Фатима Кешаварз: "Беременный Богом", Часть 2

[hojja_nusreddin]

Beginning: http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/779332.html Pregnant with God: The Poetic Art of Mothering the Sacred In Rumi’s "Fihi Ma Fih" by Fatemeh Keshavarz Sleep, induced by a feeling of safety in his presence, was acceptable. But it was not presented as a way to counter fear. We were fearful children that mother’s soothing words could put to sleep, but staying asleep to avoid growing up was not an option. Our fears were too real to ignore. We had to face them and understand them for what they truly were. Our fears were the results of inability to transcend our smallness, a leap we could handle only through connecting with the God inside, the one we were pregnant with. The irony was that the pregnancy itself was one source of insecurity and fear. How does one tell a child, “You are both the child and the mother, Indeed you are the world; nothing is outside you.” And how much harder the comprehension will be if one added, “and the day on which to give birth is near.” To break the news, Rumi started at a simple place. He began by demonstrating that the entire universe was in the same dilemma, the paradoxical duality of Godliness and smallness. Overwhelmed by and fearful of this duality, feeling the immense weight of the sacred with which they were pregnant, all beings ran in fear and confusion. Yet the fear and confusion were one side of a coin the other side of which was joy. The running between the poles was the dynamism, the fuel, and the force that propelled everything forward. When blooming, buds run towards “flowerness,” and when ripening, sour grapes run towards “sweetness.” Our souls ran in the same way, except their blooming and ripening was even harder to see. There were other problems. Not only were we children pregnant with God, but our inner and outer worlds were shrouded in mystery making comprehension of things even more difficult. We could not change the conditions of our being in the world much, but we could perceive and use these conditions to our advantage. In so doing, our rationality was a valuable tool because we lived in a world that, in many respects, acted predictably, mirroring our rational perception. Such was the predictability of the results of our actions in the world that it could be understood through the metaphor of sounds bouncing off a mountain. The mountain only echoed back the words we spoke to it. If anyone “sang like a nightingale to the mountain,” it was impossible that the mountain would echo the harsh “voice of a donkey in return.” [30] How ever, this was unfortunately (or fortunately) not the whole story. If our entire story could have been reduced to a rational perception of our conditions in the world, the matters would have been simpler, but where rationality took us was not far enough. Our rational faculties had been created to doubt and to find fault with things (in nafs-i adami mahall-i shubhah va ishkal ast). In themselves, ‘aql (the human rationality) and its product shubhih (doubt) were good because they looked behind suspicious closed doors and tested the safety of the routes we chose to reach desired destinations. Unchecked, however, doubt could hinder all movement including the fearful running propelled with the inner quest to unite with the inner divine. In other words, what was wrong with our rationality was its arrogance, the misguided self-confidence that claimed possessing the key to all closed doors. Once unleashed, it was unstoppable. The point was not to discard rationality but to recognize its limits: Rationality ‘aql is so useful as to provide you with the direction to the residence of the King. Once you reached that threshold, divorce the ‘aql because from this point on it will be a hindrance, a thief. Once there, surrender yourself to him [the King], for the moments of doubt and questioning are over. [31] Here Rumi used one of his most accessible illustrations to articulate the complicated notion of the limitations of rationality based on division of labor and expertise rather than the baseness of the faculty of ‘aql in and of itself. The matter, he explained, is rather simple. When taking material to a tailor to make a garment, you use rationality to find the direction to the tailor’s shop. Once there, however, you surrender your material to the tailor allowing him/her to exercise fully his/her dress making expertise. Why should we give our rational faculty more than its responsibilities and expertise permit? Establishing the limitations of the faculty of rationality, however, did not make mapping the road to the sacred inner self easier. How would the caravan fare on the dark and difficult road if it relied solely on the signals coming from the crowing cock, and the barking village dog? What if the caravan never found its way to the vicinity of the village? Fortunately for us, still more ironies surrounded the condition of our being-in-the-world. The inadequacy of our rational faculty as a tool facilitating the journey ahead was not cause for disappointment or despair. If we developed the ability to see the bigger picture, the limits of human reasoning were cause only for celebration. We were mysterious, multidimensional beings who lived in an equally mysterious and multidimensional world. Rationality was a small part of this vast operation capable only of scratching the mystery at the surface. There was a world of plenitude beneath the outer shell. If we