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Rumi's invitation

Among the medieval mystical poets, the one who speaks most clearly and directly to the modern world is Jalaluddin Rumi, known simply in the Muslim world as “Mevlana,” Our Master. The depth of his spiritual experience, his original and arresting poetic images, his obvious sincerity and openheartedness, and his ability to transcend cultures, time periods, and religions, all go together to make Mevlana one of the most accessible and influential of Muslim thinkers who speak to us from the past.

The number of internet web pages devoted to translations of Rumi’s poetry into European languages is evidence of the extent to which Mevlana is known and loved in the West, but in the Muslim world, the influence of Mevlana on modern thinkers and scholars, as upon the ordinary Muslim worshiper, must not be underestimated. While those who can read and appreciate his poetry in the original Persian may be relatively few, Mevlana’s works are known through poetry recitations, classical performances of their musical settings, and through the many translations of his poetry into Turkish, Arabic, Urdu and other Muslim languages. I have seen verses of Rumi’s poetry decorating dishes and wood panels in homes. I have even seen his verses decorating horse carts and their modern equivalent, minibuses.

The dervishes of the Mevlevi tariqa communicate in a non-verbal way Rumi’s message of tolerance, peace, and deep absorption in the Divine. One of the most popular festivals in Turkey is the Sheb-i Arus, literally translated “The Wedding Night.” Held every year for the past 733 years, the two-week celebration commemorates Rumi’s earthly departure and the reunion of his soul with the Divine Beloved.

In one of his most striking images, Rumi invites the reader to imagine himself as a stranger in a foreign country. The night is dark and cold and the stranger knows no one in this distant land. As the wayfarer walks along, he eventually comes to a house. Looking through the open door, the traveler can see a well-lighted room, with people sitting in a circle on the floor around a hearth. They are eating and singing; one of the friends looks up and notices the stranger at the door and calls out Rumi’s famous words of welcome:

“Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.”

The message is clear: religion is about love, it extends an invitation to anyone who is lost, searching, uprooted, or with a history of failure or betrayal to come to the light, the warmth, and the joy of a loving, welcoming community. It is ultimately about hope, the antidote to aimless drifting or anguished desperation.

Rumi’s message of religion as an abode of peace and joyful fellowship has inspired many Muslims and others down through the centuries by means of the beautiful poetic imagery with which he expressed his spirituality. As did many others on the Sufi path, and in a way similar to that of Christian mystics like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, Rumi described the soul’s relation to God in the imagery of human love. God is both the Beloved for whom one longs and pines and the Lover in whom the lover rejoices at moments of union. Here on earth we are like travelers far from our true home, where the Beloved awaits our return.

A modern Muslim who has appropriated Rumi’s perspective and integrated it into his own understanding of Islamic faith the Turkish scholar and religious leader, Muhammad Fethullah Gulen. The correspondence of Mevlana to Gülen is that of kindred spirits who, across the centuries, share an understanding of the Qur’anic message as well as a commitment to communicate that message effectively to people of their times. In his sermons and written works, Fethullah Gulen frequently cites Rumi’s behavior and attitudes to illustrate his message; in the book Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance, Gülen cites Rumi over 15 times to exemplify his themes of civilizational dialogue. In his work on the Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism, Gülen cites Mevlana more often than any other saint or spiritual writer as he seeks to initiate the seeker into the mysteries of God’s love.

What does Mevlana mean for Fethullah Gulen? Where does he see the affinity between his own understanding of Islam and that expounded and exemplified by Rumi? What are the lessons that can be learned from Rumi? Why does Gülen consider Rumi a worthy exemplar for the modern Muslim? I believe that these points of contact can be found in four areas.

1. Rumi as the model of tolerance and dialogue

Almost a century ago, Said Nursi, one of the most influential modern Muslim scholars in Turkey, proposed that Muslims should undertake dialogue and cooperation with true Christians. In commenting on this proposal, Gülen states that Nursi’s suggestion is similar to that of Rumi, who described himself as a compass, with one foot fixed firmly in the center while the other turns in a broad arc to complete a full circle. The foot planted resolutely in the center that never changes position is the faith conviction by which one is united to God as the unmoving heart and center of one’s existence, while the other foot moves in a “broad circle that embraces all believers.” In other words, Gülen is proposing that his disciples be deeply rooted in their Islamic faith and at the same time reach out in dialogue in all directions to people of good will.

Gülen endorses Nursi’s view that the days of the use of force are over; today’s methods of persuasion are those of peaceful dialogue, scientific argumentation and rational debate. Such a mode of discussion is for Gülen the only manner of confrontation that fits properly the nature of Islam. “There is no harshness or bigotry in Islam,” he states. It is a religion consisting of forgiveness and tolerance. Pillars of love and tolerance like Rumi, Yunus Emre, Ahmed Yesevi, Bediüzzaman [Said Nursi] and similar figures have expressed this aspect of Islam beautifully and have gone down in history as examples of this attitude of peace and tolerance.”

