The Concept of Spiritual Pleasure in Rūmī's Lyric Poetry

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The Concept of Spiritual Pleasure in Rūmī’s Lyric Poetry Somayeh Kamranian  According to the popular mindset and traditional religious morality, there has always been something unacceptable about enjoying one’s faith or experience of faith. However, the happiness, peace, and joy derived from mystical experience cannot be separated from the traditional concept of pleasure.1 This essay will explore different modes of expression of spiritual pleasure that are found in the collected lyrical works of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, the Dīvān-i Shams-i Tabrīzī. My aim will be, among other things, to expose the close relationship between mystical union and pleasure, and the pursuit of both, by focusing on the contrasting themes of pleasure and pain, joy and woe. Over the course of this essay, I will examine Rūmī’s representation of pleasure in his lyrical poems, which consist of quatrains (ruba‘īyyāt), ghazals, and other forms dedicated to his beloved master, Shams of Tabriz – from whom the Persian title of this book, Dīvān-i Shams-i Tabrīzī, is derived. This poetic collection is entirely devoted to love, which, though earthly in appearance, actually reflects an experience of divine love. ūR mī cites Shams’ name at the end of many of the poems within the work in the signature verse, where his nom de plume (takhalluṣ) is mentioned. As anyone familiar with the biography of Rūmī is aware, his meet- ing one day in 1244 with Shams, a wandering dervish, transformed his life. Shams appeared as a divine guide who was sent to direct Rūmī in his search of God. This quest eventually led ūR mī to devote himself to Shams and to pen this huge collection of lyrical verse (over thirty-five thousand couplets) in Shams’ honour. From Rūmī’s perspective, not only was Shams his spiritual master and the inspiration for his poetry, but he also represented the divine Beloved Himself. Shams’ eventual disappearance plunged Rūmī into a deep state of sadness. Although the pain caused by his separa tion from Shams is a constant presence throughout the Dīvān, there are many other poems in which the poet describes the rapture of his soul while discovering his identity and mystical union with Shams as the Beloved. 1 See Arial Glucklich, ‘Pleasure’, in Encyclopædia of Love in World Religions, vol. II, pp. 465–68.

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In order to help us understand this concept of mystical union and the importance of this union for Sufis such as ūR mī, it will be helpful to examine two of the key Sufi terms concerned with this union, namely subsistence (baqā’) and annihilation or passing away (fanā’ ). The following exposition of these two terms by Gerhard Böwering helps us to understand the importance of the notion of mystical union (wiṣāl) for the Sufi:

The Sufi teaching of passing away from worldly reality and being made subsistent in divine reality describes the apex of mystic experience and union with God. As a correlative pair of notions, in which fanāʾ logically precedes baqāʾ, it is applied to two levels of meaning: the passing away of human consciousness in the divine and the obliteration of imperfect qualities of the soul by substitu- tion of new, divinely bestowed attributes. . . . In mystic vision, on the other hand, he professes and actually realizes oneness of God (tawḥīd), the eternal and true reality, one without partners, be- side whom the mystic’s temporal existence has no claim to reality and his self no right to selfhood. In realizing tawḥīd, the mystic has to pass away from any trace of individual self-consciousness so that his self is blotted out in actual non-existence and God alone exists and in truth subsists (al-fanāʾ fi’l-tawḥīd).2

Considering ‘annihilation in divine Unity’ (al-fanāʾ fi’l-tawḥīd) as the ulti mate objective of the Sufi, removal and separation (firāq) from God is thus viewed as the fundamental misfortune. Thus, the torment described by Rūmī of his separation from Shams is by extension and in reality the pain of the soul of a man who is far from God, alienated from his origin. The Dīvān of Shams-i Tabrīzī in this sense comprises a literary representation of the bitterness of separation juxtaposed with the pleasure of union and the mystical experience of ecstasy. Rūmī’s notions of ecstasy are expressed in a variety of terms in Persian, including wajd (ecstasy), wujūd (realized ecstasy/existence), and some times ḥāl (mystical consciousness, mystical state or feeling).3 In the linguis- tic register of mystical union, we often find that the nature of ecstasy is also evoked by other terms such as waṣl (consummation), wiṣāl (union), ittiḥād

