Rumi and Islam , livre ebook

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Rumi and Islam: Selections from His Stories, Poems, and Discourses
Annotated & Explained
First Printing 2004
Translation, annotation, and introductory material 2004 by Ibrahim Gamard
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana, 1207-1273.
[Selections. English. 2004]
Rumi and Islam: selections from his stories, poems, and discourses
annotated & explained / translation & annotation by Ibrahim Gamard.
p. cm.-(SkyLight Illuminations)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 1-59473-002-4
1. Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana, 1207-1273-Religion. 2. Mevleviyeh. 3. Sufism. I. Gamard, Ibrahim. II. Title. III. Series.
BP189.7.M4 J3513 2004
297.4-dc22
2003026380
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America
SkyLight Paths, Walking Together, Finding the Way and colophon are trademarks of LongHill Partners, Inc., registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
SkyLight Paths Publishing is creating a place where people of different spiritual traditions come together for challenge and inspiration, a place where we can help each other understand the mystery that lies at the heart of our existence.
SkyLight Paths sees both believers and seekers as a community that increasingly transcends traditional boundaries of religion and denomination-people wanting to learn from each other, walking together, finding the way .
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I would like to dedicate this book to Shaykh Shafiq Jan of Istanbul, the chief spiritual director (Sar-i Tariqat) of the Mevlevi (Whirling Dervishes) order of Islamic Sufism, who, now in his mid-nineties, has been studying the works of Rumi in Persian since boyhood, who has written books that translate and explain Rumi s poetry and teachings in the Turkish language, and who comes from a long lineage of Mevlevi scholars able to understand and appreciate Rumi s words and teachings in the original Persian.
I also dedicate this book to lovers of Rumi s poetry everywhere who are interested in attaining a deeper understanding of his sublime spiritual wisdom.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Stories of the Prophet
1. Warfare
Annotations
2. The Captives
Annotations
3. Hilal
Annotations
4. The Sick One
Annotations
5. Bilal
Annotations
6. The Water Carrier
Annotations
7. The Greedy Pagan
Annotations
8. The Blind One
Annotations
9. The Arrival of the Caravan
Annotations
10. The Groaning Pillar
Annotations
11. Ayisha
Annotations
12. Zayd
Annotations
Sayings of the Prophet
13. Prayer and Guidance
Annotations
14. Self-Denial and Ego-Death
Annotations
15. Divine Sayings
Annotations
Praises of the Prophet
16. Affirmations and Blessings
Annotations
17. Praises and Virtues
Annotations
18. Love and Closeness with God
Annotations
19. The Seal of the Prophets
Annotations
20. The Night Journey, the Cave, and the Pillar
Annotations
21. Prayer and Pilgrimage
Annotations
22. The Light of Muhammad and Intercession
Annotations
23. Death and Resurrection
Annotations
Notes
Glossary
Suggested Readings and Resources
Index of Passages in Rumi s Works
Acknowledgments
About SkyLight Paths
Copyright
Preface
I first began studying the Mathnawi, Jalaluddin Rumi s poetic masterpiece of Islamic mystical wisdom, in 1975. My wife, Sher, and I were living in Los Angeles, California, in a center for Sufi studies. Every Thursday night we whirled with several others in Turkish dervish costumes, and our teacher, Reshad Feild, gave a lecture to guests and led Sufi chanting. One day, he told us that the head of the Mevlevi (Whirling Dervishes) Sufi order in Turkey was coming to America for the first time in order to visit us. He was Suleyman Loras Dede, from Konya, the very city where Rumi lived and is buried. Dede was the chief spiritual leader [ shaykh ] of the Mevlevi Sufi order, which has maintained the spiritual teachings and practices of Rumi and his successors for more than seven hundred years.
In preparation for Dede s upcoming visit, I spent several months reading the Mathnawi in R. A. Nicholson s complete translation-over fourteen hundred pages of dense, antiquated-sounding, and highly academic British English. In this book I found many passages that were exquisitely and rapturously mystical, full of the mystic lover s ecstatic love for God (described as the Only Beloved and Friend) and God s Infinite Love and Mercy in response. I found this book to be the greatest work of religious mysticism that I had ever found in all my explorations of mysticism in world traditions (a conviction I continue to hold).
When Suleyman Dede arrived in Los Angeles in 1976, he blessed our tall conical hats, taught us the basics of the famous Mevlevi Whirling Prayer Ceremony, and led the ceremony in full costumes in a local gymnasium-a ritual of great spiritual blessings (and one in which my wife and I continue to participate). The next year my wife and I visited him in Turkey, where we visited Rumi s tomb, a place full of the perfume of God s Love. I asked a Western woman who translated for Dede s English-speaking disciples there whether we could learn what Dede had to teach about the Mathnawi. She replied that this would be far too difficult to translate from Turkish.
About five years later, I decided to teach myself Persian in order to study the Mathnawi in its original text. I bought a small introductory grammar and soon learned to find words in a large Persian-English dictionary. I then looked up every word in the first couplet of the Mathnawi: Listen to the reed-flute, how it complains of separations. During the next years, I gradually read the entire text in Persian, with the help of Nicholson s literal translation.
In 1985, I heard that there was a new professor of Persian literature, an Afghan, at the University of California, Berkeley. After I met Dr. Ravan Farhadi, he proposed that we translate all of the nearly two thousand quatrains attributed to Rumi. We have worked on this project in our spare time ever since (it is now an unpublished manuscript, The Quatrains of Rumi ). Over the years, Dr. Farhadi s correction of my translation efforts has been an invaluable help in learning the Persian of Rumi s time, and this, together with accurate published translations, has given me the good fortune of learning to appreciate and understand Rumi s mystical poetry and spiritual teachings.
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