This Persian poet is less famous in our country than Nizami, Avicenna, Saadi or Khayyam, although undeservedly. Rumi Jalaluddin had the opportunity to become famous in various fields, he achieved success in Islamic theology, jurisprudence and Sufi mysticism. Many of his scientific works had a huge impact on the culture of the ancient Middle East due to the ability of this outstanding man to destroy established barriers, the ability to look at life from an unusual angle and have his own opinion on a variety of issues that concern humanity today.
The fate of the poet
Rumi (Mevlana) was born into the family of the famous Persian lawyer, theologian and preacher Behaeddin in 1207. The father of the future poet had to flee persecution for his free-thinking views, from which we can conclude that the ability and desire for free-thinking was inherited by his son. However, the young man grew up inquisitive and received an excellent education, and not only the humanities (legal and theosophical), he also studied the exact sciences.
Rumi's worldview was formed under the influence of Islamic religious doctrine; he firmly believed in the immortality of the soul, and defined atheism with the rather crude word “bestiality.”
Jalaleddin Rumi
(1207–1273)
Persian-language poet, preacher, Sufi sheikh
Make friends with a smart person, because a stupid friend is sometimes more dangerous than a smart enemy. May retribution strike with misfortune Those who paid for friendship with enmity.
Love should be something that delights us. Love can give us countless joys. I found my beginning in my mother's love. Blessed be this mother forever!
And the heat of the day will not scorch the one who is tempered with proud patience.
When wise men teach a fool, They throw the crops into salt licks. And no matter how you darn, wider than yesterday, Tomorrow there will be a stupid hole.
In your light I learned to love. In your beauty - to write poetry. You dance in my heart, Where no one can find you.
I want to kiss you. And the price of this kiss is my life. And now my love is running towards my life, shouting: “It’s so cheap, let’s buy it!”
If they trusted not words, but the truth that is known by the heart, and the heart that is kindled by the truth, then there would be no limit to miracles.
Where is the peace? Which side? Where we are alone with the Truth!
And if in your soul you conceal only thoughts, where is the loss, where is the profit, I feel sorry for you: on the paths to eternal heights, people who are careless cannot know Bliss.
Don’t meddle in other people’s affairs and don’t build your happy home on someone else’s misfortune.
The one who knows the essence and the one who knows are not very similar to each other.
Is it not because people beat them, Prophets more perfect than all others?
Our path is not straight, we are characterized by sins. How can we separate the essence from the husk?
Wisdom must not be measured by gray hair. Sometimes they are so smart, whose beard does not know gray hair. Meanwhile, it happens: some of us are not wise, although gray-haired.
No wonder they say: a fool has no grief like the tongue.
There is no greater sacrilege in the world than to show gloating when seeing someone’s pain. After all, the one who is comforted by the suffering of others is more sinful than other sinners!
Everything is insignificant: both title and nickname, Only meaning and understanding are significant. Sometimes the cause of disaster is different. Different interpretation of the word. Misunderstanding of the essence is often fraught with enmity or discord!
But for him there is no life in the world, Who seeks food in vanity of vanities, Who seeks food only for the flesh, Neglecting the food of knowledge.
Oh, my tongue, I suffer every day, But I fulfill all your commands. You are the good that fills my house and the punishment that burns it with fire.
Our flesh is separated from our soul, There is a veil between them, it is dark.
Sometimes, when everything around is raging, the readiness to accept death is more necessary than science. The abyss pulls all the living to the bottom, Only the dead are destined to swim on the waves.
Sometimes a bird flies high in the sky, Just a shadow across the field, rushes along the road. And you, fool, run after it all day, But how can you catch something that is just a shadow? You see not an object, but a shadow of an object. But where is the object itself? He's in the sky somewhere.
The vices, which are called “evil” and “lust,” often make people askance. These vices cloud our vision, They tell us to see two things in one object.
Sometimes we are happy with our deeds, Considering them good, we expect a reward. Without noticing that, in the opinion of everyone, a grave sin is hidden in our actions. Sometimes a person himself does not know the properties that he possesses.
