Distortions of Rumi
Ibrahim Gamard
From Cairo to America-- A Woman's Journey," by Leila Ahmad, 1999. She is
an Egyptian writer and feminist who opposes "official Islam," and who is
such a "fan" of Rumi that that she has included a few "Rumi quotes" in
her book. I thought that the quotes which she includes in her book are
good examples of the distortions about his teachings and life which have
resulted from the popular American books on Rumi.
1) p. 1 (on the first page of the book): "To hear the song of the
reed/ Everything you have ever known/ must be left behind." Ahmad
referenced this quote as from "Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved,"
"translated by Jonathan Star," 1977. The distortions here were made by
Jonathan Star. First of all, Star is not a true translator, since he
does't read Persian and is dependent on the translations of others. In
tiny print, he thanks Shahram Shiva for making literal translations of
the quatrains included in the book. His version (on page 21) is probably
a modification of Nicholson's 1926 translation of the opening lines of
Rumi's Mathnawi, beginning with: "Listen to the song of the reed,/ How
it wails with the pain of separation: 'Ever since I was taken from my
reed bed/ My woeful song has caused men and women to weep" [Nicholson:
"Listen to the reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations--/
Saying, 'Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, my lament hath
caused man and woman to moan"].
Star ends his version with the lines: "Can there be a poison so
bitter or a sugar so sweet/ As the song of the reed?/ To hear the song
of the reed/ everything you have ever known must be left behind." He has
fabricated the second part, so that it may be a "zinger" ending for his
one-page version. Nicholson had (for line 12): "Who ever saw a poison
and antidote like the reed? Who ever saw a sympathiser and a longing
lover like the reed?" None of the following lines in Nicholson's
translation (or the original Persian) say anything about leaving
everything you have ever known behind. I have found a number of examples
where Star has fabricated lines (in this book and in "A Garden Beyond
Paradise"-- also done with Shahram Shiva's translations).
2) p. 130: "If a day won't come/ when the monuments of
institutionalized religion are in ruin/ ... then, my beloved,/ then we
are really in trouble." Ahmad found this on the Internet website of a
Turkish man named Handan Oz. This is not an authentic Rumi quatrain and
it is not in the earliest manuscripts. Nicholson ("The Mystics of
Islam," 1914, p. 90) published this in a rhymed form, stating that it is
from Abu Sa'id ibn Abi 'l-Khayr (died 1048): "Not until every mosque
beneath the sun/ Lies ruined, will our holy work be done;/ And never
will true Musalmān appear/ Till faith and infidelity are one." Thus this
is a quatrain (too radical to be characteristic of Rumi) that was
composed two centuries before Rumi (and somehow may have ended up in a
collection of Rumi quatrains).
3) p. 155: "I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this
aviary./ The day is coming when I fly off." This is a Barks version
("The Essential Rumi," 1995, p. 2), based on a literal translation done
by John Moyne, and referenced from the "Safa Anthology." Since it is not
referenced to the standard edition (of Faruzanfar) which contains the
poems from the earliest manuscripts, it is not an authentic Rumi poem.
And if it is the same as the excerpt quoted by Nicholson ("Selected
Poems from the Divān-i Shamsi Tabriz, 1898, p. 278: "I am a bird of the
heavenly garden: I belong not to the earthly sphere;/ They have made,
for two or three days, a cage of my body"), it is definitely not in the
earliest manuscripts. This is the same Barks version which contains the
popular lines: "This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say./ I
don't plan it./ When I'm outside the saying of it,/ I get very quiet and
rarely speak at all."-- which is probably mostly Barks' ideas, but I am
unable to check it since I don't have the Persian book of poetry called
the "Safā Anthology."
4) p. 306 (on the next-to-last page): "This how it always is/ when I
finish a poem./ A great silence overcomes me,/ and I wonder why I ever
thought/ to use language." This is from a Coleman Barks version ("The
Essential Rumi," 1995, p. 20), which is based on Arberry's translation
(1979, No. 225) of Ode 1823: "After every ode my heart repents of
discoursing; the summons of my God waylays my heart." Barks has
fabricated something of his own ideas here, not Rumi's ideas.
5) p. 307 (on the last page of the book): Leila Ahmed wrotes,
"Jalaluddin Rumi, the poet whose words these are and whom I have quoted
a couple of times in the preceding pages, lived in Konya, in Anatolia,
and died in 1273. At his death all of Konya mourned. Jews, Christians,
Buddhists, and Hindus, as well as Muslims, walked in his procession,
weeping." I don't know where Leila Ahmed heard or read this, but it is a
story that I have myself heard in an exaggerated form. All such versions
derive from a translation (accurately made) by Redhouse ("Legends of the
Sufis, Selections from the Menāqibu 'l 'Ārifīn by Shemsu 'd-dīn Ahmed
el-Eflākī," 1881, p. 86 in 1976 edition): "These mourners were of all
creeds, and of various nations; Jews and Christians, Turks, Romans, and
Arabians were among them. Each recited sacred passages, according to
their several usages, from the Law, the Psyalms, or the Gospel....They
further declared: 'If you Muslims hold him to have been the Muhammed of
his age, we esteem him as the Moses, the David, the Jesus of our time;
and we are his disciples, his adherents.'" Therefore, as would be
expected, there were no Hindus or Buddhists in the 13th century capital
of the Turkish Saljūq Empire.
In summary, every alleged quote from Rumi included in this book by
an academically trained author (actually at one time, supervised by A.J.
Arberry) who became a "Rumi fan," has nothing to do with Rumi, but has
been falsely attributed to him.
Ibrahim Gamard