On the ending of the book. [28]

It will be noticed that there are twenty sections that constitute the intro-duction and the conclusion of the poem: nineteen as introintro-duction, and one as conclusion. In between come the twenty discourses, each with its own exem-plary story. Th e main body of the work, therefore, alternates homily, narrative, homily, narrative. Th e fi rst nineteen sections are of particular interest in terms of their structuring. Th e emphasis in this kind of rhetorical structure is given by the central point, which is Section 10, the eulogy in praise of the King-patron.

On either side of this section are two blocks of nine sections, and, again, the central point of each nine-section block, that is 5 and 15, respectively, contain the main emphasis, that is the Prophet’s ascension, his night journey to the Th rone of God, in the fi rst block, and the description of night and cognizing the heart in the second block. Th ese two Sections, 5 and 15, are each the longest in their respective blocks, further emphasizing their central importance.

Th ere is an obvious correspondence between the two blocks, which could be stated: just as the Prophet was the spokesperson for God, so is the poet for the King Bahrām Shāh. Th ere is also a more subtle pattern of correspondences between the sections of each block of a kind that will be examined in the next chapter, but for now it is notable, for example, that the Prophet’s night journey to God and the poet’s night journey within his own heart are placed in parallel in Sections 5 and 15. Such parallelism does not in any way imply a claim to similarity or equality; it simply suggests a correspondence, a night journey, without any need to explain that there were prodigious diff erences of scale and context between the two, because that would be understood by any reader. Although not shown here, the range of the stories is interesting: kings, sages, Sufi s, animals of all kinds, shopkeepers, barbers, farmers, historical or legendary personages, and the like are all participants. A similar variety will be found in Mawlānā’s masterpiece.

Nizāmī could be called a poet’s poet. His poetry is sophisticated and mannered, rather like the Elizabethan poets in English literature. In addition to the early didactic poem just described, he also wrote four other mathnawīs:

Majnūn and Laylā, a traditional story of self-denying love, and three dealing with subjects from the legendary history of Iran, the Haft Paykar, Khusraw and Shīrīn, and the Iskandar-Nāmah. Th e Haft Paykar, which has been beauti-fully translated into English verse and carebeauti-fully analyzed by Meisami, will be discussed in the next chapter.³¹ It is diffi cult to establish to what extent these four poems can be called Sufi ; they have a potential spiritual dimension, but

34 Rūmī’s Mystical Design

they are predominantly the product of secular court culture, a culture that was essentially analogical so it would be a mistake to argue they were exclu-sively Sufi or excluexclu-sively court poems. Morality and wisdom there certainly is, and observance of the pieties, but you will not fi nd in Nizāmī the fl ights of mystical imagination nor the profound spiritual understanding that is found in Mawlānā.

Th e true forerunner of Mawlānā in terms of spiritual and mystical content is the poet of Nishapur, Farīd al-Dīn ‘At.t.ār, who probably died around the year 1220.³² Little is known of his life except that he worked as a pharmacist in the bazaar at Nishapur. His poetic output was extraordinary, even when one ignores the many works which have been wrongly attributed to him. From this extensive corpus there are four spiritual mathnawīs that are undoubtedly authentic: the Mant.iq al-T.ayr (Th e Parliament of the Birds), the Ilāhī-nāmah (Th e Book of the Divine), the Mus.ībat-nāmah (Th e Book of Affl iction), and the Asrār-nāmah (Th e Book of Mysteries).³³ Th e fi rst three are set within an allegorical frame story.

Th e Parliament of the Birds tells of the birds, under the leadership of the Hoopoe, undergoing a long pilgrimage in search of the mythical Sīmurgh whom they wish to make their king, an allegory of souls on the spiritual path seeking union with God. Many birds were too frightened even to start the journey, which in fact proved so arduous that only thirty birds completed it. Th ey had to pass through seven valleys named respectively: Search, Love, Illumination, Detachment, Unity, Bewilderment and Poverty, and Nothing-ness. Th ese names indicate they are certain stations on the spiritual path, but they are also, horizontally, the route through the desert to be followed on the pilgrimage to Mecca, and, vertically, the ascent through the Ptolemaic spheres that was traditionally understood as the ascent through the diff erent levels of being to perfection. When fi nally the thirty birds (sī murgh) reach the moment of union with the Sīmurgh, they realize that the pun is the reality, that they and the Sīmurgh are one. Th at is the frame story, but the poem itself contains many stories and anecdotes illustrative of the spiritual points being made at the time. Sometimes these stories are straightforward and their import easily accessible, but at other times they can seem obscure and puzzling, deliberately so, because the reader is then obliged to search and struggle and ponder until realization dawns as to the intended purpose of the anecdote in the context in which it occurs. Th is requires an active reader, an intelligent seeker, not some-one who expects to be entertained passively. Th e benefi t to the reader, however, is considerable, not just in terms of the enhanced memorability deriving from the struggle, but from the potentially transformative eff ect of the process itself

35 Contextualizing the Mathnawī

on him- or herself. Th is technique is one that Mawlānā was to use in his own masterpiece, and for this he is certainly indebted to ‘At.t.ār.

Th ere is one particular story that illustrates the point just made. It occurs at the very end of the work. Th e thirty birds have united with the Sīmurgh, and, after an indefi nite period of total Nothingness, they have their individu-ality restored and are heirs to eternal life. Th is clearly represents, fi rst, fanā, total annihilation of the selfhood, followed by baqā, eternal subsistence in God.