2. Rumi as one of the great saints produced by Islam

Gülen understands Islam to be a religion consisting of forgiveness and tolerance, and he harkens back in Islamic history to those figures who best embodied these values. Foremost among them is Mevlana, whom Gülen calls one of “the people of love.” For Gülen, Rumi represents what he calls the “true face of Islam,” what the Islamic revelation and tradition is actually about. Gülen elaborates his point as follows:

“If one were to seek the true face of Islam in its own sources, history, and representatives, then one would discover that it contains no harshness, cruelty, or fanaticism. It is a religion of forgiveness, pardon, and tolerance as such saints and teachers of love and tolerance like Rumi, … and many others have so beautifully expressed.”

According to Gülen, men like Rumi and Yunus Emre have left their mark on Islam as understood and practiced in Turkey. The great honor and affection shown to mystical poets and saints by Turkish Muslims is evidence of the esteem in which such holy men are held and an indication of the attitudes and values according to which Islam is meant to be lived. As Gülen puts it, the message of Islam for which modern people are thirsting is its teaching of peace, tolerance and love; hence the mission of Muslims today is to invite people to discover this message by the way that Muslims themselves live their beliefs. “Even though there are naturally exceptions,” he states, “the interpretations of Islam held by Turkish scholars are tolerant. If we can spread the understanding of Islam held by the pillars of love like Rumi and Yunus Emre throughout the world, and if we can make their message of love, dialogue and tolerance reach those people who are thirsting for this message, then people around the world will come running into the arms of this love, peace, and tolerance that we represent.”

3. Rumi as the saint who longed to be united to God

For Gülen, Mevlana embodies the poet who was able to express the fundamental pain and sorrow of human life in this world. For Rumi, that pain is rooted in the separation of the soul from its deepest desire, that is, for unity with the Divine Beloved. This yearning of the soul for its true home forms the opening verses of Rumi’s masterwork, the Mathnawi. To Rumi, the notes of the flute are like the sound of human groans, and readers of the Mathnawi are invited to imagine the reed flute being cut and plucked from its true home in the reed bed. Its sad sounds represent the longing of the reed flute to return to its origins where it belongs.

The application of this image to the human condition is not hard to conceive; like the flute, the human soul has been snatched from its true home in the presence of God. It is presently wandering lost and far from home and is forever longing to return to the source from which it sprang. Gülen speaks of “… the yearning produced by separation from the Beloved after meeting with and gazing upon Him in past eternity. The sighs that Rumi’s flute uttered, and the lonely, creaking sounds that Yunus Emre heard from the revolving water-wheel express such a separation. These sighs will continue until the final union or meeting with Him.

Such sorrow and feelings of separation are felt only by those who know God directly. Someone who has been blessed by being allowed to experience oneness with the Divine Lover will be like a “spiritual drunkard,” living from then on with a longing to be fully united to the Beloved. Gülen notes that only one who has reached this rank of sanctity can properly describe the profundity of his thoughts and feelings, and again it is Rumi’s verses in the Mathnawi that he cites to illustrate his point:

Those illusions are traps for saints, whereas in reality

They are the reflections of those with radiant faces in the garden of God.

Gülen’s point, beautifully expressed by Rumi, is that the longing to be united with God produces a sorrow and world-weariness which to those who did not know better would appear as unhappiness and despair. Those who have not been initiated into the mysteries of Divine love must necessarily judge by appearances rather than the deeper reality. However, for those who have arrived at the truth, like Mevlana, they see that such superficial sadness masks the radiant faces of those who have come into the “garden of God,” that is, God’s loving presence.

Gülen makes the point elsewhere that the longing and sorrow expressed by Rumi truly embody the human condition, the state of distance and lack of fulfillment in which we all live. Absence, it is true, makes the heart grow fonder, but the deepest desire of our hearts cannot be achieved here on earth. Whether or not we are aware of it, we are all longing to be in that loving union with God which is true peace and our heart’s true home; until that is achieved, no one can be satisfied with transient and ephemeral substitutes. As Gülen states: “Though love and weariness cause pain to others, in them we always hear, like Rumi, the poem of longing for the realm that we have left to come here. Love and weariness to us are like a plea from the soul, stemming from a sorrowful desire for eternity.”

The other side of the coin consists of those fleeting moments of joy by which God blesses the one who is seeking to be united with Him. Rumi refers to these states of soul (hal/ihwal) as the “wedding night,” depicting the state of grace when those on the spiritual path find themselves rushing headlong to embrace the Beloved. “They try to find satisfaction for the desire of reunion in their soul. They keep running toward Him, sometimes flying, sometimes limping on the ground, but always united with everyone and everything.” Gülen points out that the same image of the wedding night, the fulfillment of love, is used by Mevlana to indicate death, when the seeker, freed from the shackles of mortality and earthly bonds, transcends all obstacles separating the soul from a loving union with the Divine Beloved.