Having fired a word like an arrow from a bow, we cannot return either the meaning or the sound. We manage to curb the collapse in the mountains before it gains strength.
Even though the word is good, sometimes a word is less useful than harmful.
We are not free to see our own flaws, any flaw is more visible from the outside. If the wicked saw his vice, He could easily correct it.
Do not worry yourself about dangerous friendship With a fool, whose mind is a prisoner, whose mentor is a lie.
You'd rather shout at the stones than at people mired in greed.
The word suddenly, unexpectedly rolls off the tongue, Like the arrow of a clumsy shooter.
Words that are good or bad are just a curtain before the vaults of the soul.
...The word can revive the dead and turn the whole world into a desert. It happens that the same word torments one and heals another.
It sometimes happens that even a lion eats carrion, weakened from hunger.
Sometimes poison becomes nectar in the garden, where no grudge is held against the guest. But there is no good in you, and the garden will seem darker than hell in heaven.
There, everyone invariably loses, Who is connected with what is illusory and perishable.
An illness awaits those who imagine themselves to be ill.
No one should wish for what it is hard to experience for yourself. When you dig a hole for someone, for some reason you end up in the hole yourself.
The one who has chosen the path of quest will find what he was looking for someday. Know how to discern deceit, sage, in the words of beauties, in what a flatterer whispers, After all, even the devil, hiding his face, sometimes says: “Allah is great!”
Loss is not a reason for sadness. The poorer we are, the easier it is for us to care, the weaker the fear that we will lose something. If we lose wealth, it doesn’t matter: And the rich are not always happy.
Only those of us who help the weak in difficult times are worthy of praise.
Although we are the kings of nature, nevertheless, insignificance leaves us in amazement.
Whatever your earthly path is marked, be restrained in everything, especially in speech...
What to do? If you fall into a hole, don’t waste your energy on swearing in vain.
What to do, from one flower the snake takes its bitter poison, the bee its honey.
What's the name? Just the name of the object. Think about what this name hides?
And cunning in the old days was similar to intelligence and valor.
For no reason, only a wolf brings misfortune to those people whose livestock it tears into pieces. But man is not a wolf, not a creeping reptile, He does not torment anyone without reason.
A daughter is sinless when her mother is sinless. The life of a mother is a science for her daughter, and the mother’s honesty is a guarantee of this.
...Fear those to whom you have done good as if it were sin.
This happens everywhere: darkness and darkness deprive people of knowledge and intelligence. Meanwhile, their differences of opinion, perhaps, would disappear from the glow of a small candle.
Perhaps a hundred, perhaps two hundred times Your hand is stronger than your eyes. But you will grab with your hand what is nearby, While you will take in the whole world with your gaze. And with the thought that is born in the hearts, you can turn a hundred worlds into dust.
In a lasting union of husband and wife, both sides must be equal.
After all, those who inhale the stench for many years are harmed by delicate odors.
Truly the blows of a wise man are Much better than the mercy of a fool. The poison of a wise man often saves us, And the honey of fools sometimes kills.
For everyone, in order for pride to pass us by, we have to endure a lot of injections:
But before those who have humbled the flesh, the face of the sun and the face of the moon must bow.
May retribution strike with misfortune Those who paid for friendship with enmity. There is no other mirror for truth - Only a heart that is inflamed with love.
Yes, those are blessed who have the power to learn from someone's happiness or misfortune.
Someone else's soul is a mystery to know.
There are many words whose spelling is similar, although the content is completely different.
Try to go around a dwelling where you are not welcome, Look for ways to where you are reputed to be gold.
For the heavy burden called love, the lover pays with his own blood. Evil is vanity of vanities, and it is not without reason that goodness comes from Knowledge!
And both people and animals fell into the pit of their arrogance.
And in general, the soul is close to the soul, not only by understanding the language.
Sometimes, strangely enough, a Turk is a native of Hindustan, and a Turk may never understand a man born in his land. After all, in addition to speech, there is a language of trust, By which people and animals are bound.
