Maulana Jalal al-din Rumi, popularly known as Mevlana Rumi was a Persian mystical poet of the 13 Century. The divine theologian and Sufi poet were born in A.D. 1207 at Balkh, which now lies within the frontiers of Afghanistan. He took his last breath in 1273 at Konya, in Asiatic Turkey.
His influences ran across the countries of South Asia, including Turkey, Iran, Greece, and Pashtun regions. Rumi’s Stories, poems, lectures are considered the most eminent and popular ones, especially gaining attention in the West, quite recently. Hats off to the translation work by Cambridge professors Reynolds Alleyne Nicholson and Arthur J Arberry who devoted much of their scholarly works to translate Rumi’s poems and Ghazals and introduced them to the west, simultaneously to the World.
From 1240 to 1244, after completing his long formal education in Aleppo and Damascus, Rumi in his own turn taught and preached in Konya. From then on, Rumi began his journey of transformation from a sober theologian and preacher into ecstatic dancer and enraptured poet. His work Meth-nawi or Masnavi, a massive collection of narrative poems on mystical life is considered to be one of a kind.
Divan-i-shams, another of the famed works of Rumi was translated by the Cambridge professors and are still under printing, 110 years later after Nicholson’s death. Divan-i-shams has a huge collection of Rumi’s ghazals and poems, of which Nicholson translated few selected ones while Arberry translated around 400 of them, while rest of works being still in continuation.
Rumi has written some 3229 poems/ghazals, many of them in Urdu and Persian, while some in Turkish also.
Eight hundred years have now passed since the birth of Rumi in 1207, yet his poems remain to be vibrant and invigorating to contemporary readers. His quote, “I do not distinguish between the relative and the stranger” shows his good relations with people of diverse social, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
Rumi is believed to have divinely connected to a wandering dervish named Shams al-Dın, a native of Tabriz, of artisan origin, who suddenly arrived in the Saljuq capital and attracted attention by his wildness. Shams al-Din after facing resentment from other dervishes, fled to Damascus. Sultan Valad (Rumı’s son and biographer) acknowledged his father’s communion with the ‘hidden Saint’ and was sent to look for him.
To symbolize the search for the lost beloved, Rumi invented the famous whirling and circling Sufi dance of his Mevlevi dervishes, performed on the lamenting reed pipe and the pacing drum. The whirling movement was considered the sacred dance of the Mevlevi dervishes, which is believed to connect with the God and marked as an integral part of Sufism.
As an influential poet as he was, Rumi himself took inspiration from many literal mystical poets, two noteworthy of them were Sanai, who died circa a.d.1150, and Farıd al-Dın Attar, whom Rumi met in his youth.
Rumi stays to be the most popular poet, Persia has produced, with his inspiring collection of beautiful quotes, poems, and Ghazals that speak about Nature, worship, human traits, Almighty, justice, equality, and peace.
Here, is the list of the Rumi Quotes, that will guide you to the path of self-realization.
- Fall in love in such a way that it frees you from any connecting.
- When you hear dirty story
wash your ears.
When you see ugly stuff
wash your eyes.
When you get bad thoughts
wash your mind.
and
Keep your feet muddy.
- Look inside and find where a person loves from. That’s the reality, not what they say.
- A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.
- Love is the religion, and the universe is the book.
- God lives between a human being and the object of his desireRemember, the way you make love is the way God will be with you.Stay bewildered in God, and only that.
- The worst loneliness is to stay among those who do not understand you.
- Internal dirt cannot be washed off with water, but only with tears.
- In the mirror, as you know, the opposite is true. But without him, we would never see ourselves!
- Make friends with the clever, for a friend is a fool
Sometimes more dangerous than a clever enemy.
- Nurture your tongue, raise your heart. Because words come from the heart, go through the tongue.
- When troubles come upon you, one after another, when they bring you to an unbearable state, just don’t give up! Because this is the point where the course of events will change.
- What you seek is seeking you.
- What you are looking for is also looking for you.
- Who has a great love, a great test.
- When the fools are taught by the wise men,
They throw the crops into the salt
licks, And no matter how darn – wider than yesterday,
Tomorrow will be a nonsense hole!
- The word is like a fired arrow. And never had the arrow returned.