The same sorrow that arises from separation from the Beloved and that gives give rise to a longing to return to God is also the source of greater love and happiness in one’s life. The pain of separation must not be rejected or denied, but rather accepted as expressive of the human state. It should be a strong motivation for a fuller absorption in the Divine. Mevlana writes: “I've broken through to longing now, filled with a grief I have felt before, but never like this. But the suffering leads to love . . . Hold on to your pain, that too can take you to God."

One must not think that Rumi, in his day, and Gülen, in modern times, are proposing a life-denying spirituality in which a person turns one’s back on the exigencies of reality and practical living in this world. Gülen explains: “Those who always feel themselves in the presence of God do not need to seclude themselves from people. Such people, in the words of Rumi, are like those who keep one foot in the sphere of Divine commandments and turn the other like a compass needle throughout the world. They experience ascension and descent at every moment.”

4. Rumi as teacher of the qualities of peace

Gülen also sees Mevlana as one who teaches and exemplifies the virtues of peace. In the 13th century, Rumi gave the advice: “Stay in the company of lovers. Such people each have something to teach you.” For his part, Gülen considers love to be the purpose of creation. “Love is the very reason of existence,” he states, “and the most important bond among beings.” The failure to love others, he teaches, indicates a deficiency in our love of God. The centrality of love of which Gülen speaks is foreshadowed in these words of Rumi: “It is love that brings happiness to people. 
It is love that turns happiness into joy. My mother didn't give birth to me, love did. 
A hundred blessings and praises to love.” In his masterpiece, the Mathnawi, Rumi speaks further of the alchemical nature of love: “Bitter is made sweet through love; 
copper becomes gold through love. 
Through love dregs become clear; love heals all pain. 
Through love the king becomes slave; love brings the dead to life.”

Gülen’s oft-repeated admonition to höşgörü bears a similar connotation. The word is often translated into English as “toleration,” but as many scholars have pointed out, translating höşgörü as “toleration” does not do justice to the Turkish word. Its meaning might be better paraphrased as “putting the best interpretation on another’s words or actions,” or “seeing what is best in others,” or, one might say, “giving the benefit of the doubt” to others. This, according to Gülen, is not simply well-bred behavior, but what the Qur’an enjoins Muslims to do.

He repeatedly calls upon Rumi as the model of Islamic holiness and of those qualities needed to progress on the path toward a union of love and will with God. Enlisting Rumi’s advice at the beginning of the spiritual path and cites Mevlana’s words on the need for repentance. If one does not feel remorse and disgust for errors committed and if one is not apprehensive of falling back into ones old ways of living, in short, if one has not made a serious act of repentance, one’s persistence in following the spiritual path will be shallow and unstable.

A second virtue essential for progress in spiritual life is that of sincerity. It is easy to fool oneself and even easier to deceive others so that if one is not sincere, one is liable to be engaged in performing religious duties to be seen by others. Here Rumi’s advice is pertinent: “You should be sincere in all your deeds, So that the Majestic Lord may accept them. Sincerity is the wing of the bird of the acts of obedience. Without a wing, how can you fly to the abode of prosperity?” Gülen elaborates on this advice by adding two hadiths from the Prophet in which he states: “Be sincere in your religion; a small thing done (with sincerity) is enough for you,” and “Be sincere in your deeds, for God only accepts what is done with sincerity.”

A third virtue of peace stressed by Rumi is humility. Rumi does not present himself as a great saint or someone who has achieved a deep spiritual level, but sees himself rather as a simple servant of God. He reiterates his servant status to emphasize his standing before God: “I have become a servant, become a servant, become a servant; I have bowed and doubled myself up with serving You.”

Gülen is aware, as was Rumi before him, that spiritual pride, or boasting about one’s religious experiences, is an all-too-common failing among those involved in religious practices, one which amounts to an arrogant service of oneself rather than of God. Gülen quotes Rumi regarding this danger: “Even if the king’s courtier behaves in an affected manner to attract the king’s attention, you must not attempt to do so, for you do not have any document (to justify your doing so). If you cannot be freed from the restrictions of this transient life, how can you know what (the stations of) annihilation, drunkenness, and expansion mean?”

It is clear from Gülen’s writings that he has spent much time perusing the poetry of Rumi and has reflected deeply on his spiritual insights. Gülen can be described as a modern Muslim scholar whose life work of promoting an Islamic appreciation of love, tolerance, and universal peace has been inspired by the life and writings of Mevlana, as well as by lesser lights in the Sufi tradition. Just as Rumi preached an interpretation of Islam that moved beyond a narrow confessionalism to embrace all humankind in his unity with the Divine, so also Gülen’s emphasis on dialogue and overcoming the barriers of disunity are an effort to bring together all humanity in love and obedience before the one God. This reflects Mevlana’s view expressed in the Mathnawi that the goal of mystical striving is the transcending of all barriers that are obstacles to peace: “I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. Doing away with duality, I saw the two worlds as one. I seek One, I know One, I see One, and I call One.”