2 G. Böwering, ‘Baqā’ wa fanā’’, Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. III, pp. 722–24. 3 For a full discussion of all these terms, see Leonard Lewisohn, ‘Principles of the Phil osophy of Ecstasy in Rūmī’s Poetry’, in The Philosophy of Ecstasy: Rumi and the Sufi Tradition, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom 2014), pp. 35–80.

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(unification), ittisāl (conjunction), and tawḥīd (oneness). All of the experiences related to union are expressed in terms of the Sufis’a ḥwāl (mystical states), and in particular their ladhdhat (spiritual pleasure) or ṭarab (merri ment) – terms frequently used by Rūmī and many other Sufi poets to describe feelings of spiritual transport and ecstasy. The termḥ āl (mystical state) is technically defined as an emotion that grips the person under the influence of spiritual sadness ḥ( uzn) or joy (surūr).4 In Rūmī’s Dīvān, such types of spiritual joys and woes are usually linked to a series of other words belonging to the register of music and the spiritual concert of the Sufis (samā‘),5 both of which were of particular concern to, and part of the constant practice of Rūmī. Instruments such as the lute (barbaṭ),6 reed flute (nay),7 and tambourine (daf ),8 and musical terms such as muṭrib (musician or minstrel),9 qawwāl (singer),10 naghma (melody),11 dast-zadan (hand-clapping),12 raqṣ (dance),13 and pā’y kūftan (stamping the feet on the ground)14 may be cited in this context. In the Dīvān, the experience of spiritual pleasure (ladhdhat) and merri- ment (ṭarab)15 is also closely connected to several other words synonymous of pleasure: ‘aysh (delight), ‘ishrat (taking pleasure), and shadī (joy), all of which are indicative of intimacy with God and gaiety of the heart, connot- ing various degrees of spiritual joy. Below I will focus my analysis on verses throughout Rūmī’s ghazals that feature the word ladhdhat (usually pronounced in Persian as lazzat, and one of the many synonyms for ‘pleasure’ or ‘delight’ in Persian). The term ladhdhat itself is of Arabic origin, and according to one reputable Persian dictionary it means ‘joy, good taste (flavour), joy of perception’.16 Another dictionary offers the definition ‘deliciousness, good flavour . . . a joy which is the opposite of pain or grief’.17

4 Mīr Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī, Taʽrifāt (Beirut: Albouraq; Paris: Librairie de l’Orient 2006), p. 254. 5 Muḥammad Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams yā Dīvān-i kabīr az guftār-i Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad mashhūr bi Mawlavī, ba tasḥīḥāt wa ḥawwashī, ed. Badī‘ al-Zamān Furūzānfar, 3rd ed. (Tehran: Sipihr 1363 A.Hsh./1984), ghazals 122, 151, 170. 6 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazals 4, 303, 1173. 7 Ibid., ghazals 217, 253, 333. 8 Ibid., ghazals 31, 69, 83, 88. 9 Ibid., ghazals 69, 74, 82. 10 Ibid., ghazals 1316, 1857, 2341. 11 Ibid., ghazals 11, 78, 134. 12 Ibid., ghazals 51, 211, 311. 13 Ibid., ghazals 36, 43, 45. 14 Ibid., ghazals 1694, 1857, 1954. 15 Ibid., ghazals 28, 29, 32. 16 Ḥasan ‘Amīd, Farhang-i fārsī-yi ‘Amīd (Tehran: Rāhī Rushd 1389 A.Hsh./2010). 17 ‘Alī Akbar Dihkhudā, Lughat-nāma, ed. M. Mu‘īn and M. Ja‘far Shahīdī (Tehran: Mu‘assasa-yi Lughat-nāma Dihkhudā/Tehran University Press 1373 A.Hsh./1994), s.v. ‘ladhdhat’.

