by Brad Gooch
Salah died on December 29, 1258. Baring his head in grief, Rumi then carried out the wishes for Salah’s funeral carefully and explicitly. He ordered that the wind instruments and kettledrum players be gathered, and all processed through the streets of Konya to the family burial site in the sultan’s rose garden. Before the funeral bier, carried on the shoulders of disciples, walked eight troops of singers and reciters, while Rumi spun in sama all along the way. Salah was buried to the left of the sepulcher of Rumi’s father. At the emotional funerary banquet that evening, Rumi recited a sorrowful elegy, echoing in some of its lines and in its radif, or repeated refrain, “weep,” his earlier ode to Shams:
Gabriel and the wings of all the angels turn blue
For your sake, the saints and all the prophets weep.
Stunned by my grief, I am too weak to even speak
Unable to create any comparisons, I simply weep.
The joyous and frenzied funeral of Salah was yet another shock to the orthodox Muslim population of Konya. Muslim funerals were traditionally marked by gravity and restraint, the only remotely musical expression being the somber chanting of the Quran by reciters trained to modulate their tones of grief with an austere solemnity. Called to account for this raucous spectacle—anticipating in its music and song his own funeral—Rumi was sharply questioned. “Ever since time immemorial the bier of the dead has always been preceded by Quranic readers and muezzins,” he was reprimanded. “Now, in your time, what is the meaning of these singers?” Rumi calmly answered their concerns:
The muezzins and Quranic readers and Quran memorizers in front of the bier testify that the dead person was a believer who died in the Muslim religion. Our singers testify that the deceased was a lover as well as a believer and a Muslim.
CHAPTER 12
“Sing, flute!”
DURING the years following the death of Salah, Rumi, in his mid-fifties, did not immediately fill the leadership post left vacant. More accessible than in years past, he was taking an expanded role in running the madrase, now operating closer in style to a Sufi lodge, though without much formal hierarchy, or reliable income or wealth. The bulk of his surviving talks, collected in the volume titled Fihe ma fih—as well as much official correspondence—date to this middle period. In these talks, he often stressed that no progress was possible without guidance from a wiser soul. He had entered a phase of embracing his teaching again and often looked for metaphors for his vision of his work such as an astrolabe, an instrument used in the period to determine the positions of planets:
A human being is an astrolabe of God, but you need an astronomer to know how to use the astrolabe. If a seller of leeks or a greengrocer possessed an astrolabe, what would be the use? How could he fathom the conditions of the celestial spheres, or the turning of the houses of the zodiac, or their influences? Only in the hands of an astronomer is the astrolabe beneficial, for whoever knows himself knows his Lord.
Rumi felt a kind of spiritual expertise, like the scientific knowledge of an astronomer, which he wished to share, while knowing such learning required the passion of a lover. He was confident now in who he was as a daring religious leader, and where he fit in.
While committed again to his school, he was hardly confined to its walls. Probably no figure was more singular, and recognizable, on the streets, or walking in the gardens or cemeteries beyond the city gates of Konya, during the decade of the 1260s. Of medium height, with gray hair, a sallow complexion, and an intense stare, and dressed always in his tightly wound turban, rough linen cloak, and orange shoes or boots, he kept his head shaved, and beard trimmed, unlike the pious religious. Often remarked on was his thinness—“as thin as the rim of a cup”—a natural trait, as his steady diet was a bowl of yogurt with cloves of raw garlic and a crust of bread. His identifiable silhouette sometimes made him a target for derision. As a rival Sufi complained, snidely, “Look at Mowlana! What a dark figure he is, and what a silly path he follows, with his smoky turban and his dark-blue faraji. Who has bestowed that cloak upon him?”
Teaching the circle of Khorasani emigrants remaining from the days of his father, and the widening number of working-class Turks, Kurds, or Greeks recently brought in by Salah, he was just as compelling in giving lessons while walking about. He did not pay much attention to markers of class, race, or religion. At every random turn he was met by new opportunities to confound expectations. One day a Jewish rabbi ran into him on the street and asked, “Is our religion better or your religion?” “Your religion,” Rumi surprisingly answered. In many of these accounts, the result of Rumi’s responses was instant conversion to the Muslim faith, which may or may not have occurred, though certainly Sufis were attractive representatives of the faith, as the Seljuks had calculated.
Rumi had more than passing relations with the Christians, not just the indigenous Greek population, but also with the many Tuscans, Genoese, and Venetians who were resident in Konya. He often visited the nearby Monastery of Plato the Philosopher, and—according to a learned old monk who would later tell Rumi’s grandson stories of his grandfather—would take retreats there, where monks from the Byzantine Empire, Europe, Armenia, and Trabzon on the Black Sea would be staying. When he once saw a young Christian, Theryanus, about to be executed for murder near the Gate of the Horse Bazaar, Rumi, as a friend of the local Greek community, intervened with the prefect of police to save his life by covering him symbolically with his cloak. The young man became a devoted convert and changed his given Greek name to Alaoddin Theryanus.