And yet the Truth to those who believe, Knocks like a traveler on a locked door.
And we should always think: Who are we running from, are we running where? It is not in our will to hide from ourselves; we cannot even run away from God.
And I will repeat again once again: Look for friends who are worthy of you!
And you, money-grubber, should curb your agility: After all, you cannot pour the whole river into a jug.
We know that when the soul is dark, then beauty is not worth a penny. Some people, although ugly, are still pleasant because they are pure in soul, although not stately.
It is known: the one who accompanies the lion on the hunt does not grow thin in the flesh.
Someone who interprets teaching dryly is no more wise than the pilot of a fly. And his speech, which comes off the tongue, is more fetid than deep. So, the stench is the lot of those of us who despised the aroma of wise words.
When the wise men teach the fool, They throw the crops into the salt licks, And no matter how you darn - wider than yesterday, Tomorrow there will be a hole of stupidity.
When we hold the object itself in our hands, Why look for its unclear trace?
When people are oppressed by misfortunes, They make frequent vows. And then all the vows are forgotten, When a little trouble recedes.
Those who cannot control themselves when angry, no potion will help them!
Those who seek out the sin of others, God judges them more severely than those who commit sin.
He who has killed the temptation of pride in himself is the king of the earth and the king of the blue of heaven.
Love should be something that delights us. Love can give us countless joys.
I found my beginning in mother's love. Blessed be this mother forever!
Love can give us speech, make us sing and doom us to muteness!
Love is honest, and therefore it is given for the healing of the soul.
Human speech is a veil, and behind it is sometimes a treasure, sometimes a snake’s sting. I’ll be more precise: behind every word is a treasure, But a treasure that snakes guard.
Half of the human soul is foggy, the other is guilty of sins.
It’s nice for us to look at beauty, But it’s not beauty that’s important, but the essence. What is beauty? Unfortunately, it is instantaneous. Only our essence is eternal and imperishable.
We know: human poverty can lead everyone into temptation and sin. And it’s not for you to judge the rich, people exhausted by poverty.
Silence is the language of God, everything else is a poor translation.
Exaggeration is the truth out of itself.
Before you educate your tongue, educate your heart. Because words come from the heart, come out through the tongue.
When troubles fall on you one after another, when they bring you to an unbearable state, just don’t give up! Because this is the point where the course of events will change.
The worst loneliness is to remain among those who do not understand you.
The word is like a fired arrow. And the arrow has never returned.
Lovers do not meet, they are in each other from the very beginning.
Life without love has no meaning; Love is the water of life, drink it with your heart and soul.
He who has great love has great trials.
Either be so close that you can be held, or so far that you can be forgotten.
The one who found happiness in you is yours. Everyone else is guests.
Try not to resist the changes that come into your life. Instead, let life live through you. And don't worry about it turning upside down. How do you know that the life you are used to is better than the one that will come?
This world is mountains, and our actions are screams: the echo of our scream in the mountains always returns to us.
Love has no basis. Love is an endless ocean without beginning or end.
Science is learned through words, art through practice, and alienation is learned through company.
Let the beauty of what you love become the beauty of your actions.
What seems like a stone to an ordinary person is a pearl to someone who knows.
You were born with wings. Why crawl through life like a reptile?
Bare branches, seemingly dormant in winter, are secretly working, preparing for their spring.
Do not be sad. Everything you have lost will return to you in a different form.
A lion that sweeps away an enemy formation is not as great as a lion that has controlled itself.
Literary heritage
After his father's death (1231), the poet took over his position as court scholar. Years of wandering, the disorder of Iranian social life and other circumstances finally made him a Sufi pantheist, which led to a conflict with the clergy.
Rumi did not leave very many literary works (but also quite a few; over fifty thousand couplets are included in just one of his didactic poems), and all of them, of course, deserve the reader’s attention. In his poems, philosophical and ascetic ideas and frank eroticism, characteristic of other poets of the East, peacefully coexist. Below are 20 quotes that give some insight into Rumi's work. Perhaps they will arouse interest and encourage someone to read his poems in more detail.