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Perusing the 3,229 ghazals of the Dīvān-i Shams, we find that there are altogether seventy-one verses that contain the word ladhdhat, each of which offers insight both into the meaning of pleasure in Sufism in general, and the nature of Rūmī’s personal feelings, interpretation, and understanding of the entire experience of pleasure in particular. If we consider the origin of the pleasure of which Rūmī speaks, it is quite significant that he uses the word ladhdhat simultaneously with the word ‘ishq (passionate love) in several poems – specifically, in six ghazals.18 Indeed, he uses the word ‘ishq as complementary to ladhdhat (pleasure), speaking of ladhdhat-i ‘ishq (the pleasure of love). In fact, according to Rūmī, one can say that love is the source and cause of pleasure. Pleasure, both psychologically and metaphor- ically, is very closely related to love, and there are specific cases in which Rūmī even considers them to be synonyms of each other. In this context one can cite this verse: ‘There is an infinite pleasure – of which “love” is its n am e .’ 19 But what kind of love does Rūmī refer to?20 Among other things, love is distinguished by the intensity of the pleasure it arouses – and bitterness and mean-spiritedness do not exist in divine love:

bas-astat ‘izzat u dawarān zih dhawq-i ‘ishq-i pur ladhdhat kujā paydā shavad bā ‘ishq, yā talkhī yā khwārī?

The savour of love so full of pleasure suffices you for honour and giddy headiness. However can love be found alongside bitterness and ignobility?21

Rūmī plays a lot with both senses of the word ladhdhat, exploiting the sense of ambiguity between its dual connotations of ‘pleasure’ and ‘delicious taste’. Thus, in another ghazal, he states: ‘if sugar were aware of the pleasure (or delicious taste, flavour) of love, it would melt away in shame and cease to be sugar’,22 implying the superiority of love to physical, sensual pleasure. No pleasure can equal the pleasure of love, which is unique but not accessible

18 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazals 317, 560, 1345, 2760, 2536, 2872. 19 Ibid., ghazal 560. 20 For further discussion, see Annemarie Schimmel, ‘Sun Triumphant – Love Trium- phant: Maulana Rumi and the Metaphors of Love’, in As Through a Veil: MysticalPoetry in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld 2001), pp. 83–133; and ‘Alī Riḍā Mukhtārpūr Qahrūdī, ‘Ishq dar manẓūma-yi Shams: vāzha-yābī-yi ‘ishq dar Dīvān-i kabīr-i Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad mashhūr bi-Mawlavī (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr 1378 A.Hsh./1999). 21 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazal 2536. 22 Ibid., ghazal 2872.

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to all and sundry. In this vein, he writes that compared to ‘the haunches of [the] holy warrior’s Arabian stallion’ (asb-i tāzī), which suffers itself to be struck by arrows and darts that feel ‘as sweet as wood in the lolly-pop . . . the plodding pack-horse does not know this pleasure’.23 In many verses, Rūmī expresses distaste for those who are not familiar with the experience of the pleasures of divine love, questioning the viabil- ity of all other loves and looking askance at lesser pleasures. He compares the pleasure and intoxication aroused by the delights of the lower world to bait placed in a trap for birds, admonishing the reader: ‘did your heart, preoccupied by the pleasures and its intoxication over the bait of this world, imagine itself saved from this trap?’24 Therefore, the pleasures of love cele brated by the poet must be of an undying nature and pertain to divine love, which is everlasting. Such love and pleasure exists beyond bodily sensa- tions, so it is evident that the end of the separation and the time of the union or consummation (wiṣāl) refers to these sorts of sublime pleasures:

Love’s delight united with the mind As lords who mingle with their slaves.25

In the above verse, the time of the union is the moment when the mind feels the pleasure of love; and the mingling of lords with slaves, masters with servants, represents the mystical union of God and the soul, the transcend- ent and the immanent. In order to achieve this union, the Sufi passes through a number of mystical states (aḥwāl) such as fear and hope, sadness and joy, and yearning and intimacy, each of which are carefully defined and described in Sufi teaching and manuals.26 We can see a trace of one of these mystical states in the first ghazal of theD īvān, which describes the change of states that a Sufi experiences, and in particular, the alteration of the state of qabḍ (constric- tion or contraction) to that of basṭ (expansion). While basṭ signifies being relaxed by the reception of divine grace and the experience of intimacy of God, qabḍ is a sign of separation from God. In the state of qabḍ, love does not dominate the seeker of God. Basṭ is accompanied by joy and hope, whereas qabḍ brings pain, sadness, and depression. Rūmī uses the opposi-

23 Ibid., ghazal 2082. 24 Ibid., ghazal 2626. 25 Ibid., ghazal 317. 26 For good definitions and descriptions of which see Javad Nurbakhsh,Sufism , vol. 2: Fear and Hope, Contraction and Expansion, Gathering and Dispersion, Intoxication and Sobriety, Annihilation and Subsistence, trans. William Chittick (New York: KNP 1982), as well as four other books in this series: Sufism, vols. 1, 3, 4, and 5, by the same author.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:12:33PM via free access spiritual pleasure in rmĪ’s lyric poetry 141 tion between these two mystical states, qabḍ and basṭ, to show the intense joy and pleasure that comes from the union with the Beloved. In the Dīvān the arrival of the Beloved or spiritual master is an inevit able source of pleasure. The first ghazal thus describes the joy caused by the arrival of the Beloved – represented by the cup-bearer (sāqī). Traditionally the cup-bearer symbolizes the spiritual master; however, this poem alludes to the cup-bearer as the Beloved. The arrival of the cup-bearer changes the state of the soul from sadness to joy, a change that the poet characterizes as a ‘sudden resurrection’. The scene described is full of joy, with the Beloved himself ‘laughing’ (khandān); his arrival brings light, hope, and liberation, and is ‘the key to the prison’, for he releases the soul and spirit from all the constraints of this world. The Beloved has ‘kindled a fire in the thicket of thoughts’ (bīsha-yi andīshhā), that is, aroused passions that confuse sober, detached reason. His presence is ‘necessary for hope’, he is the ‘cure of all disease’, and he is both ‘the end and the beginning’ (ham muntahā, ham mubtadā) of everything. All needs come from him and are answered by him too; therefore, he is equivalent to joy and pleasure itself, which explains why the poet addresses him with these words: ‘O incomparable giver of life, O joyous pleasure of knowledge and action, theory and practice’ (ay rūḥbakhsh-i bī-badal; vay ladhdhat-i ‘ilm u ‘amal). Without his Beloved, there is no pleasure in life:

I tried it out awhile, but without you I have no pleasure in life. How should life have any pleasure without your infinite charm?27

In short, the pleasure of love is formed from the union of lover and Beloved, or even from the imagining of this union. The Arabic proverb ‘half of pleasure lies in its description’ (waṣf al-‘aysh niṣf al-‘aysh) expresses the sentiment that one of the causes of pleasure among mystics comes from sharing their experiences. The pleasure of love is immense, infinite, and does not belong to this world. Because only the soul and heart can perceive this pleasure, someone who is base (dūn) cannot experience it. Thus, ūR mī advises those who seek the ‘pleasure of the soul’ or the ‘spice of life’ (ladhdhat-i jān) to join the company of the Sufis.

Soul of life! come to the ruins and taste the spice of life

27 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazal 2138.