A visiting Christian monk from Constantinople, having heard of Rumi’s reputation for such gestures of kindness, encountered him on the streets of Konya and bowed three times. As he raised his head, he found that Rumi was bowing back but had continued well beyond three bows. “Mowlana lowered his head thirty-three times before the monk,” reported Aflaki, suggesting immoderation. When the monk asked why he was showing such extreme humility before him, Rumi answered, “How could I not act with humility towards one of God’s servants? If I were not to behave this way, why would I have any worth, and who could I truly help, and what work would I be fit for?”
Following the example of Shams, Rumi continued to frequent the Armenian tavern district, considered definitely off-limits for Muslims. After one sama session at the residence of a nobleman, Rumi was wearing luxurious gifts he had been given of a red cloak with a lynx fur collar and golden knot buttons as well as an Egyptian woolen turban. Walking past a rowdy wine tavern, he heard the irresistible tune of a rabab being played inside and, filled with joy, wound up whirling in the street and giving away his cloak and hat. Regarded as scandalous was his ongoing friendship with a beautiful dancing girl, from a nearby caravanserai, who freed the slave girls working for her after meeting him. When one cleric complained, “It is not proper for so great a person to spend time with a prostitute of the tavern,” Rumi responded, “At least she is honest about who she is.”
If Rumi was misunderstood, or felt to be a threat, by a number of the religious leaders of Konya, both orthodox and Sufi, he found an entirely receptive audience in children. Even when his own children were older, he often used games and stories to teach them lessons. One day, noticing that Sultan Valad, now a grown man, was sad and depressed, Rumi put on a wolf skin, covering his head and face, and crawled up to him and said, “Boo!” When his son laughed, he said, “If a beloved friend were always joking and cheerful and then said, ‘Boo,’ would that frighten you?” His point was that life experiences might be scary or threatening, but never the loving essence. When his daughter Maleke complained of the stinginess of her husband, Rumi told her a story of a rich man so miserly he wouldn’t open his door for fear the hinges would wear out. According to Aflaki, “Maleke became happier. She laughed and was free from her cares.”
He could teach his children difficult lessons, as well. Rumi’s temper flared when he once came across Maleke beating her female slave. Pushing through the door, he shouted at her, “Why did you hit her? And
why are you harming her? If she was a lady and you were a slave girl what would you wish from her? Do you want me to issue a fatwa that there should be no male or female slaves in the whole world, except those belonging to God? In reality, we are all brothers and sisters.” Shocked by her father’s reaction—a fatwa against slavery would have been remarkable in the Middle Ages—Maleke freed the slave, dressing her in her own clothes, and, as long as she lived, behaved with the utmost kindness and consideration to both male and female slaves.
One day he left his neighborhood and came across some children playing. When they spotted Rumi they ran over, bowed to him, and he bowed back. A little boy shouted from the distance, “Lord, wait for me to finish my work and I’ll come, too.” Rumi waited for him to finish his “work” and then embraced him. He often interceded to prevent cruelty to animals. While riding beside him, a Quranic reciter began beating the head of his donkey for braying. Rumi asked, “Why are you beating that poor animal? He is either hungry or excited. But all beings share these responses. Why don’t you hit everyone on the head?” He could bring sweets to a litter of puppies but was also a clear-eyed observer. When a friend noted the “happy union” of dogs asleep in the sun, he corrected:
If you really want to see their friendship and unity, throw a piece of meat or some tripe into their midst. Then you will discover their true situation. This is the condition of people attached to the world and worshiping wealth. As long as there are no worldly goods or self-interest involved, they are friendly and loyal. But throw in a trifle of worldly goods and they forget their friendship and unity.
Rumi remained keen about the dangers of high position or any kind of wealth. He reserved his strongest and most stinging criticism for the rich and powerful, and could be as censorious about them as he was welcoming to the poor and marginal. When a wealthy townsman was brought to visit to pay his respects, Rumi bolted from his place and went into the toilet. After much time had passed, one of his students went looking and found him hunched down in a dark corner. Rumi heatedly explained to him:
The stench of this clogged-up toilet is a hundred times better to me than the company of the anxiety-laden rich. For the company of worldly people and the wealthy turns enlightened hearts dark and only causes confusion.
He put the matter a bit more elegantly when speaking in public to a circle of his students:
The danger in associating with kings is that anyone who converses with them, claims their friendship, or accepts wealth from them, must in the end tell them what they wish to hear, and hide their own opinions about their evil behavior to preserve themselves. They are unable to speak in opposition to them. Therein lies the danger, for their religion suffers. The further you go in the direction of kings, the more the other direction, which is essential to you, becomes strange to you. The further you go in that direction, this direction, which should be beloved by you, turns its face away from you. The more you accommodate yourself to worldly people, the more the true object of your love grows estranged from you.
Equally challenging to Rumi was fame, creating another sort of status, which was based on a more subtle currency, intimately and increasingly familiar to him. Aflaki reported that one day Rumi turned to his companions and unexpectedly confided:
As my fame increased and people came to visit me and desired to be with me, from that day, I have had no peace or rest from this affliction. The Prophet was correct when he said that “Fame is an affliction, and repose lies in obscurity.”
