In sync with the universe, Maulana Rumi's
whirling dance was his way of forgetting
everything but his love of the Divine. Dr
Annemarie Schimmel explains the philosophy
behind this exercise
It was in December 1954 that I received an
invitation to participate in the celebration
of Maulana's shab-i 'arus, or "spiritual
nuptials", as the memorial day for a saint's
death is called. I had recently arrived in
Ankara to teach there at the Faculty of
Islamic Theology, and had by that time
published a number of German verse
translations of and smaller studies on
Maulana's poetry. Excited by the prospect of
attending the first celebration of Maulana's
anniversary, I saw whirling dervishes in my
dream, and in the middle of the month
happily set out with my mother for Konya.
We stayed with an amiable and well-to-do
family, and late in the evening we were
brought to a large mansion in the centre of
the old town, in which two armchairs had
been set out for the noble guests. With
amazement we observed as a group of elderly
gentlemen unwrapped mysterious parcels out
of which emerged flutes, rebabs,
tambourines, even dervish caps and gowns.
What was going on?
The Mevlevi ritual had been prohibited ever
since Ataturk had closed the dervish lodges
in 1925 - how could it be possible that all
the implements were still in use? Hafiz
Sabri, who taught the recitation of the
Quran in our faculty, smiled: "You'll see,
your dream will come true!" - and he was
right. For the first time in 29 years the
men began to perform the mystical dance
together, and we listened to the music, the
flutes, the drums, the powerful introductory
praise song for the Prophet, and saw the men
turning, whirling, their white gowns
unfolding as though they were large white
moths turning around a candle or atoms
whirling around the sun, like the stars in
cosmic harmony. They had not practised
together for decades, but here they had
gathered from Istanbul and Afyonkarshisar,
from Samsun and from Ankara, and at once
they found their way back to the old rhythm
of the sama-i, the "heavenly dance".
These Mevlevis performed the ritual as well
during the official celebrations that took
place over the following days, and on the
final day they were permitted to perform it
at the Yesil Turbe, because it was planned
to film the sama' in its traditional
place. The film, however, was inexplicably
destroyed in an accident, and only a few
photographs remain.
In later years, the sama' became part
and parcel of the annual celebrations held
each December in Konya, and still later the
Mevlevis periodically went on tour in
various countries. Even those who do not
know the religious background of the ritual
are usually deeply impressed; but for me
there was a slight change in the spirit of
the dance once most of the old Mevlevis had
passed away, for I could never forget that
dreamlike night in Konya when everything was
absolutely perfect...
Not in vain are the Mevlevis known as
Whirling Dervishes. But the sama' (sema),
the music that is accompanied by whirling,
was not invented by Maulana. In fact, the
sufis had begun to hold musical sessions as
early as the second half of the ninth
century, when the first hall for sama
was founded in Baghdad. Listening to music
and the ensuing indulgence in ecstatic dance
soon became a feature of sufism that aroused
much criticism from orthodox Muslims and
even from members of the so-called "sober"
fraternities, who were averse to music and
in general to showing their rapture by
outward sounds and movements. Many authors
rightly reproached those for whom the word "sufism"
meant little else than listening to music
and dancing.
However, in no other sufi order has the
whirling movement been organized and
institutionalized as in the Mevlevi order,
where it is a carefully elaborated ritual
that leaves no room for "ecstatic" movement
but is built upon perfect harmony, with each
movement having a special meaning.
The central place of the sama in the
Mevlevi order is understandable, as
Maulana's poetry is largely born out of the
sound of music and the whirling dance, which
often continued for hours. When listening to
his verses, especially the early lyrical
pieces, one is often tempted to scan them
according to the rhythm of an imaginary drum
or tambourine, for the classical metres that
he always applied were changed in his mouth
and became, in many cases, more singable,
more ecstatic.
Perhaps the most beautiful expression of
Maulana's love of music is the introductory
section of the Mathnawi, the "Song of
the reed".
Oh hear the reed flute,
how it does complain
and how it tells of
separation's pain...
The flute, cut from its reed bed, cries out
in loneliness and expresses its longing for
home: thus it divulges to the world the
secrets of primordial unity and eternal
love. Living in Anatolia as he did, it is
not surprising that Maulana was so fond of
music: there the Phrygian flute had been
known from ancient times, when early music
theorists wrote of its complaining sounds,
and ancient as well as mediaeval Islamic
medicine was well aware of the healing and
soothing powers of music: during Maulana's
lifetime, a marvellous hospital was erected
in Divrigi, far to the northeast of Konya,
where an artfully arranged watercourse in a
basin served to soothe the insane and
melancholy inmates of the hospital. Similar
institutions were known throughout mediaeval
Islam.
