His two great works are the six-volume Masnavi and the epic Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi. He went on to write over 70,000 verses, and many of them were signed with the name “Shams”. It is said that in meeting Shams, Rumi transformed from a stodgy academic into a mystical poet. Regardless of Sham’s ultimate fate, he still had a profound impact on Rumi. But a popular theory is that he was murdered by Rumi’s son and his followers.
Modern scholars are divided as to what actually happened to him. Eventually, Shams was sent away, but Rumi became so distraught over his absence, Shams was quickly brought back to Konya. Which as you can imagine, led to a lot of friction and jealousy among the rest of Rumi’s disciples. And for two years, they formed an intense and powerful bond. They spent weeks together in seclusion, teaching each other principles of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. From that point on, Rumi and Shams, the old man, became nearly inseparable. If that’s not an adorable meet cute then I don’t know what is.īut it was more than just a meet cute. “Something you will not understand,” the old man replies. In an instant, the book bursts into flames. “It’s something that you will not understand,” Rumi replies derisively. Rumi is reading in public one day when an old and unkempt man asks him about the book. There are a lot of stories about how they met, but my favourite goes like this. Shams al-Din Mohammad, commonly referred to as just Shams, was a wandering mystic and spiritual holy man. It was in 1244 that Rumi met a man who would change his life. Rumi continued to train as a preacher, but he also became a highly respected Islamic teacher and jurist. His father was an academic and preacher, and he passed these responsibilities on to his son when he died in 1231. After years on the road as an immigrant, he ultimately settled in Konya (modern day Turkey). He was born in 1207 in either present day Afghanistan or Tajikistan, but emigrated with his family at a young age due to political instability in the region. Rumi, as he’s commonly known, was a 13th century poet, scholar, theologian, and preacher. And between mysticism, Sufism, the Whirling Dervishes, and bhakti, among many other topics, there was a lot to take in this week. But this week I delved into the work of Rumi, considered to be one of the greatest mystical poets of all time. I didn’t, however, anticipate that I would fall down quite so many in one week. I knew that when I started this challenge, it was likely that I would fall down a rabbit hole or two.
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