Th en comes this story of a king who had a very wise vizier. Th e vizier had a son who was excellent in all respects and had become a very special favorite of the king. One day the son fell in love with a lovely girl of the court and they spent the night together. Th e king fi nds them together and is furiously angry in his jealousy and has the son imprisoned. Th e vizier visits the son and arranges with the warder to have a convicted murderer executed and to pretend it is the son, whom the vizier takes to a place of hiding. Th e king, still angry, comes to visit the prisoner and is very pleased with the warder when he explains he has been executed. Th e king returns to the palace and slowly the anger subsides only to be replaced by an increasing sadness and sense of loss. When his suff ering reaches crisis point, the vizier brings his son in and they are united again in deep and lasting happiness. At this point the poem ends; but what is the purport of the story?

Th e fi rst question is whether the story is a continuation of the allegory of the birds. It could be from its context a symbolic representation of baqā, subsistence in God. What argues against such an interpretation, however, is the anger and jealousy of the king. Th ere is no reason why there should be Divine Anger with souls who have been naughted and endowed totally with God’s attributes. If not explanatory of baqā, then of what is it explanatory?

Th e symbolism is characteristically Sufi . Th e king will be symbolic of God; the vizier symbolic of the Universal Intellect, the ‘aql-e kullī; the son symbolic of a human spirit, rūh.; the warder symbolic of the shaykh; the girl symbolic of the attractions of existence or of the world; the convicted murderer symbolic of the selfhood, the nafs; and the execution symbolic of the naughting of the selfhood, fanā. Sufi symbolism is multivalent; it can apply on as many levels as there are modes of understanding and being to apprehend it. Certainly the story can be read as a clarifi cation of fanā. It provides the reassurance that the annihilation of the selfhood is only a pretended death: that the death of ego-ism, the false “I,” is not death at all, but the clearing of the way so that true individuality may be granted by God. Th at reading makes contextual sense, but another reading could be that it is a summing up of the human situation in relation to the Divine and hence it can also be considered a general statement

36 Rūmī’s Mystical Design

applicable to all. It is almost certainly both, and probably more besides, but this last reading, as a general statement, J. W. Morris rightly observes, is the precise point at which Mawlānā begins his Mathnawī, so this could be another intertextual act of homage by Mawlānā to his acknowledged predecessor.

Th ere is another debt that Mawlānā owes to ‘At.t.ār which has to do with the second mathnawī, the Ilāhī-nāmah. In this case the frame story is of a Caliph who had six sons whom he asked to tell him their deepest wishes. Th e fi rst wishes to marry the daughter of the king of the fairies; the second wishes to control magical powers; the third wishes for Jamshīd’s world-revealing cup;

the fourth seeks to fi nd the Water of Life; the fi fth desires the Ring of Solomon;

and the sixth wishes to learn the secrets of the alchemist. In his introduction,

‘At.t.ār indicates what the sons respectively represent: the fi rst son, the selfhood (the nafs); the second son, the Devil (Iblīs); the third son, intellect (‘aql);

the fourth son, knowledge (‘ilm); the fi fth son, spiritual poverty (faqr); and the sixth son, Unicity or the Realization of the Uniqueness of God (tawh.īd).

Th e Caliph fulfi ls the desires of each son, but not in the manner they initially expected. Th rough the medium of a set of stories, he transforms the aims of each son from a worldly to a spiritual purpose. Th e Caliph, ‘At.t.ār makes clear, is the human spirit, the rūh.. Mawlānā’s debt to this work is that he designed his great Mathnawī to have six books and the overall subject of each book is that which is represented by each of the six sons above. Such intertextuality is not to be regarded in any sense as plagiarism but rather as an act of homage to a master mystical poet and an acknowledgment by Mawlānā that he stood on the shoulders of giants. It was also a statement by an author indicating precisely within which tradition he was locating himself.

Th e Mus.ībat-nāmah is another journey allegory with a meditating subject being taken to diff erent parts of the universe, fi rst a descent from the transcen-dent realm to the material worlds and then the ascent back again. But it is the Asrār-Nāmah that proved to be infl uential with Mawlānā in that he refers to it by name and uses several of the stories, with his own modifi cations, in the Mathnawī. Th e Asrār-Nāmah is not an allegorical narrative, and has no frame story. It is divided into chapters, but no headings are given to the chapters to indicate what the central ideas being treated are, a precedent Mawlānā was to follow. It covers a number of diff erent spiritual subjects, seemingly without apparent order or rationale, and in this respect follows the model of Sanā’ī’s H. adīqat al-h.aqīqa wa sharī‘at al-t.arīqa. In his discussion of this poem, De Bruijn, having paraphrased some thirty lines from the beginning of Chapter 6, concludes:

“As this paraphrase of a passage of no more than thirty lines shows, the dense use of imagery, word-play and a few illustrative tales enable the

didac-37 Contextualizing the Mathnawī

tical poet to express a connected line of profound mystical thoughts quite eff ectively within a very small compass. Th e great art of this homiletic style lies not so much in the attractiveness of the narratives, which are usually very short indeed, but in the fl ashing movement of the poet’s discourse from one theme to another. It was this style as it is exemplifi ed in the Asrār-Nāmah which characterizes both the didactic poetry of ‘At.t.ār’s predecessor Sanā’ī and that of his successor Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī.”³⁴

Th is completes the literary contextualization of the Mathnawī. It is now time to look at the poem itself and consider how it can best be read.