Rumi's Secret

by Brad Gooch

  Knowing that he was drawing closer to the finale of the poem, Rumi’s thoughts turned more often to its secret muse, Shams of Tabriz, the human sun now visible only in shadows cast on a wall. In death, Shams had merged with eternity, which was the presence of God’s love expressed in this world and in the world beyond death. Rumi took on this paradoxical mystery—of the sun and the Sun—in the tale of “The Poor Dervish and the Police Inspector of Tabriz”—its setting a clue. Spread over five hundred lines, the story concerned a Sufi dervish whose debts had always been paid by a kindly police chief in Tabriz, until the policeman died, leaving his treasure hidden. The dervish travels to “glorious” Tabriz only to discover that his true benefactor was God, the treasure, divine:

  He gave me a cap, but You the head filled with intelligence

  He gave me a coat, but You the tall figure to clothe

  He gave me gold, but You the hand for counting

  He gave me a horse, but You the mind for riding

  He gave me a candle, but You the eyes for seeing . . .

  He gave me a house, but You the sky and the earth.

  The limits the debtor discovered in the police inspector of Tabriz were those Rumi had come to find were the human limits of Shams of Tabriz—he lit the candle of love for him, yet God imbued Rumi with the mirror reflecting the flame from Shams and other lights.

  Within a few hundred lines of the completion of the Masnavi, and immediately preceding its ultimate “Story of the Three Princes,” Rumi breaks into a moving litany, a catalog poem of all of lovesick Zolaykha’s coded language, disguising her feelings for Joseph, the paragon of beauty in Rumi’s poetry—the story of the Egyptian lady’s love for the Hebrew slave is described in the Quran itself as “the fairest of stories.” Zolaykha’s dexterous ploy happened to match Rumi’s in expressing his feelings for Shams of Tabriz—often compared by him to handsome Joseph—and was a parable for his poetic task of coming closer to the truth by going in circles. In talking about such ineffable love, Rumi believed, the longer the detour the more sure the arrival:

  And when she said, “The wax is melting softly!”

  That was to say, “My friend was kind to me.”

  And when she said, “Look, the moon is rising”

  And when she said, “The willow is now green!”

  And when she said, “The leaves are trembling”

  And when she said, “How nicely burns the rue!”

  And when she said, “The nightingale sang for the roses” . . .

  And when she said, “Beat firmly all the rugs!” . . .

  And when she said, “The bread is all unsalted!”

  And when she said, “The spheres are turning backwards” . . .

  When she praised something—that meant “His sweet embrace.”

  When she blamed something—that meant “He’s far away!”

  And when she piled up a hundred thousand names

  Her desire and intention was always Joseph’s name.

  Rumi had circled back to his dialogue with Hosam in Book I. He was confessing that all the while he was writing the Masnavi he had never stopped thinking of Shams. Just as Zolaykha meant Joseph with every word of hers, so Rumi meant Shams with every word, verse, and tale of the Masnavi. Since Shams had first awakened his heart to the transformative fire of love, the name of that sun also evoked the hidden name of God.

  The Masnavi ends on an inconclusive note, almost midstory. Its final tale is fitting. The story of the three princes who fall in love with a portrait of a Chinese princess and travel to the royal court of a king in faraway Asia shares elements with the first tale of the Masnavi of the king and the slave girl of Samarkand. The story was yet another told to him—and finished—by Shams. Given their months of seclusion, most if not all the stories in the Masnavi might have originally been just such teaching stories Rumi first heard from Shams and wished to keep alive in his poem. Book VI ends on a quiet parable of a “window between hearts,” without any crescendo, so the epic seems to be a mosaic with a few pieces missing. For a poet with so little interest in titles or frames, dying off into silence was an appropriate enough statement. Some said, though, that Rumi had simply lost interest in dictating, in spite of requests from Hosam and Sultan Valad, as if he had descended or ascended into the distant calm that increasingly possessed him.