As for the reed flute, however, its story
too has roots in antiquity. King Midas of
Gordion (situated not far from Konya) was
cursed by Apollo, so legend tells, with a
pair of ass' ears. Hiding the ears under his
Phrygian cap, he finally entrusted this
terrible problem to his minister under the
condition that the latter would never speak
of it to anyone. After some time, however,
the minister was no longer able to keep the
secret and told it to a lake, where, he
thought, it would be well kept. But a reed
was growing on the bank of the lake, and
when a shepherd cut the reed to make a
flute, the flute began to tell the king's
secret to the world.
* * * * *
The flute offered itself as the instrument
that best represents the human being, all
the more as its sound is closest to that of
the human voice. Furthermore, Maulana, along
with other poets, could propose any number
of associations between the reed flute and
the reed pen: both are cut off from their
home, both are trimmed by the friend's hand,
and both reveal the secret of longing and
love, the one in sweet melodies, and the
other in beautiful letters, comparable in
their movement to undulating melodies.
A third aspect can easily be added: the reed
is related to sugarcane, and both reed flute
and reed pen are filled with sugar once the
beloved handles them.
Maulana's poetry is replete with allusions
to the ney, the reed flute. And was he
himself not like a flute in the hands of his
beloved? Could he have written a single line
unless "this friend, this Turk" had "blown
into him" and sung through his mouth?
* * * * *
Maulana's love for music is related in
numerous anecdotes. Once, it is told, on
entering his room he found his disciples
discussing Ibn 'Arabi's great mystical opus,
the Futuhat al-makkiyya, ("The Meccan
Openings"). He listened for a moment; then
Abu Bakr the rabab player entered and began
to play. Maulana smiled, "Are not the
futuhat (openings) of Abu Bakr-i rababi
better than the Futuhat al-makkiyya?" The
immediate experience of the Divine through
the sound of music was closer to his heart
than the highly sophisticated work of the
great master Ibn 'Arabi, whose approach to
the Divine can be found too theoretical and
- according to Shamsuddin's criticism of Ibn
'Arabi's thought - too self-centered. Better
to lose oneself in the fire of love that
consumes everything, including logical and
metaphysical thought!
The story may or may not be true - I believe
it has a ring of truth to it - but another
anecdote expresses the master's feeling
about music even more succinctly. He once
said to his visitors, "Music is the creaking
of the doors of paradise." A sober,
critical, and according to Maulana rather
unpleasant man responded, "But I don't like
the creaking of doors!" Whereupon Maulana
said, "I hear the doors as they open; as for
you, you hear them when they close!"
* * * * *
The theme of sama' occurs less
frequently in the Mathnawi, except
for references in a few stories, such as the
one about the sufi who sought shelter in a
sufi residence where the brethren, hoping to
procure money for a merry sama'
party, sold his donkey without his
knowledge. But the majority of the poems
about and allusions to the dance are,
understandably, found in the Diwan,
many of whose quatrains served the musicians
as new texts and were "born" in the movement
of the dance.
Most religious traditions have viewed dance
as a way to relinquish one's earth-bound
gravity and become united with the spiritual
world; whether one thinks of the wild
Dionysian revels or the harmonious
Apollonian dance of classical antiquity,
whether one considers the Native American
sun and rain dances, or the cultic dances to
honour the deities as was common in the
tradition of India, dance is always
something that leads us out of this world of
matter. Maulana knew this well, and his love
for the spiritual Sun Shamsuddin is aptly
expressed in the language of dance.
* * * * *
Therefore Maulana calls us, as he has called
his friends for seven centuries, to
participate in the dance that moves through
the universe, to circle around the Sun of
Love:
Oh come, oh come! You are the soul
of the soul of whirling!Oh come! You are the
cypress tall
in the blooming garden of whirling!
Oh come! For there has never been
and will never be one like you!
Come, one like you have never
seen the longing eyes of whirling!
Oh come! The fountain of the sun
is hidden under your shadow!
You own a thousand Venus stars
in the circling heavens of whirling!
The whirling sings your praise and thanks
with a hundred eloquent tongues:
I'll try to say just one, two points
translating the language of whirling.
For when you enter in the dance
you then leave both these worlds
For outside these two worlds there lies
the universe, endless, of whirling.
The roof is high, the lofty roof
that is on the seventh sphere,
But far beyond this roof is raised
the ladder, the ladder of whirling.
Whatever there is, is only He,
your foot steps there in dancing:
The whirling, see, belongs to you,
and you belong to the whirling.
What can I do when Love appears
and puts its claw round my neck?
I grasp it, take it to my breast
and drag it into the whirling!
And when the bosom of the motes
is filled with the glow of the sun,
They enter all the dance, the dance
and do not complain in the whirling!
Professor Annemarie
Schimmel (1922-2003), a German by
nationality and a Pakistani by heart, spent
a better part of her life in research on
sufism. Her commitment to 'Rumiology' was a
lifelong passion.
This book reflects a lifetime of scholarly
work on the life, work and spiritual message
of Maulana RumiHow did the Pakistanis react
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