Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī is one of the most well-known, most popular poets of our time. In fact, in the United States he is the bestselling poet. This is because his poetry conveys the message of love and manages to speak to every heart. It is deep and soulful and is influenced by Rumi’s life. Rumi lived in the 13th century Persia, was a Sunni Muslim poet, an Islamic scholar, a theologian, jurist and a Sufi mystic. Today, he is well remembered and many of his works have been translated into many different languages around the world and the poems transposed into different formats. While this ensures that many people have the access to his works, a lot of the meaning is lost in translation such that many times the Rumi that people think they know is anything but him. Though it may get difficult for one to find the real Rumi in the multitude of works now published that fail to capture the essence of his poetry, one way to understand Rumi is by understanding the basic underlying philosophy of Sufism. But, what is Sufism?
Sufism:
Sufism is most often described as “Islamic Mysticism” that focuses on the inward dimension of Islam. It focuses on loving the Divine and becoming closer to him. It is a form of worship and all the poem about love refer to loving Him. Sufism is a proper school of thought and its places of learning is known as a Khanqah, are similar to the madrassas. While in contemporary Islam this order is losing its importance, it has always been a part of the greater Islamic intellectual tradition and once in its emerging years, was closely linked to the Ahl-e-Hadith, a school of thought well-respected even today. Sufism on the other hand is mystical, lacking more or less a concrete scientific method of gaining knowledge, for which it has been criticized. However, it has its own rules and principles. Sufism is based on the idea of Ihsan and cleansing of the heart and soul. This leads us to the question as to what is Ihsan.
Ihsani Intellectual Tradition:
Ihsan is an Arabic word meaning "perfection" or "excellence" or to make beautiful or good, or doing what is beautiful and good. It is the third dimension of Islamic religion. The first being Islam that talks about submission, the second iman that refers to having faith and believing, the third being ihsan. Of the three, it is only ihsan that pertains directly to God. This is because God is the first to make beautiful, and to do ihsan is to imitate Him as best as a human can. This is important as in this, one is closest to God. God can only be submitted to as he cannot submit, and God does not have faith or believe, it is something we do to come closer to him, but ihsan is done by God himself and so this is the dimension wherein one achieves closeness to god by being as God-like as one can possibly be. And so, doing beautiful is not just about how one should do things, actions but rather it is a way of being. This means continued beautification of one self. The idea of beautification here is not to be confused with the concept we have today.
Beautification:
The beautification that Sufism refers to is the beautification of one’s character. Just as God beautifies man’s form, so too He beautifies his character and then when the worshipper performs acts of beauty, he participates in the inner beautification, inner purification of the soul, moving closer to God. Thus, to do ihsan is to do all things as an act of worship and in doing so one reaches a point where one sees things for what they are themselves, their truth, and transcends from the material understanding of this world to a deeper understanding and thus moves closer to finding God and loving Him. But, how does this understanding add to one’s understanding of Rumi?
Understanding Rumi:
When we read Rumi, it is essential to keep in mind that by love he means loving God by doing ihsan. Famous quotes like “The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along” make sense. The love story is about the love for God, about finding him, by purifying ones soul through ihsan and thus finding him within oneself. Rumi’s poetry focuses on finding answers within oneself as it is referring to inner purification, beautification of one’s soul, and this theme is recurrent. Rumi’s poetry is not to be confused with love ballads concerned with worldly matters but rather something transcendental that talks about finding God.
