Moulana Rumi’s Religion of Love

Prof. HARENDRA CHANDRA PAUL, M.A.

Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi, commonly known as Moulana Rumi, is probably the greatest of the Persian philosopher poets that the world has ever produced. He has become famous throughout the world by his immortal Masnavi (lit, a great romantic poem with rhyming couplets). It is a great book of six volumes containing altogether about 26,000 couplets and was written in the thirteenth century, A.D. It contains the main principles and the doctrines of the Sufis (or the Mystics of Islam) with occasional anecdotes. In Persia this book has often been placed next to the Quran. Throughout the book there is fervent spirit, tremendous enthusiasm, sweet melody, high dignity of style, matchless beauty and superior moral teaching.

Religion is essentially a means to realization. There are different religions which have shown different paths for leading us to the goal. And Moulana Rumi says, “Every prophet and saint has shown a path, but it leads (us) to God; (really) all are one.”

Har nabi wa har wali ra maslakist
Lik la haq mibarad jumla yakist

Moulana Rumi is a great messenger of love. He has always sung of Love and announces that it is love which is dominant in every being or thing that is originated from God, the One All-good and All-love. God created the world for the manifestation of His Love. Our poet says, “His love is manifest and the Beloved is hidden; the Friend is outside and His splendour is in the world.”

‘Ishq-i-u paida wa mashuq ash nihan
yar birun fitnayi u dar jahan

The poet in elucidating the famous line occurring in Hadis-i-qudsi (famous traditionary sayings of the Prophet Muhammad)–“But for you I would not have created the heavens,’ also adds, “Pure love was united with Muhammad (the Prophet); for Love’s sake God said to him, ‘But for you’………..Had it not been for Love’s sake, how should I have offered an existence of the heavens. I have raised up the lofty celestial sphere, so that you may understand the sublimity of Love…..I have made the earth so lowly, that you may gain some notion of the lowliness of lovers. (Again) we have given greenness and freshness to the earth, so that you may be acquainted with the (spiritual) transmutation of the saints. (And) these firm-set mountains (i.e., the saints) described to you the state of lovers in steadfastness. Although that state is Reality and this (description) is only an image (of that); (but that description is made), so that it may offer you nearer to your understanding (of that state of Reality)”. (Vol. V)

Really pure love is a state, which cannot be described by words. It is a state to be realised. In answer to a question “What is Love” the poet says, “Be like us, (and) you will know that Love is affection without measure; for that reason it is said to be in reality the attribute of God, and in relation to man (His slave) it is unreal. (The phrase) ‘He loves them,’ is complete (in itself), where then remains ‘they love Him? ¹….(therefore) all praise be to God, the Creator and Sustainer of the world,² (rather of HIS creation).”  (Vol.II, Preface)

What is this creation? It is from Him we come and to Him we must return; and the Quran says. “In His hand is the domain of all things, and to Him will you return.” (Q. XXXVI, 83). The ultimate end of all is the one God. Therefore, when one reaches that state of realization, he feels that that One only remains, no distinction can be made there of ‘He loves them,’ and ‘they love Him.’ Exactly in the same way, says Sir Radhakrishnan in his Philosophy of the Upanishad, “The highest is a state of rapture and ecstasy, a condition of Ananda, where the creature as creature is abolished, but becomes one with the Creator, or, more accurately, realises his oneness with Him.”

The poet says, “As you have read in the Quran, ‘they love Him, is of necessity, joined with ‘He loves them’;–know, then, that love and affection is an attribute of God; fear is not an attribute of God, O dear one. Love is an attribute of God, but fear is an attribute of man (His slave) who is engrossed in worldly pleasures and gluttony.” (Vol. V. 139 p). Pure love of his always free, it has no care after fulfillment of any low desire, the attachment of which is the cause of sorrow and suffering, and which makes one afraid of losing something. Pure love is the attachment of something where there is no want or need. A true lover of God desires nothing and he cares for nothing, but the Eternal Truth where reigns the Eternal Bliss. In the same way, Dr. Bosanquet in his What Religion is says, “In the purity of Love and Will with the supreme Good, you are not only ‘saved’ but you are ‘free’ and ‘strong’….You will not be helped by trying to divide up the unity and tell how much comes from you and how much from God”. In that stage a lover is wholly free, and his mind is absolutely one-pointed, being absorbed in the unity of God, where he is truly happy. Our poet says, “Whoever drinks from your Cup, O you Gracious one, is relieved for ever from (self) consciousness, and from the infliction of restriction (or penalties).” (Vol. V, 267 p). That state is a position which cannot be understood by earthly wisdom. The poet says, “That (state) is hot that oneness which can be understood by reason; the apprehension of this oneness is understood by a man’s dying (to self). If it were possible to perceive this by reason, wherefore self-violence (controlling of passions) should have become obligatory on us? With what (infinite) Mercy that the King of knowledge (God) does possess says ³ not unnecessarily, ‘Kill yourself’ (your evil passions)” Vol. VI, 425 p.)