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what savor can the spirit know without the converse of the soul’s delight?28

The phrase ‘come to the ruins’ khar( ābāt) here can be interpreted as meaning ‘join the circle of those who are intoxicated with divine love’. In another ghazal Rūmī repeats the same message, using identical terms to affirm that one must follow the Sufi Path ṭ( arīqa) so as to experience ‘pleasure of the soul’:

Go along with the (dervish) company so that you can experience the pleasure of the soul (ladhdhat-i jān); Come to the street of the ruins (kū-yi kharābāt), so you can see drinkers of the bitter dregs.29

Elsewhere in the Dīvān, underlining the vanity of worldly pleasures, Rūmī describes lovers of God who are ‘the heart’s adepts’ (ṣāḥib-dilān) as being ‘like grains of wheat’, each of whom is ‘endowed with kernal’ (bā maghz) – that is to say, fertile, full of meaning and significance – and also ‘full of pleasure or flavour’ (pur-ladhdhat); this is in contrast to those immersed in the body (jismānīyān), who are ‘hollow to the core like blades of straw lying on the mill-floor’.30 Paradoxically, however, although he questions the validity of sensual, physical pleasures and champions the pleasures of the soul, at the same time he uses images of physical love to explain and describe spiritual pleasure, referencing ‘the pleasure of the lips’ (ladhdhat-i lab),31 ‘his pleasure and his perfume’ (ladhdhat u būyash),32 ‘the pleasure of his glance’ (ladhdhat-i naẓarash),33 ‘the pleasure of that kiss’ (ladhdhat-i ān būsa),34 ‘the pleasure of drunkenness’ (ladhdhat-i mastī),35 and so on. But since the nature of spiritual pleasure is not within the reach of bodily senses or profane understanding, the reader must look for the meaning behind each of these erotic images. Rūmī’s poetry therefore represents an attempt to portray in words what is ultimately beyond words. In the following verse, he elaborates this ineffability of spiritual pleasure, explaining that while non-adepts indeed enjoy pleasure (ladhdhat), the nature of their pleasure is different from his, and they cannot understand his pleasure:

28 Ibid., ghazal 2309. The translation is by Franklin Lewis,Rumi: Swallowing the Sun (Oxford: Oneworld 2007), p. 106. 29 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazal 2577. 30 Ibid., ghazal 1847 (v. 19,464). 31 Ibid., ghazal 617. 32 Ibid., ghazal 640. 33 Ibid., ghazal 2406. 34 Ibid., ghazal 1882. 35 Ibid., ghazal 3044 (v. 32,368).

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The drunken camel drools and chews the cud, And wastes himself away, yet no camel Can know the pleasure of my rumination (ladhdhat-i nūshkhwār-i man).36

But if most of us cannot understand the depths of his visionary verse, then why talk about it? Even if his pleasure must ultimately remain a secret, the poet will not cease to talk about it, for were he to keep silent, the experience of pleasure, being unvocalized, would itself remain incomplete:

If with my tongue I fail to confess and memorize your house of sugar (the good memories of being with you), The pleasure [of remembrance] will stick in my throat unfulfilled, my desire ungratified.37

As mentioned above, the idea that absence from the Beloved is a torment to the soul is reiterated throughout the Dīvān-i Shams, with Rūmī’s distress at the absence of Shams symbolizing by extension the human soul in exile from God.

All immature grapes moan and groan: O Shams Tabriz, come! Out of rawness, deprived of pleasure (bī-ladhdhatī) I croak within.38

He seeks the pleasure of the union to relieve this pain, and seeks drunkenness to forget his pain:

Dear soulmate, bring wine. As the days pass us by The pleasure of the cup ladhdhat-i( jām) Assuages grief’s bitter taste.39

Although a cure for the gnawing sorrow of the Beloved’s absence is only found in mystical drunkenness, at the same time, Rūmī paradoxically claims to feel a kind of pleasure in suffering the very pain of remoteness from the Beloved. He stresses, as has been elaborated above, that the pleasure of love is incompatible with pain, yet in other poems he argues the opposite point, using the word ladhdhat (pleasure) itself to describe the grief, pain, and sorrow of love! He even coins many new phrases in this 36 Ibid., ghazal 1828. 37 Ibid., ghazal 1650. 38 Ibid., ghazal 1372. 39 Ibid., ghazal 865.