  In the autumn of 1273 Rumi fell seriously ill. Among the closest of his companions had always been a prominent local physician, well regarded as a commentator on a five-volume Persian encyclopedia of medical knowledge, based mainly on the ancient Greeks Galen and Aristotle. Rumi had satirized Galen and the reliance on medicine in general in Book III of the Masnavi, his skepticism prescient, as this doctor was unable to diagnose the cause of his weakness, other than detecting excess water in his side. Nevertheless he remained next to Rumi to monitor his condition.

  The unspecified malaise lingered for weeks and months, as Rumi’s bedside became the center of heightened concern and anxiety for his family, school, and all of Konya. Most frenzied and upset was his wife, Kerra. “You should have a precious life of three hundred years, no four hundred years, to fill the world with higher truth and meaning,” she pleaded with him. “Why, Why?” Rumi answered. “Am I Pharoah? What do I have to do with this world of dust? How can I find rest and peace in this world?” For three full days and nights he asked that no one speak to him, and he did not speak to anyone. When his wife finally came to him, and lowered her head, and asked about his health concerns and his pain, he answered, “I am thinking about my death, which will be occurring soon.” At that remark, she shrieked and was hysterical for several more hours.

  During the onset of his illness, Rumi was not entirely bedridden and sometimes walked about the madrase in a frail manner. Unchanging was his certainty that he was going to die, and his preparing those close to him for the eventuality, as well as setting its tenor with good humor if not outright eagerness. When he sighed from pain while hobbling in the courtyard, his favorite cat mewed and howled. “Do you know what this poor cat is saying?” Rumi asked. “It says, ‘During these days you will be setting out towards heaven and returning to your original homeland. Poor me! What am I to do?’” (When this cat died a week after Rumi, his daughter, Maleke, buried it near him.)

  Earthquakes were common enough in Anatolia, but during that fall a particularly powerful quake occurred, interpreted by Rumi’s followers as connected to his condition. In a joking way, Rumi agreed, saying the earth was hungering for a juicy morsel and would soon be satisfied by his corpse, yet no harm would come to the town. He informed his friends that most of the prophets and mystics departed from the world in autumn or the dead of winter, “when the earth is like iron.” Weighed down by worry about a lingering debt of fifty dirham, he tried to repay with gold filings. When the creditor forgave his debt, Rumi said, “Thank God I am delivered from this horrible obstacle!”

  Soon he was confined to his room, a pan full of water set by his bed for him to dip his feet into and sprinkle his chest and forehead, as he had begun to be racked with intense fevers. Hosam and Sultan Valad were usually nearby. Visions and dreams abounded among those gathered, at least in later retellings of the events of those days by those present. Hosam told of being seated at the top of the bed with Rumi’s head resting on his chest as they saw a handsome young man materialize in front of their eyes. When Hosam asked his name, he identified himself as Azrael, the Angel of Death. “What excellent, perceptive sight to be able to see a face such as that!” Rumi weakly exclaimed.

  One by one the notables of the town visited to pay their respects. Leading them was Qonavi, whose earlier haughtiness toward Rumi had long since dissolved and been replaced by an admiring respect. The godson of Ibn Arabi appeared quite disturbed and began to pray for Rumi’s healing: “It is hoped that recovery will take place. Mowlana is the soul of mankind. He deserves a full recovery.” Rumi quickly snapped back, “Let those words be for your sake! When there is no more than a thin shirt be
tween lover and beloved, do you not wish the shirt to be removed so that light may be joined with light?”

  On another occasion the Chief Judge Qadi Serajoddin visited Rumi, his judgments in favor Rumi’s sama practice crucial in his having been able to safely complete the Masnavi and teach, dance, and play music for the glory of his religion of love. Hosam was holding a cup filled with a medicinal potion in his hand, in the hopes that Rumi would drink some. Rumi paid no attention at all. “I placed the cup in the Qadi’s hand hoping Mowlana might take it from the hand of so great a person, but he refused,” said Hosam. When the Qadi departed, Qonavi again entered. “He took the cup from my hand and offered it to Mowlana,” recalled Hosam. “After taking a few sips, Mowlana gave it back to him.” A friendship and trust had deepened between them in spite of their philosophical differences, like that between Shams and the cynic Shehab in Damascus.

