Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207 – 1273) was a Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic. His influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions, and his poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages. At age twenty-five, Rumi began service as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and later became a Jurist, but his life completely changed following a trip to Damascus. Here he met a teacher under whose instruction he chose the way of the mystic, becoming an ascetic, devoted to the unorthodox spiritual path. Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. His best-known work, the Masnavi (Spiritual Couplets), is a six-volume poem that holds a distinguished place within the rich tradition of Persian Sufi literature, and has been commonly called “the Quran in Persian.”
Quotations by Jalal al-Din Rumi…
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Those that make you return, for whatever reason,
to God’s solitude, be grateful to them.
Worry about the others, who give you
delicious comforts that keep you from prayer.
Friends are enemies sometimes,
and enemies friends.
A little time alone in your own room will prove more valuable than anything else that could even be given to you.
To be nothing is the precondition of being.
Die before ye die!
And if He closes before you the ways and passes all, He’ll show a hidden pathway which nobody has known.
But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage. We have opened you.
Lovers do not themselves seek and yearn. In all the world there is no one seeking but He!
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
If the Beloved is everywhere,
the lover is a veil,
but when living itself becomes
the Friend, lovers disappear.