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regard, celebrating ‘the pleasure of the whip’ (ladhdhat-i tāzana),40 ‘the pleasure of moaning’ (ladhdhat-i nālahā),41 ‘the pleasure of His wounds’ (ladhdhat-i zakhmhā’sh),42 and ‘the pleasure of burning’ (ladhdhat-i sūz).43 The idea here is that while the pleasure of love removes worldly griefs and sorrows, divine love does not lack its own sort of spiritual sorrow and torment. Indeed, for the lover of God, there is actual pleasure and enjoyment to be had in undergoing the Beloved’s oppression or rejection. The following verse that describes ‘the pleasure of your torment’ (ladhdhat-i jafā-yi tu) is but one instance taken from innumerable lines in the Dīvān-i Shams devoted to the theme of glorifying suffering in love:

How pleasurable your torment! – When you disdainfully slay your lover dying for love of you, he confesses: ‘How good-natured you are!’44

In the eyes of the true lover, the persecution of his Beloved is seen as a kindness, for the trouble caused by the Beloved and the wounds and hurt he suffers for His sake become ‘all sweetness, pleasure ladhdhat( ), grace, and bounty’.45 Even if the lover endures pain and suffering in love, he prefers this over all other pleasures:

We’re among those scorched, burnt-out hearts who In burning find pleasure, who relinquish Water of Life and who pursue the feeding of flames.46

In fact, he persistently seeks the continuity of such suffering: ‘Even for an hour, I would not wish my soul free from the pleasure of His wounds.’47 Such positive evaluation of the spiritual uses of suffering and pain pervades Rūmī’s Mathnawī as well. This well-known verse merits citation in this respect:

I am in love with both my grief and pain all for the pleasing of my Matchless King.48

40 Ibid., ghazal 1405 (v. 14,881). 41 Ibid., ghazal 1402 (v. 14,854). 42 Ibid., ghazal 1578. 43 Ibid., ghazal 785 (v. 8201). 44 Ibid., ghazal 2553 (v. 27,084). 45 Ibid., ghazal 2082. 46 Ibid., ghazal 785 (v. 8201). 47 Ibid., ghazal 1578. 48 Muḥammad Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Rumi: Spiritual Verses, The First Book of the Masnavi ye ma‘navi, trans. Alan Williams (London: Penguin Books 2006), p. 167, v. 1787. For

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Rūmī’s enjoyment of pain and suffering partially derives from his wish to please the Beloved and attract His attention. In securing the contentment of the loved one, even if His contentment is to afflict His lover with pain, there is a kind of satisfaction and pleasure. From a spiritual vantage point, to bear pain with pleasure is even more valuable than joy itself. Pleasure is thus not always understood as the opposite of pain in Rūmī’s poetry. In- deed, while in some verses he gives voice to pain, in other verses he denies having felt any, or else expresses deriving sublime pleasure from it! Despite the apparent contradiction, there is a close connection, if not a symbiotic relationship between pleasure and pain in Rūmī’s poetry. If we examine the term shadī (joy), sometimes used as a synonym for ladhdhat (pleasure) in his verse, this paradoxical pain–pleasure relationship clearly appears. Shadī and its derivatives can be found in 339 ghazals, and just like ladhdhat, the term is related to love. Divine love and the divine Beloved are sources of joy, and since Rūmī despises all other joys, this joy is superior to other sources of joy:

From you, oh Love, each person is steeped in joy and from your light the lovers are reborn!49

