Comparative Essay on Gambard's Rumi and Islam and Green's Sufism
Jalalu‘d-din Muhammad al-Rumi (d.1273), or commonly known as Rumi, was born during
the eleventh century in present day Tajikistan. Son of a Muslim scholar and
mystic, Rumi followed his father's foot steps and eventually became one of the
greatest Sufi poets ever known. The poet has become one of the top five best
selling poets in America.[1] For many westerners, Rumi
and Sufism has become a mystical
experience, not belonging to any particular religion. But that is far from the
case according to two books. Rumi and Islam translated and annotated by
Ibrahim Gamard places Rumi's poetry and his Quranic references side by side to
show how the poets work are based on Muslim theology. Nile Green's Sufism: A
Global History goes through the
origins of Sufism and traces it's history to present day showing how the mystic
side of Islam is created from already set beliefs of the Quran and Hadith. From
analyzing and examining the two books, the two authors justify their argument
that the Sufi poet, Rumi, literary work is far from being absent of a faith,
but based on the traditions and already set beliefs of Islam.
Rumi and Islam contains
Rumi's poetry and his commentary on different aspects of Islam, from warfare to
getting closer to God. The translator and annotator of the book, Gamard, has been studying Rumi's Mathnawi,
since 1975 and became a Muslim in 1984. He then joined the Sufi sect, the Mevlevi or commonly known as
the Whirling Dervishes, that derived from Rumi's teachings.[2] In the 80's Gamard began
to study Persian to better understand the writings within the Mathnawi,
eventually placing translations on the Internet and getting him published. With
his knowledge of the Persian language, Rumi, and Islam, the author proves
himself to be a rather reliable source for his material.
The reliability of Gamard
allows the viewer trust in the
information he has added to the Sufi's literature. The way the book is written
to focuses on Rumi's work, not focusing on making the translations poetic. The
translator states that he is not a poet[3] and is mainly concerned
with the words Rumi has written and having the reader understand the metaphor,
idiom, and religious references.[4] This way the reader may
understand how the Sufi was a great follower of the Prophet Muhammad and learn
the Islamic citations to get deeper understanding of the text. By doing this,
the book lets Western readers still enjoy the spirituality of Rumi's work without loosing accuracy of his
teachings and his Muslim identity.[5] It also allows Muslim
readers that are cynical to Islam's mystics and how Rumi was one of the Prophet
Muhammad's greatest followers.[6]
Through out the works within the
book, Rumi gives references to the Quran or Hadith, as well as other stories
that were passed around at the time. Rumi takes these traditions and creates
stories, where the Prophet Muhammad is the main character to urge the reader to
follow the acts of the greatest Muslim. There is a story of a sick man Muhammad
went to visit, the man sick due to praying to God to give him the punishment he
will feel in the future, so he would not feel so much pain in the next life.
This story was written as a commentary to what the many sayings of the Prophet
about the spiritual benefits to visiting the sick but also warns about
spiritual boldness.[7] In this story there are many references to
Islamic traditions and stories not mentioned in the Quran that had been spread
through out the Islamic world.
The sick man tells Muhammad about
the back pain God gave him so that he may stay up through the night. This is
the reference to an Islamic practice that is promoted in the Quran of waking up
in the middle of the night to do extra prayers.[8] The Sick Man then goes and
refers himself to the fallen angles Harut and Marut.[9] These Angels are from a
story not mentioned in the Quran. Harut and Marut had been bragging that they
were better than Adam. So God tempts them to earth using a beautiful woman.
Seeing their mistake, the two angels beg to be punished now so they would not
feel the punishment they were to receive at the Day of Judgment.[10]
Rumi's poems also adds references
that had a historical reference to his readers. In the story of the Greedy
Pagan, Rumi writes about a saying of Muhammad- “The unbeliever eats the food of
seven stomachs, but the true believer eats the food of a single
stomach.”[11]
This story tells of how Muhammad allows an obese pagan to lodge with him. The
famine causing man[12] eats the house out of
food, making many people of the Prophets household angry. Here, the man is referenced
as being a son of a Ghuzz Turk.[13] The readers of this text at the time it was
written would have been familiar with this term. A Ghuzz Turk was a man from
the a Turkish tribe that were known to
be greedy plunderers who invaded Khorasan around the twelve century.[14]
Neil Green's book offers the reader
a more scholarly, text book approach to Sufism. Green himself is South Asian
and Islamic history professor at UCLA. With his interest in the Middle East and
Islam in Asia, Europe, and Africa and its effects in society, cultural, and
literature, he considers himself a “global historian of Islam”.[15] His understanding of
Islam gives him the support he needs to back the arguments he states in his
book. According to Green, Sufism is better understood as rubric of traditions
than mysticism.[16]
He also writes how the Sufi mystics did not just step out of the traditions of
Islam, but piggy backed on preexistent teachings of past scholars, saints, and
the Prophet Muhammad's revelations.