Love pervades the whole universe. Any attraction of one thing for another, or of one person to another person, is for the reason that its origin is the One who is All-Love. The poet says, “The desire of the soul is for Progress and Exaltedness, and the desire of the body is for gain and the means of procuring fodder.–That Exaltedness (God) has also attraction and love towards the soul; from this understand (the meaning of “He loves them’, and ‘they love Him’.” (Vol. III, 254, p.) The same idea is also found in many places of the Upanishad, one of which says, ‘Rasa vai Sah’ (Chhandogya. VIII, 13, I), that is, the nature of Divinity is All-love. How beautifully our poet develops this idea that God is pervading the whole universe: “The wisdom of God in destiny and decree has made us lovers to one another. All the particles of the world, because of that fore-ordainment, are paired together and are in love with their own mates. Every particle of the universe is desiring its own mates just like amber and the leaf of straw....Earth says to the earth of the body, ‘Return! Take leave of the spirit and come to me like the dust....It replies, ‘Yes, but I am fettered, although like you I am weary of separation. The waters seek the moisture of the body, saying ‘Come to us from exile.’ The ether is calling the heat of the body, saying ‘You are of fire, take the way to your origin. The diseases….(caused, by elements pulling without cord comes to shatter the body, so that element may abandon each other. These elements are four birds with their legs tied together; death, sickness and disease loose their legs….In as much as every part (of the body) seeks the support (i.e., to rejoin to its origin), what must be the state of the soul, a stranger in separation (from its Abode the nearness of God)?–It says, ‘O my base earthly parts, my exile is more bitter, (for) I am celestial. The desire of the body is for green herbs and flowing water, because its origin is from those. The desire of the soul is for Life and the Living One, because its origin is from the Infinite soul.” (Vol. III, pp. 251-53) And at last, every soul, being separated from its body with the death or ruin of the body, must mix with the Infinite Soul.

Every one in this earth or the heavens is proceeding towards God, the Eternal Abode of all. And our poet with reference to the line in the Quran, ‘Come you together willingly or unwillingly’ (Q. XLI, 10), says, “(The command of) ‘Come against your will’ is for him who is a blind follower; ‘Come willingly’ is for him who is moulded of purity.–This former one is a lover of God, for some (secondary) cause; while the other is in friendship with Him without any interest or gain.” (Vol. 111, 263 p) Every one loves God; the true lover loves God disinterestedly; he has no motive is loving God, besides his realization of the Truth; the others also love God, but with some motives. They may imagine that while they are following after any desire, they love those things of their desire only. But the fact is that whatever love or attraction we find in this world towards anything or being, is for the reason that some fraction of the essence of Reality is there in his worldly beloved, whether it be a person or a thing. Our poet says, “That which is the object of love is not the form, whether it be love of this world or that world. If it had been that you loved the form, why have you abandoned it, when the life had fled away?….(Again) you are in love with your intellect, thinking yourself superior to worshippers of form. Know that it is as borrowed gold on your copper; that (intellect) being (only) a splendor of (universal) Intellect (cast) on your sense-perceptions. (Really) beauty in mankind is like gilding…..For that beauty of the heart is the lasting Beauty; its lips give to drink of the Water of Life.” (Vol. II, pp. 285-6). In the same way, we find in the Upanishad, “In truth not for the husband’s sake is the husband dear, but for the sake of the Universal Soul is the husband dear.” (Brih. 11,4, 5.)

