Eastern Vagabond

Essays on travel, cities, memory, and the unnoticed textures of the world.

Tag: Rumi

  • Konya – Rumi’s Abode

    As Vayu, the tropical cyclone, approaches the coastal towns of South India and particularly Karachi, I think I’ve found a brand new metaphor for my own religiosity in it.

    Recklessly unbridled from outside and hauntingly hollow from the core. Creating a stir all around and changing directions all the same; powerful yet empty in the eye.

    I hope it achieves enough in its power, recklessness and destruction that long after I’m gone, it’s carefully preserved, if not in the meteorological journals then at least in my memos, letters and emails to my victims.

    Call it a stroke of luck or a sweep of typhoon (if you allow me to drag my metaphor this long), I was able to arrange a reasonably long stopover at Konya, Turkey in my upcoming official visit to Italy next week – long enough to pay my respects to Maulana Jalal ud Din Rumi. If you don’t already know my interest in and association with Rumi, now is not the time to share it because this blog will otherwise turn into a treatise. My feelings about the whole affair are quite mixed. I think this is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote my poem “Tempest“.

    Have you been to Konya?

  • Baal-e-Jibreel I

    Baal-e-Jibreel, put simply, is Iqbal’s monologue with God except that the persona they both take on is not the traditional, master’s and slave’s; but somewhat mystic, lover’s and beloved’s (though Iqbal is not to be confused with Sufi poets). The verses ooze with fierce, unintimidated love instead of respectful, humble worship. The first few odes that basically set the tone for the entire collection come out as quite aggressive. You feel the raging passion of a daring, cocky lover addressing his Beloved, telling Him that the obstacles in the way of love suit his adventure-thirsty nature just fine. If you wish to see how perfection borns out of the imperfect, you need to read the following couplets wherein a weak man can be seen to be begetting strong love. The stark contrast drawn between the guilty self of a man and yet the unapologetic love he is capable to experience is simply awe-inspiring. Understandably, the references to the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, and good and evil, are numerous throughout the thread.

    قصور وار ، غریب الدیار ہوں لیکن
    ترا خرابہ فرشتے نہ کر سکے آباد

    خطر پسند طبیعت کو ساز گار نہیں
    وہ گلستاں کہ جہاں گھات میں نہ ہو صیاد

    مقام شوق ترے قدسیوں کے بس کا نہیں
    انھی کا کام ہے یہ جن کے حوصلے ہیں زیاد

    As you read on, you know Iqbal is not an ordinary lover who is too wasted by passion to acknowledge reality. His extensive use of hyperbole and visual imagery, which is comparable to the ancient epics, does in no way make him depart from the subject which is exploration of self and God. Instead they empower him far beyond this by enabling him to take quick, pithy jabs at philosophical conundrums of his time. For instance, the wonderfully poetic way he addresses the contemporary problem of Zaat (Essence) Vs Siffaat (Attributes) is mind blowing. No wonder his daring takes (بت کدئہ صفات) have oft landed him in hot water with the religious establishment of his time.

    میری نوائے شوق سے شور حریم ذات میں
    غلغلہ ہائے الاماں بت کدئہ صفات میں

    When it comes to ‘yearning’, Iqbal has a lot to say. Man’s yearning, as he sees it, has led to the creation of churches and synagogues and the same yearning has destroyed the idols of Kaaba and Somnaat. In a way, Iqbal is not-so-tacitly coining a similitude between God and Man – each engaged in a passionate cycle of creation and destruction to find the other.

    گرچہ ہے میری جستجو دیر و حرم کی نقش بند
    میری فغاں سے رستخیز کعبہ و سومنات میں

    And here goes one of my most favorite couplets.

    متاع بے بہا ہے درد و سوز آرزو مندی
    مقام بندگی دے کر نہ لوں شان خداوندی

    The universal tragedy of the inhabitants of the gray world that they don’t belong anywhere, could not be better put.

    اپنے بھی خفا مجھ سے ہیں ، بیگانے بھی ناخوش
    میں زہر ہلاہل کو کبھی کہہ نہ سکا قند

    When yearning suffices the yearner, there’s hardly anything of substance that can be snatched of him, least of all, his happiness.

    ہر حال میں میرا دل بے قید ہے خرم
    کیا چھینے گا غنچے سے کوئی ذوق شکر خند!

    And a sweet end to the daring opening part of the book.

    چپ رہ نہ سکا حضرت یزداں میں بھی اقبال
    کرتا کوئی اس بندہ گستاخ کا منہ بند!

  • Mysticism and Contemporary Mainstream Islam

    One of the prominent teachings of Islamic mysticism is that everyone is entitled to their own personal quest for God. An enticing implication of this idea is that one has infinite freedom in making choice of The Path, and nonconformity is not just welcome but highly looked upon, which perhaps is why Islamic mysticism caught on right from its early years. Delivering a serious blow to the contemporary monolithic understanding of religion of the time, it made greater space for spirituality which had almost died when religion began to be commonly equated with the do’s and don’ts of Shari’ah.

    The general acceptance of un-orthodoxy slowly altered the way people understood vice and virtue. Being socially deviant did no longer equate with being a sinner. With that came a greater appreciation for all the ways in which people pursued their Creator and lesser scrutiny of how they dressed, behaved and looked. Uniformity was no longer called for. The complex cultural milieu that took birth was rather celebrated. In fact the whole enterprise of judging people from their Zahir (outlook) came crashing down.
    Logically so, the Eeman acquired the status of a variable that could not be, or rather, needed not be, physically measured in inches (i.e. how high one’s pants from one’s ankles were, how long one’s beard was etc.) and returned to its original definition of piety.

    However, today, more than we want to acknowledge, binary logic runs in the veins of contemporary Dar-ul-Uloom thought, which is sadly the sole representative of religion, rivaled by none. Since the beginning of time, binary logic is known to have made distinctions and bifurcations between different schools of thought instead of bringing about a unification which is the obvious need of time. The result is a highly confused and debated upon system of mainstream Islam. If ever humanity could take a break from that, it was in the period of mystics who made fundamental reformation in the way people saw the religion and taught them its real essence i.e. love, which threads the universe, connecting and molding every fragmented reality into The One.

    Rumi makes exactly the same point when he states in his Masnawi Al Maanawi with an authority only he is entitled to:

    I have lifted the marrow from the Quran and have left the empty bones for the dogs to quarrel upon.

    By bones, he meant endless, trivial debates on Ilm-ul-Kalam that scholars of the time engaged in, leaving out the matters of consequence that demanded greater and immediate attention i.e. spiritual well-being, referred to as “marrow” here. More or less the same thing was said by Jesus as quoted in Matthew [23:23,24].

    You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

    P.S.: I’d like to expand on this post. Ideas, questions and critiques are welcome.