At this point of my teaching program, I feel kind of like a Persian Pinnocchio doll. All I want to do is be a real teacher! I’m learning and mimicking the basic elements of what it means to be a professionally certified teacher. As I do my clumsy clack clacking through the halls of academia, I often contemplate how I can integrate the best parts of my self as well as the best parts of my students in the classroom while learning Shakespeare, which is like one of the most ultimate challenges. And the other day it hit me!
Just as Shakespeare is referred to as one of the greatest forces in literature, Rumi is a writer whose works are constantly exhumed, reworked, and repackaged to suit the times. And just as Shakespeare is attached to Elizabethan culture, Rumi is the foundation of a culture that still exists today, called Sufism.
What better way to teach hairy, deep British literature other than in conjunction with the clear, yet mystical writings of a 13th century poet that I go gaga for?
As a second generation Persian woman, there are a select few things I’ve become absolutely sure of about my heritage and the language I’ve been brought up with… But ONE thing, the absolute only thing I’m sure of is this: No matter how many Persian valley girls from LA (also referred to on many occasions as Tehrangeles due to the thriving population of kabob-eating, accent wielding Iranian immigrants) or intelligent-yet-prone-to-adopt-Gladys-Spiegelman’s-Jewish-American-Princess-accent Persian girls from Long Island butcher and maim Persian with their merciless American-born tongues, it is doubtless that there is poetry ingrained in every syllable of the Persian language. It is also clear in 2011 that this poetry lives on through the works of Sufi poets such as Jalaluddin Rumi. Now bear with me as I make a strange yet relevant set of connections.
What is Sufism?
To begin with, we could have a more formal definition:
SUFISM is one of the most dynamic and interesting dimensions of Islamic religious and cultural expression. It is an umbrella term for a variety of philosophical, social, and literary phenomena occurring within the Islamic world. In its narrowest sense, the term “Sufism” refers to a number of schools of Islamic mystical philosophy and theology, to the phenomenon of religious orders and guilds (tariqdt) that have exerted considerable influence over the development of Islamic politics and society, and to the varied expressions of popular piety and devotion to shrines found throughout the Islamic world.Sufism is often seen as the spiritual muse behind much of pre-modern verse in the Islamic world, the idiom of much of popular Islamic piety, the primary social arena open to women’s religious participation, and a major force in the conversion of people to Islam in Africa and Asia. The Sufi orders served as educational institutions that fostered not only the religious sciences but also music and decorative arts. Their leaders sometimes functioned as a challenge to the power of the juridic and theological establishment. In modem times (as at other periods in history), the Sufi orders have been praised for their capacity to
serve as instruments of religious reform at the same time as they have been vilified for a lack of respect for Islamic law and for fostering ignorance and superstition in order to maintain control over the community. (Elias, 595)
I would argue/add that Sufism was conceived as Islamic mysticism, and from a place of deep Islamic contemplation, yet it evolved into schools of thought that advocated finding connections to the divine through coexistence in every sense of the word, not Islamic tenets. As I understand it from familial anecdotes and oral tradition, sufis were beholden to “religious” laws unto themselves just because their journey to find G-d in everything around them was so personal. Not just anyone can consider themselves a sufi, but it’s definitely easy to fall in love with the works of great sufi poets like Rumi, Hafiz, Attar, Jami, Saadi, Sanai, Yunus Emry, Shabistari, Ansari, Rabi’a, Abil Kheir, Sultan Bahu, Ibn ‘Arabi, Baba Kuhi, Mansur al-Hallaj, Amir Khosrow, Moinuddin Hasan Chishti, Hazret-i Uftade, and so many more.
There are so many deeper ways to explain Sufism, but for our purposes here, I’ll only mention the parts of it that have remained most visible over the years. From what I know of Iranian culture, there is a commonly used term for practicers of Sufism and that term is “Dervish.” These dervishes can be spotted immediately as they have no home, wander from place to place, seek constant revelry through their search for the divine, and beg to maintain a living. They are (or at least were) an excepted part of Iranian culture. The following clip is from my favorite movie about sufis called “Bab’Aziz – The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul,” and it shows what a Dervish gathering might look like.
*Note: Sufism is much more far reaching than the bounds of modern day Iran. It has of course touched the whole world, but in it’s most primary phases, Sufi thought was prevalent within the bounds of the ancient Persian Empire. For this post, I speak through what I know of my own Iranian roots.
Who was/is Rumi?
Most simply, Jelaluddin Rumi was a man born in what is now Afghanistan in 1207. His father was a prestigious holy man and scholar that was consulted by sultans and Islamic followers. Rumi (named as such after he moved to the Rum region in what is now Turkey) followed in his fathers footsteps with his own philosophies and written works that have become a timeless source of contemplation for many over the years. His work evolves and still it changes as I’ll show you below. The following is an example of a widely read translation (Coleman Barks) of Rumi’s work and interestingly enough, this piece showed up on one of my state examinations to become a teacher called the LAST:
An Invisible Bee
There are infinite ways to read this poem, and in that there is the essence of Sufi beauty.
How does the work of Rumi and Sufi poets exist in the 21st century?
800 years later, the tradition of sufi poets is still going strong in all parts of society. Of course, I’ll be looking at mostly American lenses on sufi work, but it’s easy enough to see how many cultures bleed into works of sufi poetry and music. The following clip is of Salman Rushdie reading a piece of Amir Khosrow’s work at an opening of a South Eastern Museum near Emory University:
The academics exhume Sufi pieces and culture all of the time.
People make these cheesy homages to well-known foundations of Sufi Poetry like Rumi:
In Iran, Rumi’s poetry was an all pervasive force that worked its way into more than just literary, religious, or philosophical gatherings. Many Iranian artists use the words of Rumi’s poems or the ideas ingrained in his work to create music. The artists featured in the video below are a father and son duo named Shahram and Hafiz Nazeri. Shahram Nazeri is one of the greatest Iranian composers for the past three decades. In the last year or two his work with his son to transform Rumi’s sufi influence into new music to honor Iran’s history and culture. You can watch the clip below to learn more about the political nature of their work.
Here is an example of a symphony piece from their concert series:
One last quirky thing that I’ve bumped into numerous times over the last year is a blogosphere that loves mentionaing Rumi. People write blogs where they try to transmute Rumi’s work into a force in their lives:
http://rumidays.blogspot.com/
http://rumi-poetry.blogspot.com/-*
Getting Students To Engage With Rumi
Teaching and learning Shakespeare is painful. Shakespeare’s brilliance works for and against his works in the realm of academia because so much of it is entrenched in deep literary themes, motifs, and commentary on society. I believe that teaching Rumi will share a similar obstacle to teaching Shakespeare, because reading these writers today requires leaving the 21st Century mindset and body to experience the contexts, culture, and life around the texts… But in my opinion, the journey back in time, the journey to let go of the self, and the ability to fill a goody bag with tools, perspectives, and insights are what lie at the foundation of being literate in the literary discipline. As the poet Sonja Sanchez says it, you gotta “shake your skin loose” to understand a larger, richer picture if you want to be a critic, consumer, or producer of literature.
Citations
Elias, Jamal. “Introduction: Sufism.” Iranian Studies 31 (1998): 595-613. Print.