Worldly love or the love of anything or being for the sake of some interest is narrow, it has no real pleasure in it. They become attached to this narrow love, as they do not understand the reality of love. Our poet says, “Reality is not that which makes blind and deaf and causes a man more attached to forms.”

Mani an nabuwad ki kur wa kar kunad.
Mard ra bar naqsh ashiq tar kunad.

This sort of love causes men to suffer, for that which is the object of love here is not everlasting, it must come to decay, though this sort of lovers think that they will be satisfied with these things of the world. Gradually through sufferings and hardships, which, therefore, are often blessings in disguise, they will understand that in forms and in sense-perception, there is no real pleasure or joy. Love for Love’s sake or God’s sake who is the emblem of Love, is the highest of Love, Really, human love is no more than a shadow of the divine Love, in as much as we are like shadows in the presence of God. Our poet says, “The Beloved is all in all, (and) the lover a shadow; the Beloved is the Living one, (and) the lover a dead thing.”

Jumla mashuq ast ashiq pardayi,
Zinda mashuq ast ashiq mardayi.

A true lover feels that he is no more than a shadow being in love with his Beloved. (Said Majnun⁴),” …….But my existence is full of Laita; this shell is filled up with the qualities of that pearl...That one of whose heart is enlightened (with love) knows that between Laita and me there is no difference.” (Vol. V. 128 p.) The world is existing only for the reason of Love. In some lines preceding the above the poet says, “If there had been no love, how should there have been existence? How should have bread attached itself to you and become assimilated to you? Bread became you through what? From your love and appetite; otherwise how should the bread have any access to the vital spirit? Love makes the dead bread into spirit, (in the same way as) the life which is perishable is made everlasting (through love).

Thus Love is the one path which leads us to the goal, as advocated by Moulana Rumi in his Masnavi. Really all the mystic poets of Persia expressed the same ideas of the Religion of Love. F. H. Davis in his Persian Mystics says, “Love God’s light in men and women, and not the lanterns through which It shines, for human bodies must turn to dust; human memories, human desires, fade away. But the Love of All-Good, All-Beautiful, remains, and when such is found in earthly love, it is God finding Himself in you and you in Him. That is the supreme teaching of Sufism, the religion of Love”. The religion of the Sufis, the mystics of Islam, is always of universal toleration. The poet says, “The Religion of Love is apart from all religions–for lovers (only) religion and creed is God.”–this is the Invisible Voice come down from Heaven that warned Moses for his rebuking a shepherd who was praying to God to appear before him, so that he might put a pair of shoes on his feet. The other lines of the warning follow thus: “You were sent to bring souls near to me, and not to throw them away from me.….We do not care for the language and word; we see to the condition of the heart ….O Moses, they that know the conventions are of one soul and they whose souls and spirits burn (in love) are of another sort. To lovers there is burning (which consumes all faults away) at every moment; tax and tithe are not (imposed) on a ruined village.” And every true religion admits that the conventions or the formalities of religion are only necessary at the beginning of the path of realization, but when a lover has advanced to some distance these are not of great importance, although these formalities follow the same automatically. In these formalities there is no truth or reality. The essence of religion, i.e., the unity with God, must be obtained. The poet says, “Every religious sect foresaw the end (ultimate Goal, according to their own surmise); of necessity they fell captive to error. The different doctrines are contrary to one another; how should they be one? Are poisons and sugar one? How will you be able to get the scent of unity and oneness, until you pass beyond poison and sugar (i.e., good and evil)? (Vol. I, pp. 31-2). The truth of the unity can be understood by one who has reached that stage; it is not possible to explain it except through symbols, and the symbols are always half-truths.

¹ Quran V, 57 “……Soon He produces a nation whom He loves, as they love Him.”
² Rab-bul alamina, ‘Creator and sustainer of the worlds,’ an attribute of God, often repeated in the Quran. Here alamin, is the plural of alam, world, (from the root, ilm, meaning to know) which means by which one knows a thing,’ and hence it signifies world or creation, because by it the Creator is known or realised.
³ Quran, II, 51, “Indeed, you have wronged……So turn in repentance and kill (mortify) yourselves (i.e., your evil passions), –it will be better in the sight of God.”
⁴ The love of Laita and Majnun is famous in Persian Poetry, Majnuu’s mad attraction for his beloved is a typical mystical love of self-abandonment.