  Hosam was there as always to copy the poems that Rumi kept producing to the end, his lucidity intact except when the fevers became too high. Rumi was well used to reciting poems in extreme states, from ecstasy in the midst of whirling to exhaustion in the middle of the night. His theme on his deathbed was the joy of death, which became the occasion he was addressing, always with the message that love rather than fear was the single choice if you did not wish to lose the only life that mattered. As a patriarch and mystic who achieved some joy and peace he was able to sing convincingly of the happiness and release of death in a set of poems unmatched on the daunting theme:

  When you see my coffin being carried out

  Don’t think I’m in pain, leaving this world . . .

  When you see my corpse, don’t cry

  I long for that time, and for that reunion

  When they bury me, don’t cry

  The grave is but a veil for eternity

  When you see the setting, wait for the rising.

  Why worry about a sunset, or a fading moon?

  You think you are setting but you are rising

  When the tomb encloses you, your soul will be released.

  He also recited lines that would eventually be used for the inscription on his tomb. Its takhallos, or signature, was Shams of Tabriz, which had been replaced by Hosam, yet such a circling back to his original muse might have been his point. Rumi was increasingly summoning the name and presence of Shams on his deathbed. His happiness and excitement at death were made more real by imagining its resolution as a joyous reunion with Shams, as well as with the light of the sun, and the source of both, God:

  Don’t be sad at God’s festival

  My chin is shut, within the grave, asleep

  While my mouth tastes bittersweet love . . .

  I will never rest, until my soul flies

  To the towering soul of Shams of Tabriz.

  Distraught from watching his father succumb to this illness, and spending sleepless nights nursing him, Sultan Valad also became ill. As Aflaki reported, “Sultan Valad had become extremely weak from limitless service, deep sorrow, and lack of sleep. He was constantly crying, tearing his clothes, and lamenting. And he did not sleep at all.” Rumi said, “Bahaoddin, I am happy. Go, lay your head on your pillow and get some rest.” He then a wrote a poem that fit the moment, this “last ghazal that Mowlana composed,” alluding once again to Shams, the name cloaked inside of his dying poems:

  Go. Lay your head on your pillow. Leave me be!

  Let me wander in the night, ruined and afflicted.

  I am alone in waves of passion, all night until dawn

  If you wish, come, have mercy, if you wish, go, be cruel.

  The only cure for my pain is dying

  So how may I ask him to cure my longing?

  Last night I dreamed I saw an old man in the alley of love

  He waved to me with his hand, as if to say, “Come to me.”

  During Sultan Valad’s absence, Rumi addressed the question of his successor. Fateme continued to press for her husband to take the traditionally inherited position at the head of the family madrase and secure the place for their son, Amir Aref, as a kind of spiritual royal family. Again Rumi decisively deflected the chance to begin a lineage or form a more standard order. Some imams of Konya came to see Rumi and asked, “Who is suitable to succeed Mowlana and who has been chosen?” Rumi named Hosam. The question and answer was repeated three times. On the fourth query, they asked, “What do you have to say to Bahaoddin Valad?” Rumi answered, “Bahaoddin is a champion. He has no need of confirmation from me. He has no need to boast or make claims.” His eldest son accepted this decision as he had before, in silence, without public complaint.