Interestingly, the same interaction and proximity between the contraries of pleasure and pain also exists between joy (shādī) and sadness/grief (gham). But again, Rūmī’s approach to both emotions – which in his poetry are not simply passing moods but mystical experiences pertaining to psycho- spiritual states of consciousness (aḥwāl) – is extremely paradoxical. He often asserts that for a lover of God, sorrow and joy are one and the same. The apparent inconsistency becomes resolved, however, if we clarify the nature and kind of the grief and joy, pleasure and pain, that Rūmī wishes to describe. In classical Persian poetry, there is usually a hierarchical ranking of grief: the negative and morally reprehensible ‘grief over worldly matters’ (gham-i dunyā) versus the positive and virtuous ‘grief for God’s sake’ (gham-i mullā), as for instance, in Sa‘dī’s (d.c. 691/1292) verse:

the original, see The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí, ed., trans., and comm. Reynold A. Nicholson (London: Gibb Memorial Trust 1925–1940), I: 1778; and Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, Mathnawī: muqaddimah wa taḥlīl, taṣḥīḥ-i matn bar asās-i nuskhahhā-yi mu‘tabar-i Mathnawī, muqāyasah bā chāphā-yi ma‘rūf-i Mathnawī, tawḍiḥāt wa ta’līqāt-i jāmi‘ wa fihristhā, ed. Muḥammad Isti‘lamī, 7th ed. (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Zavvār 1384 A.Hsh./2005), I: 1788. 49 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazal 690.

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Love’s grief came and cleared clean away all other sorrow; A needle’s needed to take a thorn from the heel.50

So when Rūmī denies ever having felt sorrow, he refers to ‘worldly suffering’ (gham-i dunyā), which pertains to the woe and grief of this mundane world, from which the real Sufi seeks to free his heart. Hence, the poet admonishes:

If once you empty the heart of the woe and grief of this world (gham-i dunyā), You can experience delight and exhilaration in the Garden of Eternity.51

However, since at the same time pain, grief, and sadness are states necessary for the Sufi’s spiritual experience and mystical progression, Sufis have emphasized the necessity for the presence of sorrow and grief in the heart to fuel yearning for God (shawq) and to inspire the mystic to reach his destination. Later on in the same ghazal just cited, Rūmī thus clarifies the spiritual significance of ‘grief for God’s sake’:

You’ll be the Rustom of heart and soul, the leader of all men If once you can do battle with your cursed sensual soul; If once the pain of love’s grief (dard-i gham-i ‘ishq) appears in you, That pain itself can cure all woes that bite the heart.52

For the seeker of God, grief and sorrow (gham) thus can become a cause of joy, since for the Sufi the misery of being separated from God is itself the antechamber to divine union. For this reason Rūmī considers the mystic’s sadness to be a sign of maturity and progress in a mystical Way. In the Mathnawī, he compares the people who pursue purely temporal joys and are satisfied by worldly pleasures to children who relish sweets:

Consume sorrow, not bread that augments grief; For the wise man devours grief and children sugar. All sugary joys sprout up from grief’s garden,

50 Kulliyāt-i Sa‘dī, ed. Muḥammad ‘Alī Furūghī (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr 1363 A.Hsh./1984), ghazal 560, pp. 619–20. 51 Rūmī, Kulliyāt-i Shams, ed. Furūzānfar, ghazal 959. 52 Ibid., ghazal 959.

