The Mystical Argument: Reading Rumi

February 2, 2007

2007 marks the 800th anniversary of the birth of Rumi.. and various events are planned to celebrate his life and work. I recently finished the new translation by Jawid Mojaddedi of Book 1 of the Masnavi, published as a paperback in the Oxford World's Classics series. Of course Rumi has a high profile and his work can actually be found in various editions.. but I have always been a little nervous about the New Age packaging that his poetry tends to receive.. being suspicious that what was left out by spiritual-minded editors might be what I found most interesting.

The website set up for the 800th anniversary cites some lines from Rumi that sound as welcoming as can be imagined:

Come, come again, whoever you are, come! Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come! Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times, Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.

When I visited the burial shrine of Rumi in Konya, Turkey I remember reading those lines at the entrance. They stood out because I had seen nothing like them in the religious centers I visited in the Middle East. They beckoned me to enter like no mosque in Cairo.

The temptation, I think, is to read these lines and understand Rumi as a liberal.. someone who could understand the secular mindset. But that would be to mistake an expansive religiosity for a later secular viewpoint. Reading through Rumi made this misreading even more clear.. as Rumi launches multiple attacks against skeptical approaches to mystical experience.

A thousand men who just obey what's told
  Were filled with doubt when one new thought took hold,
Their skills in logic, proofs, and imitation
  Are based upon their false imagination.
That wretched Satan throws doubt in each mind,
  In order to trip up the ones who're blind. [131-2]

I was surprised how often he returned to this point about how intellectual tools can be misleading. A little later he likens intellectual doubts to an itch that should not be scratched.. "Abstain from thoughts though they tempt and harass" (179).

There was clearly a class of people attacking reports of mystical experience. These were the "philosophers".. and we get a taste of what their line of criticism could be from the poetry of Rumi:

[Philosophers]
Saying, 'These men must be moved by emotions
  To have such fantasies and foolish notions.' [201]

So the problem for the mystic becomes how to combat this charge of emotionalism.. the idea that somehow they are being caught up in fantasy. The response is to set mystical knowledge outside the bounds of human reason, and along with that comes a tendency to belittle reason.

How this kind of thinking works appears clearly in the short autobiographical work by al-Ghazali, translated under the title Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism. Having reviewed the failings of different paths to true knowledge, he defends Sufi ideas about the experience of God. Beyond the stage of intellect, there is a higher level of understanding. A person (think philosopher) who is able to only operate with the intellect will be blind to the further level of understanding. A philosopher trying to understand mysticism will be like a blind man trying to understand colors.. it won't be happening.

I have problems with this line of thinking because with one move a person has a) removed their own beliefs from criticism, and b) belittled the ideas of the philosophers by asserting that they are blind to reality. This is not so much an argument as a rhetorical inoculation from rational thought.

Rumi follows this same rhetorical path, as can be seen from the following quotation:

Your every feeling, fancy, sense, and care
  Is like the children's wooden horse, beware!
Knowledge of mystics was the steed they rode,
  Knowledge of sensual men an extra load.
Heart knowledge helps you when it fills you there,
  But other knowledge is a cross to bear...
So don't bear knowledge for your own sake, friend,
  And you'll find inner knowledge in the end... [211]

The knowledge of the world that comes from our senses is to be mistrusted.. while the knowledge of mystics has descended from some better source. One wants this "heart knowledge". The result of this kind of thinking is convenient enough: rationalists can not lodge any real critiques.. they can be instantly brushed off.. their arguments treated like postcards from the blind.

This path of thought is common in all mysticisms.. I think right now of Jonathan Edwards and his defense of the religious affections by means of a sixth sense whereby spiritual things can be perceived. It is perhaps the most thoroughly negative contribution of mysticism to religious discourse.. pushing religion away from rational and empirical examination. We should be skeptical of any path of thought that insulates itself from intellectual criticism.. and instead of praising mystics for their tolerance, we should be holding some of their ideas to the fire. As we have noted, mystics are often able to welcome heathen and fire worshipper.. but pity the poor skeptic.