stayed fascinated by or bound to the surface, we had aimed low. Wouldn’t it be a pity to “arrive at the sea, with all the pearls and the riches in it, and be satisfied with a jug of salty water?” The neighborhoods of rationality were too small, too limiting. Soon there would be no places left unexplored. [32] The answer was to take whatever action possible, “to come and go” as it were, to dive into the sea of mysteries and not sit idly for things to be rationally resolved. The biggest of all errors would be passivity and inaction: You are not less than the earth. The earth is transformed with plowing, digging, and turning over. It is then enabled to grow greenery. If left untouched for a time, it becomes hard. When you sense the longing in yourself, come and go [do something about it]. Do not ask: “what benefit is going to come out of this?” You take action, the benefit will become apparent.[33] Ambiguity played a significant part in every step of this evo lutionary journey. It was there to provoke awe and wonder. Take God, for example, He was to be our aid, the answer to our pleas for clarity and purpose, yet he was shrouded in mystery Himself. He “encompassed all,” so anything you tried to add to Him was a “detraction” from His perfection. Like the mathematical unit “one,” which is a part of every number and without which no number can be imagined, God was alone and singular, yet all life was alive with His presence. [34] How would such an omnipresent and compassionate God expect the members of this caravan lost in the dark, the hungry puppies not able even to feed themselves, to find the destination? How could they be expected to comprehend such overpowering mysteries, let alone solve them? It was time for the awliya’ (the friends of God), the saintly mothers and the feeders of the puppies, to intervene. Their superiority and ability to bring about change in ordinary human beings was justified as concretely as the role of the metaphorical tailor had been earlier. Weren’t we all made of clay? Yet, God had given some of us, the human versions of clay, the power to use our rational strength to do things to the lesser forms found in our living environment. We used the lesser clay versions to build houses, to make clay jars out of them, and to turn them into bowls from which to eat. Why should it be surprising if among the clays-turned-human, God had given some superiority over others? In terms of awareness and ability to act, we were to them as clay jugs and cups were to us. These molders of human clay could give us shape and purpose as we did the objects we made. The clay/potter analogy was perhaps the most extreme as far as the agency of the saints and the passivity of the recipients were concerned. Rumi balanced the picture by introducing other analogies that placed us at the other end of the spectrum of agency. After all, one of the aims was to demonstrate the paradoxes of our concurrent helplessness and power. The star analogy was an interesting counter example where our agency took center stage. Indeed, our God-appointed feeders and guides often helped in the way that distant stars and silent road maps do. While they showed us the way to unravel the mystery, we were the ones who deciphered the message, read the map, penetrated the silence of ignorance, and ultimately found the way: A traveler looks at the stars and finds the way. Do stars ever talk to him? No. As soon as he looks at them, though, he knows the right way from the wrong and arrives at his destination. Such are God’s Friends, you may look at them and they may bring about a change of course [in your life journey]. Without a word, a discussion, or an argument, goals may be attained [and] destinations reached.[35] It is not hard to imagine audiences easing into the comfort of well-fed puppies falling asleep in the hope of finding a guiding star, or surrendering happily to the freedom of the clay/potter analogy, relinquishing agency for struggle and growth. Before that happened, however, came the shocking news of the pregnancy. Not only were the lost and hungry puppies close to their goal, but they also embodied it. To be precise, they were pregnant with it. If they could not see or feel the closeness, it was due to the closeness itself. The combination of joy and pain that accompanied the conflicting and mysterious condition led to confusion and the illusion of distance. Knowing that one was not just close but indeed at the destination, yet not able to live the closeness, was a triumph as well as a tragedy. How was one to nurture this God buried like a treasure in the ruin of one’s being and let it permeate all of life? It required the ability to grapple with a paradox that overpowered the rational mind. This “being there” was so close to being lost. There were other problems as well. The house of one’s being in its present condition was often not fit to host the royal visitor whose presence had to be received properly before His growth and birth materialized. Even if one succeeded to explain to a child that s/he was pregnant, and with, of all beings, God, how would one add the news that the nursery was too small? Could anyone accept that their entire existence was to be renovated to become fit for the royal arrival, without losing all hope? In such critical moments as this, would the rationality help find the house of the tailor and leave the dressmaking to the expert? Or, would it interfere in every step performing its “fault-finding and doubting” responsibility? Wouldn’t instinctive fears warn against such false hopes and imaginary reconstructions of the self to make things right for the arrival of the king? Wouldn’t one be more likely to lose the way and never get near enough to hear the dog and the rooster of the village of safety? The answer to these and many similar questions were neither simple nor necessarily hopeful. What Rumi possessed was not final answers but a powerful poetic medium that remolded colorful anecdotes into effective solutions. In the safety of the interactive environment that put some members of the audience to sleep, he redefined concepts, stretched imaginations, and helped the travelers see the destination at the end of the dark road. What persuaded was his poetic logic: The larger the number of the guests, the bigger the house, the more elaborate the decoration, and the more the food that is to be prepared for the inhabitants. Don’t you see that when the child’s body is small his/her thoughts, which are guests in the house of the body, are suitable for the house? S/he is concerned with none other than milk and the wet nurse. As s/he grows, the guests of thoughts increase to include the rational faculty, perception, differentiation, and the like. The house [of the body] is expanded [too]. When the guests of love arrive, they do not fit in the house. They tear the house down and rebuild it from the foundation. The King’s royal curtains, decorations, the army, and the entourage do not fit in the house. [36] Meeting the King made the demolition of the house worthwhile. Still, to be able to go through with the demolition, the confidence of the audience was periodically renovated. They were empowered with the sense of agency articulated in a language aware of the engaging intensity of paradoxes. Here, Rumi came very close to what he had often done in his lyric compositions. He empowered the audience by evoking their weakness. The hindrances on the path were many, but one’s personal weakness was not one of them. Rumi argued with conviction that properly understood and utilized weakness could turn into a fountain of strength. Where “lions, tigers,” and other fierce creatures “trembled with fear,” what strength could be expected of a feeble human? Were His light “to shine unveiled, none would remain; the heavens, the sun, or the moon.” [37] Yet, the same awe-inspiring light was itself the source of life. Shone indiscriminately on all existence, it was there to heal, to gladden the hearts, and to bring all dead to life. If that end were not achieved, this would only be due to human foolish attachments that shielded him/her from the light. Humans with, their ties to their belongings, their entanglements in the web of greed and ambition, and layer after layer of guilt and self-blame they managed to wear, covered their being and deprived themselves of the life-giving rays of this light. God was not about to abandon his bounteous, allembracing love and imitate the human, selective, and fleeting manner in love and generosity. He was not about to choose some of us over the others. As the giver par excellence, and like the sun that immersed the world indiscriminately in its light, God shone on all, except on those whose cloudy skies prevented them from receiving the rays of the sun. These were those wrapped in layers of attachment. Alas, clouded were the hearts and minds of those who carried their ambitions and belongings: If you are able to go completely naked before this sun, all the better, for this sun does not burn but brightens your skin…and should you not be able to be completely naked, at least wear less so you may taste [the warmth of] the sunshine…for a long time have you been accustomed to sour tastes. For once, try something sweet. [38] Learning to peel off these layers was not easy. The practice of sadaqah (charity) had been established for this purpose. God wanted humanity to taste the refreshing experience of giving and lean naturally toward freeing itself from the extra layers of attachment. After that, nothing hindered the exposure to the life-giving sunlight. Besides, His divine aids were at work to ease the burden at all times. Was the soul not “the bird that took wing with the strength of His remembrance”? Weren’t the winds carriers of “the ashes of hearts aflame with love” dancing and calling out to others? If not so, who brought “the glad tidings of love and renewed it at every instant”? [39] The greatest irony on the difficult road of God/human exchange was the ease with which one could play the game of running in His direction blind-folded for the simple reason that He was equally eager to play. Had he not planted in the human heart, indeed in the entire universe, the seed of play-the source of which was His own playfulness-this persistent quest for Him would not have infused all life. The sense of play and surprise was endless. For example,“unlike other things which one had to seek in order to find, with Him, seeking was the sure sign that one had already found the object of one’s longing.” [40] Once there, one joined the collectivity of lovers with whom loneliness and separation had no meaning. “Whosoever belonged to us and became intoxicated with this wine,” said Rumi in one sermon “shall be with us wherever s/he may go, and shall be in our company whomsoever s/he spends time with.”[41] This promise of unbreakable attachment and of drinking from the fountainhead of giving and companionship was perhaps the most attractive of promises that kept the community of seekers eager and connected. Even in the New Age revival of his poetry in the English-speaking world, this message of togetherness and hope overshadows any other, for it counters loneliness, alienation, and despair. [42] Then, as in its contemporary renderings, his promises of togetherness were indiscriminate. All who desired and sought could reach if they fulfilled one condition and one condition alone: love. Love was the cure for the ailment of “doubt and fault finding” of the ‘aql (rationality) just as perseverance sustained the advances on the dark road. Love was the strength that enabled the feeble human being to take the plunge into the sea of mysteries and face the overpowering presence that made lions and tigers tremble. And it was not an easy condition because it could not be the self-righteous, selectively dispensed love given to a carefully selected few whose well being nurtured the ego of the giver of the affection. Rather, it was allembracing, and unconditional, something of the generous sunshine that fell on all except those shielded by their own cloudy skies: Wherever you are, and whatever state you are in, strive for being a lover, for being in love. When love became your property, you shall always be in love, in the grave, on the day of judgment, in the garden of Eden, and till the end of time. If you planted wheat, wheat shall grow in the fields, wheat shall be in the store, and wheat shall emerge from your oven. [43] Time was short and the news of pregnancy too important to be ignored. In the absence of mother’s care and awareness, the well being of the baby was in danger. True, this baby was none other than the inner treasure that God had promised in the Qur’an to guard against the ravages of time, but to unearth and use the treasure was a decision that only the owner could make. If unborn, the baby could return to its divine origin leaving the mother deprived and forever ignorant of the opportunity that would have enriched, indeed transformed, her life. Here, Rumi used an effective poetic tech nique with multiple levels of impact. On the one hand, he revived the metaphor of pregnancy and utilized its fine constituent elements: A human being, whatever state s/he may be in, his/her inner sirr “secret” is occupied with the divine. Occupation [with the affairs of this world] does not prevent him/her from maintaining this inner connection. This is just like the state of a pregnant woman. Whatever state she is in, tranquility, strife, eating or sleeping, the baby in her womb continues to grow, to gain strength, and to develop its sensual apparatus though the mother is unaware of it. [44] Secondly, he fortified the poetic analogy with a new Qur’anic allusion, which affirmed the metaphor of pregnancy. In the process, he fulfilled a third purpose, namely solving a hermeneutic point of discussion and dispute. The Qur’anic verse seventy-two from the chapter Ahzab had declared God to have offered His amanah (trust) to the mountains, the heavens, and the earth. These elements, overcome with fear, had all refused to carry the divine trust. Humanity, unjust and ignorant of the magnitude of the responsibility, had shouldered God’s trust. [45] The verse contained a double edge, a paradoxically productive combination of weakness and strength. On the one hand, the Qur’an had placed humanity above the mountains, the heavens, and the earth in bravery and in eagerness to respond to the divine call. On the other, the scriptural use of the adjectives zalum (overly unjust) and jahul (overly ignorant), had presented the human bravery in unfavorable lights. Poets from the Muslim world had found the verse a fertile source of conjecture on the human folly and haste in grappling with the risky hazards of love. Some like Hafiz of Shiraz (d. 1389) had tried to balance humanity’s shortcoming in knowledge and fairness by highlighting its capacity for passionate love bordering on madness. [46] Rumi added the verse to the mix that constituted the conditions and outcomes of the pregnancy with the divine. While making use of the verse to substantiate the allegory itself, he used the pregnancy as the cure for the conditions of ignorance and injustice. Thus, he continued the above discussion: In the same way, humanity is the carrier of that sirr “secret.” [This is stated in the Qur’anic verse] Wa-hamalaha al-insan, innahu kana zaluman jahula “and humanity carried it for it [humanity] was extremely unjust and ignorant.” However, God the ever lasting will not abandon the mother in injustice and ignorance. The [biological] form that a human being carries in pregnancy is capable of camaraderie, love, and companionship. What surprise is it if the divine secret that s/he is pregnant with leads to love, and companionship [that overcomes such undesirable conditions]? [47] Then, to illustrate the true nature of the pregnancy, Rumi pushed the metaphor to a further stage, one resonant to Muslim ears. He established a direct connection between the human condition of carrying God inside and its Qur’anically sanctioned prototype, the immaculate birth: Our body is a Mary and we each have a Jesus. If the pain of childbirth is induced, our Jesus will be born. In the absence of that pain, Jesus shall return, taking the hidden route it used to come to us, to its source…[Nothing will happen to the Jesus] we, however, shall remain deprived and unable to benefit from him.[48] A number of goals had been achieved. A theologically literalist and limited position, one that shied from breaching the Qur’anic pronouncement of the transcendence of God beyond giving birth or being born, had been poetically overcome in the above passages. [49] Rumi had stepped down from the pulpit, wearing his garb of the mother/physician feeding and literally putting to sleep a horde of fearful, hesitant, and unruly children. Using an astonishing range of pedagogical skills, he had driven home the complicated theological story of our intimate dealings with God through the unlikely metaphor of the pregnancy with the divine. In the process, he had presented his audience with delightful short sketches in which lyricism empowered simple anecdotal prose. Above all, he had subverted with finality the standard mystical analogy that naturally associated the divine with masculinity and the carnal soul with the feminine. NOTES Thanks are due to John Renard (SLU) and Peter Heath (AUB) for reading the first draft of this essay and providing detailed comments. I am also grateful to Ahmet Karamustafa, Dwight Stephens, Nargis Virani, and Hanif Virani for their valuable suggestions. 1. The Masnavi was edited with English translation and commentary by Raynold A. Nicholson and first published in London (Luzac, 1925-40). For a critical edition of the Divan see (Amir Kabir, 1976) edited by Badi’ al-Zaman Furuzan’far and entitled Kulliyat-i Shams ya Divan-i Kabir. 2. See, Fihi ma fih (Amir Kabir, 1983) edited by Badi’ al-Zaman Furuzan’far. The first English translation by A.J. Arberry appeard in 1961 (London: Murray). A 1993 translation under the same title, by Thackston Wheeler, U. uses a more accessible English (Atlantic Highlands, J.J.: Humanities Press International). As in my previous experience in writing about the lyrics, I have found it more effective to make my own translations of anecdotes from the Fihi ma fih. 3. For an interesting biographical account, see Annemarie Schimmel, I am Wind You Are Fire: The Life and Work of Rumi (Boston: Shambhala, 1992). 4. The above allusion is not meant as a categorical rejection of Barks’s translations some of which are eminently fresh and readable. Nonetheless, the reader should be aware of the incompleteness of many of the selections as well as their omission of cultural references particularly those of a religious nature. See, The Essential Rumi: Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne (New York: HarperCollins, 1995). For Rumi’s story of the elephant in the third daftar, see Ikhtilaf kardan dar chigunigi va shikl-i pil (Tehran: Intisharat-i Safi’alishah, 1375/1996), 394. 5. In “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” the contemporary poet William Stafford finished his classic plea for communication with the phrase quoted in this paragraph. See The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems (Saint Paul: Gray Wolf Press, 1998), 76. 6. Rehder understands the popularity of the work to be a result of its length, see Robert M. Rehder “The Style of Jalal al-Din Rumi” in The Scholar and The Saint: Studies in Commemoration of Abu’l-Rayhan and Jalal al-Din Rumi, ed. Peter J. Chelkowski (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 281. 7. Fatemeh Keshavarz, Reading Mystical Lyric: The case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 18-30. 8. Rumi, The Masnavi, I:2128. 9. Rumi, The Masnavi, verses 1339-47 and 1373-89. 10. See the brief introduction by Furuzan’far to the Tehran edition; Rumi, Fihi ma fih, ix. 11. The famous passage dar vilayat va qaum-i ma az sha’iri nangtar kari nabud (In my homeland and among my people there was no occupation more contemptible than sha’iri) is the most often quoted example. Schimmel uses this passage to argue in favor of Rumi’s contempt for poetry whereas De Brujin argues that the term sha’iri here has little to do with the act of poetic expression. It instead refers to the profession of composing poetry to find a patron or resorting to various means to please one. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 74; Schimmel, I am Wind You are Fire, 34. J.T.P. De Bruijin, Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Hakim Sana’iof Ghazna (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983), 155-60. 12. To explain that one would value anything only to the degree that one is able to benefit from it, Rumi used the example of children playing with walnuts as marbles. Such children, he exclaimed, will not exchange a hollow walnut with fresh walnut kernel or with walnut oil because all they know of walnuts is that they are round objects one can play with, Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 81. 13. One such instance included a gentle reproach for Amir Mu’in al-Din Parvanah, the governor, who had asked for prayer from Rumi to get certain wishes fulfilled. Rumi prayed that God grants the Amir those wishes and “others which he does not know enough about to even wish” for, if that happened, he would be ashamed of his earlier ones. See Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 131. 14. It has been brought to my attention that the interplay between prose and poetry as reflected in the Fihi ma fih are complex and should not be presented in the simple terms of prose that has acquired poetic characteristics. I agree. The Fihi ma fih is one of many examples that demonstrate the line between the genres in question to be more blurred than we admit. In other words, even in its pre-modern manifestations, Persian poetry worked through nonmetrical, formally unconventional genres when the context demanded. Unfortunately, the scope of the present essay does not permit a fuller discussion of the dynamics of exchange between poetry and prose in Persian literature. 15. Najm al-Din Razi, Mirsad al-‘ibad min al-mabda’ ila alma’ad (Tehran: Intisharat-i Sana’i, n.d.), 136. Also known as Najm-i Dayah, the author of Mirsad is known for rebuking Umar Khayyam, the author of the Rubiyyat, for his skepticism concerning the existence of another world, al-Din Razi, Mirsad, 18. His Mirsad, aimed at “explaining the practical implementation of religion, arriving at station of certitude, training of human animal soul, and learning God’s attributes” has remained an influential work since its composition. For an English rendition of the work, see Hamid Algar, tr. The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return: A Sufi Compendium by Najm al-Din Razi (New York: Delmar, 1982). For a recent study of the concept of manliness in Sufi literature, see Arley Loewen’s Ph.D. thesis entitled The Concept of Jawanmardi (manliness) in Persian Literatur and Society, dept. of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, 2001. 16. Algar, 68 and 99. 17. Attar, Farid al-Din, "The Tadhkirat al-awliya", ed. and introduction Nasir Hayyiri (Tehran: Intisharat-i Chikamah, 1361/1982), 42. For a selection from the entries in English, see A.J. Arberry, "Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-awliya" “Memorial of the Saints.” By Farid al-Din Attar. Reprint (London 1990). 18. Al-Kalabadhi did not place Rabi’ah among the famous Sufis listed in his second chapter. He did, however, refer to her three times in the body of the text. See, Kitab al-ta’arruf limadhhab ahl al-Tasawwuf “The doctrine of the Sufis,” trans. A.J. Arberry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 12, 83, 93, and 159. al-Qushayri made seven brief references to Rabi’ah in his classic Risalah “Principles of Sufism,” trans. B.R. Von Schlegell (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1990), 10, 37, 77, 166, 265, 282, and 340. 19. Schimmel looks at examples of female representation in a wide variety of literature produced in the Islamic world. These range from Quran and Hadith-related writings to popular Sufi tales, see My Soul Is a Woman: the Feminine in Islam, trans. Susan H. Ray, (New York: Continuum, 1997). 20. Uta Ranke-Hinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church, trans. Peter Heinegg (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 187. 21. The Masnavi contains anecdotes in which women are not portrayed in favorable lights. There are many, like the woman climbing the pear tree in the fourth daftar, who betray husbands and blind them with trickery. See Rumi, The Masnavi, 710. 22. For rereading of the childhood events, see, Keshavarz, Reading Mystical Lyric, 4-7. 23. The Qur’an, 5:9. 24. The Qur’an, 114. The word gawhar here translated as jewel can also mean human nature highlighting the familiar and intrinsically human characteristic of the inner quest or desire described here. 25. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 9. 26. Rumi, The Masnavi, verses 1339-47 and 1373-89 27. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 148. 28. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 64. 29. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 168. 30. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 222, 152. 31. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 112. 32. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 9, 174-5. 33Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 215. 34. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 219. 35. Rumi, Fihi ma fih,; for the analogy of the potter and clay analogy, see Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 223-24. 36. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 158. 37. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 19. 38. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 227. 39. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 175 and 183. 40. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 189. 41. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 191. 42. In the words of a contemporary Rumi enthusiast, “[H]e is radiating to the darkened world the fire of his infinite love and hope urging us all onward,” see Andrew Harey, The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi (Berkley, C.A.: North Atlantic Books, 1994), 2. 43. Harvey, The Way of Passion, 169. 44. Harvey, The Way of Passion, 187. 45. The Qur’an, 33: 72. 46. Asiman bar-I amanat natavanist kishid Qur’ah-yi fal bi-nam-i man-i divanah zadand (The heavens could not tolerate the burden of the ‘trust’ the game of chance selected a mad one like me), see Hafiz, "Divan-i Khvajah Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafiz-i Shirazi", Qudsi, ed. (Tehran: Intisharat-i Pirastih, 1373/1994), 141. 47. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 187. 48. Rumi, Fihi ma fih, 21. 49. The Qur’an states clearly in the short chapter al-Ikhlas that God “the Everlasting Refuge” has not begotten nor has He been begotten. This would make the idea of pregnancy with God problematic for any literalist reading of the text. See, the Qur’an, 112:3. _____________________________________________ © 2003: Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. XXII No. 1&2 (2002) http://www.cssaame.ilstu.edu/issues/22/keshavarz.pdf