Paper coming in from China aided Sufi's in their quest greatly.[17]
The great increase of paper allowed
more books to be created. This granted the early Sufi's to study the Quran and
the Hadith intensely. Green writes the Sufi's were a rather bookish, they
always having pen and paper and studying and memorizing the Islamic texts[18]. The vocabulary of the
Sufi is based from Quranic verse, it used as a resource and a way to defend
their faith. Their knowledge of the text and later, around the twelfth century,
the ability to mix the mundane with the metaphysical allowed them to gain
authority as scholars and giving them the notion of being mystics.[19]
This idea of juxtaposing the
everyday with metaphysical can be seen in the writings of Shihab ab Din
Suhrawardi (d.1191). The theme of light became a important aspect in his work.
Suhrawardi uses light as a way to describe God, light shining from God
illuminates light beings, or angels, and that reflects onto the plants and
animals on Earth.[20] This area of where light shines from the
light beings to humans, he called the “world likeness” ('alam al-mithad). This
“world likeness” was a meeting place
between angles and humans, allowing humans to have dreams and visions. These
dreams and visions was how Muhammad
gained his revelations. These supernatural events then become important, even
more so then the texts due to they are from God to you personally. The idea of
divine light is not a new. It can be seen in the beliefs of pagan Greeks and
Zoroastrians. This concept of a world likeness was a way to adapted a none
Islamic practice to Islamic traditions and beliefs.
As we can see, Sufi's adapted
beliefs from other religions to fit the traditions of Islam. Another adaptation
is the idea of Sufi saint. Many early Christian sites were considered places of
pilgrimage to early Muslims. One can see how the creation of Sufi saints can be
attributed to the contact of Christianity.[21]
Both of these books give good
references to how the common Western belief of Rumi being a poet, absence of
faith is far from true. His popularity to the West, due to his “lover-Beloved
themes” and spirituality has caused many of his work to be distorted to western
readers.[22]
It creates an image of Rumi, as Gamard states, to be a person who started out
as a Muslim scholar, but transcended that identity to this global mystic.[23] But from these two books
work to fix that misconception. To fix this lover-Beloved theme is actually the
act of a Muslim and God, going much deeper than the conception of physical
love. Using Green's references of the
origins of Sufism and its bases on the Quran and the Hadith, the readers of
Gamard's translations can understand his eagerness to prove that Rumi was a
very pious and devoted Muslim and probably one of the greatest followers of
Prophet Muhammad.
[1]“A
Rumi of One's Own,” last modified July 17, 2007,
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/179906.
[2]“About
the Traslator,” last accessed September 26, 2012,
http://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/about_translator.html.
[3]Maulana
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam: Annotated and Explained, translated
and annotated by Ibrahim Gamard (Vermont: Skylight Paths, 2004), xxiv.
[4]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, xxiv.
[5]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, xiii.
[6]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, xi.
[7]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 20.
[8] Jalal al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 24-25.
[9]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 31.
[10]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 30.
[11]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 57.
[12]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 59.
[13]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 59.
[14]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, 58.
[15]“UCLA
Histroy Department- Neil Green,” last accessed September 27, 2012, http://www.history.ucla.edu/people/faculty?lid=5192.
[16]Nile
Green, Sufism: a Global History (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell,
2012), xi.
[17]Green,
Sufism, 26.
[18]Green,
Sufism, 25.
[19]Green,
Sufism, 62.
[20]Green,
Sufism 75.
[21]Green,
Sufism, 92.
[22]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, xiii.
[23]Jalal
al-Din Rumi, Rumi and Islam, xiii.
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