MEVLANA CELALEDDIN-I RUMI
The great Turkish mystic and poet Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi was
born in Belh, in Afghanistan, on September 30, 1207 A.D. His father Bahaeddin Veled, who was known as Sultan-ul Ulema (the king
of the learned men), was a renowned scholar who, however, raised the ire
of the established academia of his times by critisizing the tenets of Greek
philosophy. This and the start of the Mongol invasions made him decide
to leave Belh. This was when Mevlana was only five years old. The family,
which reached Anatolia after stopping in Yemen
and Damascus, lived in Larende (Karaman) for seven years; and then, upon
the invitation of the Selcuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubat,
Bahaeddin Veled settled in Konya in Central
Anatolia in 1220. Meanwhile Mevlana married Gevher Hatun in Karaman;
his son, Sultan Veled, was born in 1226 in the same town. Bahaeddin Veled,
Mevlana's father, was a cultured scholar and mystic.
His knowledge, his discourses and his environment played a significant
role in shaping and educating Mevlana, who advanced so rapidly that when
his father died in 1230, he had already become a scholar and a teacher
at the tender age of 23. Thus it would not bean exaggeration to say that
Mevlana had learned the fundamentals of philosophy and mysticism from his
father.
If a day won't come
when the monuments to institutionalized religion lie in ruin
.....then my beloved,
then we are really in trouble!
When Bahaeddin Veled died in 1230, a friend and a student of his, Burhaneddin
Muhakkik Tirmizi, came to Konya and functioned
as Mevlana's teacher for 9 years, before he relocated in Kayseri
and died there in 1242.
Mevlana also was educated in the two major university centers of the
time, Aleppo and Damascus; he was a well rounded scholar who had accumulated
much theological and scientific knowledge. He had such command of Turkish,
Persian, Arabic, Greek that he could write poetry in all four languages.
Mevlana, who first met Semseddin Tebrizi in 1244, so fell under his spell
that the emergence of Mevlana as mystic poet is traced to the effect Semseddin
Tebrizi had on him. Much, most of it speculative, has been said about the
personality and identity of Semseddin Tebrizi, this wielder of such a powerful
effect on the spirit of Mevlana, himself the strangest of personalities.
Everything seems to point to Semseddin Tebrizi's being a
sufi master
of such extraordinary knowledge and power that he could touch and light
the torch in Mevlana's heart, in a sense transforming him. It was also
Sems, who taught Mevlana the ritual dance-like practice callled Sem'a
and the latter concieved it almost as a form of prayer or meditation. Sems,
who must have reached rarefied spiritual heights, was a fearless man who
would make no concessions to the prejudices, of the masses or the learned,
either in behavior or in speech. So he made a great number of enemies and
was not at all popular in Konya. Therefore he left
Konya and went to Damascus in 1245; but returned
to Konya when Mevlana implored him to, such was
the older man's attachment to Sems. Two years later, in 1247, Sems dissappeared
in a mysterious manner and was never heard of again.
Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi's masterpiece, his six volume Mesnevi consisting
of 25700 couplets, is regarded as the most outstanding work of Persian-Islamic
mysticism. It is not clear when Mevlana started writing the Mesnevi, though
it is known that he started on the second volume of his magnum opus in
1264.
This masterpiece of Islam's mystic literature
was written in the form of poetry which included philosophical, mystical,
and spiritual messages and could in a sense be considered allegories which
carry deep spiritual and religious meanings.
His second masterpiece, Divan-i Sems, though smaller in size is no less
important from a literary and mystical standpoint. Divan-i Sems or (Divan-i
Kebir as it is sometimes called) is a collection of verses (gazels) in
which Mevlana reached heights of poetry, music and mysticism. It is regarded
as the mature expression of his consciousness of universal unity (Vahdet-i
Vucud).
Apart from these two masterpieces, Mevlana produced works, called Fihi
Ma-Fih, Mecalis-i Seba and Mektubat (or Letters) which have all been translated
into Turkish, and also, in part or in full, into
Arabic, English, French and German.
Following a short bout with an illness Mevlana died in Konya
on December 17, 1273, whereupon Husameddin Celebi, a student and a disciple
of his, stepped into his place on the insistence of Mevlana's son Sultan
Veled, upon the former's death in 1284, Sultan Veled in turn became the
master and made important contributions to the emergence of the sect which
is called Mesnevi after Mevlana's name.
Crowns titles and riches love covets not
and when love's gaze falls upon a yearning heart
behold
the doors to His heart will open wide.
Mevlana was not only a great poet and philosopher but first and foremost
he was a mystic, a spiritually touched man. His mind and heart had reached
for heights and depths of the spiritual world. In his vision there were
two universes which coincided in Man. The inner world was like an endless
infinite ocean, which could only be felt and seen with the eyes of the
heart, while the outer world was but like the passing foam which appears
on the surface of the waves emenating from that ocean.
of the secret wine
all drank but just a sip-so as to become
so as to exist.
But I
drank barrels and barrels of that wine
so as to become
a mirror-pure.
Mevlana also integrated a dualist approach in his mind: In approaching
issues pertaining to daily life he is a rationalist, but in approaching
spiritual and mystical matters he recognizes only the mastery of the heart
and emotions. According to him, the only way to approach absolute being
is through love; and God's love is everywhere, permeating everything. If
one were to love another being in the name of God, one would find a pathway
leading to the absolute. According to him everything in the universe, every
being, even matter itself - all are but manifestations of God and exist
in God and are united in the Absolute Being. Thus Mevlana views all existence
as a united whole. In a sense, one could call his vision that of Unity
Consciousness. This vision impelled Mevlana to transcend all differences
and prejudices, and formed the basis of his immense tolerance and of his
real and deep humanism. With these characteristics, Mevlana and his thought
transcended the boundaries of his time and thus he and his writings are
still relevant and fresh in this day and age, some 700 years after. The
universality of his thought finds its reflection in, for example, the famous
verses where he says:
Come!
Come whoever you are.
Doesn't matter if you are an unbeliever.
Doesn't matter if you have fallen a thousand times.
Come!
Come whoever you are. For this is not the door of hopelessness.
Come,
Just as you are!
With the tens of thousands of verses he wrote, and with the depths of
spirituality he phantomed which helped him grasp qualities of timelessness
and humanistic universality, Mevlana and the sect which was founded after
him, have not only influenced the Anatolian
- Turkish civilizations but indeed have had far-reaching influences on
the intellectual and artistic life of many individuals and nations.