He often lashed out at fame, claiming that each degree of removal from obscurity and anonymity increased the deep pain of separation from God. As he wrote in the Masnavi:
Make yourself thin and wretched
To be let out of the cage of fame
Fame is a strong and powerful chain
Heavier along this way than iron.
He felt similarly about the sort of false praise or flattery bestowed on the rich or famous:
Words of praise taste delicious,
But be careful, they are filled with fire
So Rumi avoided any privilege of rank or status both for himself or anyone around him. He quickly exited a bathhouse minutes after entering when he discovered that an attendant had removed someone from the edge of the pool to make room for him. “I began to sweat in shame and I quickly came outside,” he said. He would always wait for his disciples to enter the house of noblemen first for fear they would be stopped at the door after he entered. When he saw Sultan Valad bumptiously riding on a horse while others walked, he ordered him to dismount, warning of the “affliction of high position . . . You are looking at everyone from above, and so you see them as beneath you.”
To keep his own appetite for food, money, or fame in check, Rumi exercised extreme austerities, rarely slept, and was continuously close to prayer. He distrusted comfort, and while embroidering a beautifully inviting theology of love, music, and poetry, relied for its practice on a forbiddingly hard regimen. Instead of candles, he would insist on linseed-oil lamps, which the poor used. When his wife complained of their extremes of penury, he replied, “I am not keeping you from having the things of the world, I am keeping the world from having you.” After a female servant in the women’s quarters complained of being allotted such a small amount of money to spend for food, he reminded her that she still had her eyes, nose, and limbs, which were extremely valuable.
In a public bathhouse, Rumi was shocked to catch sight of a reflection of the result of his abstemiousness—his weak and emaciated body. “I have never in my whole life felt ashamed before anyone but today I am extremely embarrassed before my thin body,” he said. “How my body laments, ‘You don’t leave me be in peace for even a single day so that I might gain some strength back to bear your load!’” His startled recognition, however, did little to change his behavior. In the middle of that difficult winter, while even young men were huddled in front of ovens and stoves in furs, Rumi was on the roof nightly, praying—all done in the interest of achieving further visionary glimpses of the loss of self, of becoming freer:
One morning, a moon appeared in the dawn sky
Descending even closer to get a look at me
Like a hawk, seizing a little bird, while hunting,
That moon seized me, and as we climbed the sky
I looked within myself, only to find no self there
Within that tender moon, my body had become a soul . . .
The entire ship of my existence had vanished in the sea.
On one of those evenings, around 1261 or 1262, Hosam chanced upon Rumi in his private quarters. Rumi’s loyal follower was now in his midthirties, and had been serving, at his request, as the treasurer of the unofficial order so that Rumi never needed to touch money or pay much attention to its allotment. Hosam had recently been mulling over a suggestion and was looking for an opportune moment to approach. He had noticed that many of the younger students were eagerly reading aloud from Attar’s Conference of the Birds as well as Sanai’s Garden of Truth—both masnavis or long poems in rhymed couplets on spiritual themes. They preferred such poems to the drier prose manuals on Sufi theory. So he decided that Rumi should write his own extended poem, full of moral pith and wisdom. “Collections of your ghazals have become numerous,” he proposed. “Yet a new book in the manner of Sanai, written in the meter of Attar, as a memento for the souls of lovers, would be a kindness.”
In response, Rumi supposedly plucked from the folds of his turban a page on which he had already written eighteen couplets, the beginning of a poem in rhyming lines of eleven syllables that followed just the meter requested—the flowing ramal mahzuf, stressed in drumming feet of four syllables each, with the last foot of each line losing a syllable. He handed the page to Hosam, who read the prologue of a poem-in-the-making that eventually grew so famous as to simply be referred to by its form—as the Masnavi—eclipsing all other verses composed in the same rhyming pattern:
Listen to the reed flute and the tale that it tells
; How it sings of separation:
Ever since I was cut from my bed of reeds
Men and women have joined in my lament
I keep seeking other hearts, torn by separation,
To share my tale of painful longing
Everyone cut at the same root
Longing for the time when they were joined.
In the guise of this mournful flute—perhaps a flute cut from the reed beds of Khorasan—Rumi found a voice that allowed him to sing of separation, which had been Shams’s last and greatest lesson to him before his departure over a decade earlier, as well as of secrets, which could only be expressed in the allusive language of lyric poetry:
Out of curiosity, they drew close to me,
But none discovered my secret
My secret is woven into my lament
Yet no eyes or ears can find its light
Soul is woven into body, and body into soul
Yet no eyes have the power to see the soul
Fire, not wind, makes this flute sing
If you don’t have fire, don’t play.
The poetic flute of the eighteen-line prologue was a symbol at once mystical and familiar for its intended audience, as an instrument carrying tunes from Central Asia, but also akin to the Anatolian Phrygian flute, its plangent tones, like a human voice, commented on already in ancient writings. In one such local tale, King Midas of Gordion—not far from Konya—had been cursed by Apollo with a pair of donkey ears that he hid beneath his Phrygian cap. Unable to keep the secret, a courtier whispered the truth to a lake, where he thought it was safe. Yet a reed growing on the banks heard, and when a shepherd cut the reed to make his own flute, the flute began singing of the king’s secret.