The Path Could Not Be Traversed Without A Master: Elif Shafak – Part 2
Elif Shafak
By
Muhammad Shafi Khan
September
10, 2020
Shams is in
Konya in October 1244. Come Friday Shams goes to the mosque to hear Rumi. Rumi
talked about God quoting Quran very impressively but he said, “What brings us
even closer to God is suffering.” This is what does not go well with Shams:
“How could a man so well placed in life with wealth, respect, reputation and
fame, happy family life know anything about suffering. This is not fair”.
At this
juncture contrast Rumi’s way of life with that of Shams, understanding the
symbolism in either.
Shams takes
residence in a room in the inn of sugar vendors. Where there is sleeping mat
with a mouldy blanket, an oil lamp that was sputtering, and a sun–dried brick
as a pillow and a good view of the whole town up to the base of the surrounding
hills, the room is of his own choosing.
Konya,
October 31, 1244. “Blessed is the day I have met Shams of Tabriz”-Rumi. Friday.
Rumi has given his sermon in the mosque. Riding a horse whose mane is braided
with strands of gold and tiny silver bells. At every step he enjoys the
tinkling of the bells. He is homebound accompanied by a crowd. Shams, from a
balcony of the inn of sugar vendors takes a look on this pompous procession
whose star attraction is Rumi.
Here the
encounter should begin breaking the idol of materialism. Shams joins the crowd.
A wandering dervish looking strange. No hair, no beard, no eyebrows, with an
expression inscrutable. A wandering holy man with piercing eyes exuding an aura
of self-sufficient competence. Shams raises his arms high and wide as if wanting
to halt not only the procession but also the flow of time. Not only the rider
but the animal also is nervous, becoming unruly. Shams waves his hand. The
animal is calm. ‘Black Magic’, mutters someone from the crowd.
Oblivious
of the crowd Shams speaks, “Oh! Great scholar of East and West I have a
question, if I may”. Go ahead, says the Maulana, but the dervish has already
turned his back and is walking away. “Hey! Wait, please. I want to hear your
question”. But get down of the horse first, says the dervish. Rumi obliges.
Now the
question at the outset is blasphemous and we will have to bear with it till the
problem is resolved by the great scholar himself–and Shams succeeding
overhauling Rumi. “All right do tell me please, which of the two is greater, do
you think –the prophet Muhammad, or the Sufi Bistami’. “How can anyone compare
our venerated prophet, may peace be upon him, the last in the line of prophets,
with an infamous mystic?” Rumi’s counter question. Unmindful of the crowd Shams
says “please, think about it”. Didn’t the prophet say, “Forgive me, God I
couldn’t know thee as I should have”. While Bistami proclaimed, “Glory be to
me. I carry God inside my cloak”. If one man feels so small in relation to God
while another claims to carry God inside, which of the two is greater”?
Scholarship is futile if it does not bestow wisdom, understanding and intellect
to the cultivator to winnow grain from the chaff.
Maulana Rumi
----
Rumi was a philosopher with philosopher’s stone. He says: “I will compare the two statements and tell you why, even though Bistami’s statement sounds higher, it is in fact the other way round. “I am all ears” Says Shams. Rumi continues: “You see, God’s love is an endless ocean and human beings strive to get as much water as they can out of it. But at the end of the day how much water we each get depends on the size of our cup, some people have barrels, some buckets, while some others have only got bowls. Bistami’s container was relatively small, his thirst was quenched after a mouthful. He was happy in the stage he was at. It was wonderful that he recognized the divine in himself, but even then there still remains a distinction between God and self. Unity is not achieved.
As for the
prophet, he was the elect of God and had a much bigger cup to fill. This is why
God asked him in the Quran, ‘Have We not opened your heart? His heart thus
widened, his cup immense, it was thirst upon thirst for him, no wonder he
said’, ‘we do not know You as we should’, although he certainly knew him as no
other did”. What an encounter! It may be a novelist’s imagination but this is
how Shams –Rumi dialogue must have happened. Rumi realizes that while Shams the
drunk had put the unsavoury question to him, it was only to make him realize
that at what stage of the path he was at.
There being seven between Fana and Baqa,
annihilation and everlastingness, -to swim free in the limitless ocean of
gnosis. ‘The depraved Nafs; the accusing Nafs; the inspired Nafs; the serene
Nafs; the pleased Nafs; the pleasing Nafs; the purified Nafs. The hard
journey-to cleanse the Wular (Kashmir’s biggest lake) by a walnut shell.
Rumi is
raptured. He finds a companion and so does Shams. He takes Shams home much to
the displeasure of his wife Kerra and son Alladin. The path could not be
traversed without a master. The two lockdown themselves for forty days in a
room to know, to understand, to merge, two, but vibrating on the same
wavelength. Gone is the preacher Rumi, scholar after books, a seeker of
soulless religion. A new Rumi comes into being. God intoxicated, a lover, a
poet, a whirling dervish with Hu on the stainless white hem of his cloak.
The story
goes, well known. There is a well in the courtyard of Rumi’s house. One day
Shams throws Rumi’s books into the well. Precious valuable books. Ghazali’s
Incoherence of philosophy, his Revival of Religious Sciences also goes to
water. Rumi watches. Master knows the best.
