How to love, according to Rumi - Stephanie Honchell Smith

“A candle is made to become entirely flame. In that annihilating moment it has no shadow.” According to legend, the renowned scholar, Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi, was giving a lecture when an older, disheveled man approached and asked him the meaning of his academic books. Rumi didn’t know it yet, but this question and this man would change his life. Annoyed at the interruption, Rumi snapped, “They are something that you do not understand! ” Suddenly, the books caught fire. The man looked back at the astounded Rumi and simply replied: “You couldn’t possibly understand.” The mysterious figure was Shams of Tabriz, a charismatic Sufi mystic who would transform Rumi's worldview. Rumi, inspired by Shams’ teachings, would go on to become one of the world’s most celebrated poets and mystical philosophers, whose cultural legacy looms large across Türkiye and the Persian-speaking world. Rumi was born in 1207 near the Afghan city of Balkh, and as a child emigrated to Anatolia, where his father— a preacher and mystic— hoped to secure a more prestigious position. By the time of Shams’ arrival, Rumi was a well-respected scholar of Islamic law in the town of Konya. While he had been exposed to Sufism— the mystical path within Islam, which focuses on experiencing God’s love— he’d shown little interest in it. But this changed in his late thirties, when Shams came into his life. The academic study of law and theology was no longer Rumi's central focus. Rather, he saw them as candles guiding the way towards his ultimate goal: the reunification of his soul with God through the experience of divine love. He wrote of this tension in his native Persian, “Love resides not in learning, not in knowledge, not in pages and books. Wherever the debates of men may lead, that is not the lover’s path.” While Sufism had been part of Islamic observance for centuries, the practices of some Sufis— from ecstatic dancing to composing poetry— were looked down upon by conservative religious elites. As Rumi increasingly embraced Sufism under Shams’ influence, many of his earlier followers disapproved. When Shams suddenly disappeared, suspicions arose that he'd been murdered. Rumi expressed his devastation through poetry: “He bathed us like a candle in his light; in thin air vanished, left us! ” Rather than turning away from Sufism, Rumi became more devoted, participating in ritualized dancing and preaching the religion of love through lectures, poetry, and prose.