Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi - Essay Example Significantly, as the greatest mystic poet of Islam, Rumi recaps the hopes, frustrations, paradoxes, contradictions, etc of the modern America and the world as whole. His teachings, lifestyle, and the poetic writings, along with his popularity, confirm that there is an insatiable thirst for spiritual answers in America for the troubling questions of the modern living. "He is a symbol of unity," observes Akbar Ahmed, "and his fame tells us about the greatness of American society." (Ahmed, 19) Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi is also greatly popular as the writer of the book Masnwi, prevalently known as the Persian Koran, and the founder of the Whirling Dervishes, the Mevlevi Sufi order. In this exploratory analysis, the focus has been laid on the life and teachings of Rumi, specifically his Sufi lifestyle and his Whirling Dervishes. Rumi is the most renowned Persian poet and mystic who has left an enduring imprint on the modern world through his life and teachings, and his Sufi life style contributed profoundly to his current reputation. It has been observed by several modern critics that there has never been another poet and Islam theologian who immensely influenced the spiritual and literary life of Islamic lands as Rumi, the poet and mystic. His influence on the modern thinkers and mystics, along with a great number of thinking population, is indubitable, and he left a significant way of living to the modern man. "Over the centuries he has inspired thinkers, poets, and mystics from the shores of the Bosphorus to the Bay of Bengal and beyond." (Yarshater, xi) Through his life and Sufi lifestyle, Mevlana inspired his followers, and the most significant characteristic of his philosophy and Islamic mysticism was that he was distinct from the ordinary Muslim teachers of the orthodox type. His life style and Sufi order was the result of his spiritual and mystic leadership which was enabled by his period which is known as one of the most spiritual periods of Islam. Rumi was born in a period which was blessed with a spiritual environment. It was a period where "in almost every corner of the Islamic world were found great saints, poets, and mystical leaders, who, in the darkness of political and economical catastrophes, guides the people towards a world which was unhurt by change, telling them the secret of suffering love, and taught that God's inscrutable will and His Love may reveal itself in affliction even better than in happiness." (Schimmel, 10) Rumi made his remarkable contribution to this spiritual environment through his teachings, Sufi lifestyle, and works, and people remember him for these contributions. Jalaleddin Rumi, one of the great spiritual masters and poetic geniuses of Islamic world as well as the entire mankind, had a great understanding of living and he founded the Mevlevi Sufi order for the followers who were attracted by his teachings. The secret of Tawhid or unity or God's Oneness, the illumination of the Koran, the conscience of faith, and the peace of Muhammad's ethics etc contributed to Rumi's infinite tolerance. The most essential characteristic of the maturity and distinct quality of Rumi's personality is that fact that he practiced all that he preached, illustrating his words through his actions. It is evident, as Hidayetoglu observes, that "Rumi cleverly exhibited with his own lifestyle, the sublime tolerance imbibed from the joy of