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What joy and cheer that’s here is but a wound And woe and grief their balm and antidote.53

Rūmī belittles the pleasures and joys of the mundane world, since from his perspective the real joy lies in the suffering experienced on the Sufi Way, as he says in the next verse:

Embrace with love the pain and dolor that you see: Damascus best is seen from Mt. Rubwah’s summit.54

Ultimately, the state of sadness may therefore pave the way to the state of joy and be a sign and proof of closeness with the Beloved. Nicholson explains in his commentary on this verse: ‘As the beauties of Damascus are not fully revealed unless he view the city from the mountains overlooking it, so you must contemplate sorrow and tribulation from the mystic’s point of view in order to perceive its meaning . . . [that is,] you must climb the heights of tribulation before you can enjoy the Beautific Vision.’55 Damas- cus symbolizes where Shams lived, and therefore represents the house of the Beloved. To the spiritual pilgrim, the trials and tribulations of the Sufi Path – and by extension, the griefs and sorrows he experiences – are like a mirror; peering into them he contemplates the implicit presence of God’s grace and the advent of spiritual relief:

Woe and grief are like a mirror to a warrior Whose contrary is reflected in that contrary: For in the first – in woe and grief – the other There is forecast: delight and joyous relief.56

This poetic oxymoron that grief (gham) is the cause of joy (shādī), and the mystical paradox that pain (dard) is an usher to pleasure (ladhdhat), are common among all Persian poets. The following verses byḤ āfiẓ (d. 791/1389) typify this sentiment:

If ever once I seek redress from your love’s tormenting grief, may the pleasure of the burning brand of your love’s sorrow be banned forever from my heart. . . . Since only in a heart

53 Rūmī, Mathnawí, ed., trans. and comm. Nicholson, III: 3751–52. 54 Ibid., III: 3753. 55 Ibid., VIII, v. 3753 (p. 95). 56 Ibid., III: 3762–63.

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filled with joy, your grief can ever be obtained, in the hope of grief, I seek a mind suffused with joy.57

To explain this oxymoron and paradox, one might say that for the lover of God, grief is a sign of God’s love. The constant presence of sorrow and grief kindles a yearning for God (shawq), awakening a longing of the temporal for the eternal. Grief and sorrow are indicative of a consciousness that ap- prehends the existential human condition of being separated from God. In other words, grief of this kind is a pre-eternal grace. In the words of Ḥāfiẓ:

The Sultan of Pre-eternity gave us the casket of love’s grief As a gift; therefore we have turned our face Towards this wrecked caravanserai that we call ‘the world’.58

Because in this world things are revealed by their opposites, the state of spiritual sadness may pave the way to union, and demonstrate closeness with the Beloved. As such, pain becomes the precondition of pleasure, and grief the harbinger of joy. As Rūmī explains, without grief and sorrow, neither joy nor happiness would make sense:

For God created pain and grief for this, that by these opposites contentment comes.

So hidden things appear through opposites. God has no opposite; He stays concealed.59

In conclusion, in his search for the eternal state of union with God, which is the pleasure of annihilation in divine Oneness (al-fanāʾ fi’l-tawḥīd), Rūmī explicitly advises us not to judge pleasure and pain by purely human crit eria. Both his conception of pleasure and joy and his understanding of grief and pain are intensely mystical, and pertain to ecstatic states of consciousness that are ultimately beyond the ken of our sentient and purely mundane understanding of emotion. For Rūmī, pain and sorrow are, on closer

57 Ḥāfiẓ, Dīvān-i Khwāja Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Parvīz Nātil Khānlarī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Khawārazmī 1359 A.Hsh./1980), ghazal 361. 58 Ibid., ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 364; Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn (trans.), The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door: Thirty Poems of Hafez(New York: HarperCollins 2008), p. 15. 59 Rūmī, Mathnawí, ed., trans., and comm. Nicholson, I: 1130–31; Rūmī, Spiritual Verses, trans. Williams, p. 110 (vv. 1138–39).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:12:33PM via free access spiritual pleasure in rmĪ’s lyric poetry 149 inspection, vehicles to bring the Sufi wayfarer to intense spiritual pleasure – to a joy of the soul.

Our fervour does not come from grief and joy, nor is our mind on fancies and conjectures.

There is another state which is most rare. Do not deny this; God is full of power.

Do not compare this with the human state; don’t set up house in wickedness and virtue.

For wickedness and virtue, pain and joy, are things which pass away and God inherits.60

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