  No one left in the room was able to comprehend fully the length and breadth of Rumi’s expansive life. The companions who traveled with his family from distant Khorasan were now mostly buried near Baha Valad in the family plot of the imperial rose garden. None of his children had ever laid eyes on the Oxus River, the great natural divide separating the Balkh region of his birth, nor was it any longer possible for them to visit the capitals of his youth, Samarkand or Bukhara, as they had been destroyed as cultural centers by the Mongols, as had Baghdad. His mother remained buried in Larande, and the grave of his first wife was not included among the rest of the family. Some closest to him had known the remarkable Shams of Tabriz, but only Rumi understood the nature and extent of their months of intimate encounter that transformed him midlife from a respected religious leader into an audacious mystic and visionary poet. These experiences kept him a figure apart even in his approach to death. As everyone around him was grieving and sorrowful, he remained witty and serene.

  Rumi took leave of his circle in a coherent manner with targeted words and messages, treating death as a teaching moment. He was especially understanding with Kerra, who would outlive her husband by nineteen years and during those years become a distinctive, eccentric figure in Konya, only leaving the house in the evening to go to the bathhouse, wearing a fur coat from Turkestan in the summer with a silk veil over her head, burning candles during the daylight hours, but much sought after for her reputed psychic powers. “Will there appear anyone like our Khodavandgar?” she asked inconsolably. “If there is, he will also be I,” Rumi answered. And then he added: “I have two attachments in this world, one to you, and the other to my body. When I leave my body, and join the world of Oneness, my attachment to you will continue to exist.”

  Rumi consoled his companions with just such a message—the emanation of the manner of spirit he exhibited would be the same as his presence. Such a belief had animated his similar relations with the two successors of Shams, Salah and Hosam, whom he believed emanated and inspired the spirit of love and so were avatars of love: “Don’t be afraid when I depart, and don’t be sad, because the light of Hallaj, one hundred and fifty years after his death, revealed itself to the spirit of Attar and became his spiritual director. Whatever situation you are in, try to stay with me and to remember me so that I can show myself to you. Whatever clothes I may be wearing, I will always be with you.”

  He concluded with practical life advice: “I recommend to you fear of God, both silently and publicly, neither eating too much nor speaking too much, avoiding causing any trouble or sin, diligence in fasting, continuous praying, the leaving behind of all passion and lust, patience in the face of injustice from all mankind, renouncing the company of fools and common people, and associating with the virtuous and the noble. Moreover, the best person is the one who benefits other people, and the best speech is brief and gives guidance.” He also taught those gathered a prayer to memorize and recite for the rest of their lives, beginning, “Oh Lord God, I draw breath only for Your sake.”

  Hearing the finality in his tone, some of those in the room nevertheless pressed him to rest, take his medicine, and care for his recovery. “My companions pull me in one direction,” Rumi sighed, “while Mowlana Shamsoddin calls to me from the other direction . . . I am obliged to depart.” Closest to his pillow in the final hours was Hosam, his “pearl-shedding s
ea,” as he had exulted recently in the Masnavi. Turning to Hosam, his last words, in character, faithful yet whimsical, Rumi instructed, “Place me at the top of the sepulchral niche, so I may arise before everyone else.” At sunset on the evening of December 17, 1273, Rumi died in peace, having given repeated instructions that the night be treated as his Wedding Night, a time of joy and happy reunion with the beloved:

  The bats of your senses fly into the sunset

  While the pearl of your soul rolls towards sunrise

  Rumi had planned his own funeral, reviving the basic design of the funeral Salah laid out for himself fifteen years earlier, a boisterous procession worthy of a wedding celebration, with singers, musicians, and dancers, as well as Quran reciters and imams. The burial of Salah had been controversial, a funeral unlike any witnessed in Konya until that time. Its issues had hardly disappeared, especially the shock of mixing joyous music and dance with a traditionally somber religious observance. Soon after Rumi’s death, Hosam was brought before the court of Qadi Serajoddin to once again defend the rabab from being outlawed, the chief justice ruling in its favor, simply in memory of his friend. Yet on the day of the funeral seemingly all Konya crowded to join in the vibrant ceremony expressly designed for them by a man popularly felt to be a holy figure or even a saint.