wife was Shams' daughter. Is that true?