But Kerra is angry. ‘Why, why on earth Rumi did not allow her enter his
library even for dusting and here the books are destroyed, Rumi watching. Black
Magic or what, Shams produces the books backs. May be myth, but underneath myth
truth and reality lie hidden. Puppets on the stage are in the hands of the
Puppeteer.
Hard
taskmaster, the Sufi Shams Tabrizi one day orders his disciple to go to the
tavern to bring two bottles of wine home.
Rumi goes. Rumi in tavern. Talk of the town. Is seen carrying the
forbidden drink through the street.
Shams waters the rose bushes with them. Roses glow but something is
destroyed. Rumi in tavern. Rumi’s
reputation. Nothing of the self on the
path. Only the pure soul full of love. Like Browning, “But I will pour floods
of love and hide myself”. What happens? Rumi a universal poet of love, sweet
for both East and West. Sublimating human heart from stone to water that
renders everything green on earth. His poetry, a spiritual odyssey is a boon to
humans for all time to come.
Shams in
Konya is viewed as a bad influence on public morality, on religion and on
Rumi. He is an outcast heretic. Even
Rumi’s happy home is affected. Rumi’s family – his wife Kerra, his two sons,
Sultan Walad and Alladin, adopted daughter Kimya, Desert Rose The harlot (how?
Wait!) and Shams the wrecker, –The God sent cup- bearer of the nectar for Rumi.
Of the two sons Sultan Walad the eldest is tolerant to his father’s change of
track but Alladin the worldly is uneasy. It is a life of austerity now against
that of plenty. Alladin with other evildoers murders the torch bearer of the
path to the throne–Shams of Tabriz.
Blasphemy should face death.
Shams is
used to meditation at night in the courtyard of Rumi’s house. The seven killers
including Alladin enter the courtyard stealthily. Baybars – the security guard
of the Jamia Masjid of Konya, the tormentor of Desert Rose is one of the
killers. There are different accounts of ‘Shams’ murder. Poet Maulana Jami
quoted by Nicholson, states: “when Shams was struck by knives and daggers, he
cried. The cry was so huge that all seven killers were dumbfounded, falling to
the ground. When they came back to senses, they saw only a few drops of blood
on the ground. No trace of the spiritual monarch ever after.” Another account
mentioned by Shafak: They threw his corpse into the well. Sultan Walad of Konya
had a dream– Shams telling him, ‘I am in the well.’ Secretly at night the
Sultan comes with his party, takes Shams out of the well and it is interred
secretly. ‘Rumi bemoans’, they killed him. They killed him.
Display oh
sun (Shams) who art Tabriz’s glory, the dawning of love; I am the hoopoe: the presence of Solomon is my desire (Rumi)
Who is
desert rose? A brutalized innocent village girl conceived by Shafak in horror
image of utter heartbreak, like Shakespeare creating Cordelia. Rose is a victim
of unmanly wantonness becoming eventually barren. Patron of the brothel in
Konya gives her the name Desert Rose –Rose barren like a desert. One-night
Baybars the brute crosses all limits with Desert Rose. Beauty and the beast.
Ironically same Baybars is the security guard of Rumi’s mosque. That one-night
Baybars, the killer of Shams Tabrizi, commands Desert Rose to be his mistress.
Objectification personalised. She refuses. Baybars does violence to Desert Rose
–kicks, punches, slaps, hair pulling, dashing to the ground. Desert Rose is
badly bruised, bloodstained. That same night she leaves the brothel. Shams of
Tabriz a wandering Dervish, comes to her rescue and the shelter – where else
than in Rumi’s house.
It happened
with a Muscovite girl suffering Stalinist persecution in Siberia who wrote in
her diary, “God, do not judge, you were never a woman on earth”. It happened
with Yazdi women in Iraq. With Mukhtara Mai in Pakistan and with many others in
conflict zones such as Bosnian women at the hands of Serb army. It happened in
the past in war. It happens at present in war. When shall this stop? Alladin,
displeasing Rumi’s son, now a convert, finally observes “There he is gone
(Shams Tabrizi), there are traces of him everywhere. Dance, poetry, music, and
all things that I thought would vanish once he was gone have stayed firmly
planted in our lives. My father has become a poet. Shams was right. When one of
the jars was broken, so was the other jar. ‘My father had always been a loving
man. He was kind toward not only Muslims, but also Christians, Jews, and even
pagans. After Shams came into his life, his circle of love became so vast it
included the most fallen of the society, prostitutes, drunks, and beggars, the
scum of the scum. I believe he could even love Shams’ killers.
There was,
and still is, only one person he could not love: his son”.
Ella and
Aziz encompassed by mystic humanness of generosity and composure return to
their states of life. Aziz having seen Ella, staying three days in Boston,
flies back to Amsterdam to serve the refugees. Ella is back to her home in
Northampton in purity of her soul and heart. Aziz dies of cancer in Amsterdam.
Ella flies to Amsterdam to help the refugees. FORTY RULES OF LOVE is inspiring
literature.
First
Part of the Article: Excavate the
Old and Examine the Modern: Elif Shafak – Part 1
Original
Headline: Reading Shafak – Part II | Shams –Rumi Dialogue
Source: The Greater Kashmir
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism