[In the following excerpt. Renard discusses the prophetic imagery found in Rumi's writings and examines the function of the prophets and Muhammad as models of the spiritual guide. Please note that the parenthetical references throughout the excerpt and the unmarked references in the notes correspond to Nicholson's translation of the Mathnawi.]

Where the Qur'an employs the prophetic stories chiefly as moral exempla, Rumi the teacher uses the prophets and their stories as a convenient reservoir of familiar and attractive images with which he catches the ear of his listener, and as the come-on with which he entices the prospective buyer into his shop. Leaving himself open to the charge of bait-and-switch merchandizing, what Rumi is really selling is a vision of the relationship of the divine to the human and of a way homeward. Prophets and their deeds thus become metaphorical guideposts and reminders that function somewhat as does Rumi's celebrated reed flute: as a hollow tube capable of hauntingly plaintive song, but only when inspired not with wind but with fire.

One could of course single out dozens of major metaphors and image clusters that Rumi uses to serve his larger religious purposes as viewed from this angle. But Rumi's use of explicitly prophetic imagery, along with his penchant for creating unexpected twists in already familiar tales by overlaying new images on the old, makes that imagery as reliable an index of the poet's thought processes as one can hope for. For sheer frequency of occurrence alone, for example, few classes of image can approach that of prophet metaphors.

In addition, one could read Mawlana's interpretation of prophets and revelation through a number of other filters. A biographical-developmental model, for example, might approach Rumi as a fascinating personality whose own life experiences provide an essential key to his writings. This method might study the imagery chronologically with an eye to possible correspondences between changes in his personal life and variations in his development of prophet imagery. Offering a clue as to what such an approach might turn up, Annemarie Schimmel points out that Joseph's rejection by his envious brothers gave Rumi a way of interpreting both his own relationship to Shams and the bitter jealousy of Rumi's family and friends.¹ One could observe something similar in his views of other prophetic figures as well. Prophets are, from this perspective, in a sense also psychological topoi, and prophetic revelation the larger framework within which Rumi understands all important human relationships.

Another approach might identify Rumi chiefly as a mystical poet, situating his work within the history of Persian mystical literature, or even more broadly, of Islamicate literatures. Such a perspective might highlight the continuity, or lack thereof, in the mystical development of these themes so central to the Islamic tradition as a whole.…

A third point of view might identify Mawlana primarily as a deft wordsmith, a literary artist capable of crafting highly specialized uses of different types of imagery for finely nuanced purposes. Such an approach might investigate comparatively variations in the complexity or density of certain kinds of imagery employed in certain contexts. For example, as Fatemeh Keshavarz suggests, when Rumi is speaking directly and clearly about God's dealings with humankind—especially through the Messengers—he tends to use rather simple metaphors, such as those drawn from nature. One needs little or no technical savvy to appreciate them. When he delves into the vagaries of human interrelationships, by contrast, the poet seems to gravitate to more complex images, such as astrological allusions or references to the intricacies of backgammon. One needs a more specialized and often highly technical knowledge of the conceptual system and its rules to catch the drift of the imagery.²

Finally, from the perspective of the history of religion or, more narrowly, of Sufism, one might characterize Rumi as an important communicator of specific major religious concepts through his prophetology. A prominent example is that of the function of shaykh or spiritual guide. As we have mentioned in several contexts already, Mawlana does not concern himself with expounding the theory and practice of any particular mystical school, and often uses the technical language of Sufism with less than technical precision. Still the poet clearly regards the role of shaykh as at least generically crucial and as an extension of the prophetic function of guidance from darkness into light. To illustrate how one might look at Rumi's prophet imagery through a lens or filter other than that of a prophet's life story, let us conclude with a brief glimpse, first, at how three prophets not previously discussed function as models of the spiritual guide, and second, at how the same lens reframes our picture of Muhammad in Rumi's writings.

Taking his cue from a hadith that likens the shaykh to a prophet among his people (III:4319, 1774), Rumi often uses the authority of such prophets as Adam, Noah, and David to give added substance to the role of the shaykh. Adam models the prophetic struggle to remain in tune with true knowledge, and to impart that knowledge as a shaykh would. He teaches creation the names and "melodies" of God, the inner truth of things. Because that knowledge was infused from creation in all beings and then gradually forgotten, the role of the prophet shaykh is to reactivate humankind's faulty memory. At the moment of Adam's creation, God sowed 'aql into the water and clay. In an allusion to the greater jihad, Rumi says that the angelic 'aql thus paid homage to Adam while the nafs of Iblis refused. Iblis won a temporary victory by blocking Adam's inspiration and insight (wahy and nazar).³

Pure light is the source of Adam's ma'rifa (intimate knowledge); hence his defeat was only temporary. Rumi plays on the irony of Iblis' inability to discern that light even though he was fashioned from fire. Iblis was too impressed by his own form and its apparent superiority to that of Adam. Angelic 'aql discerned in Adam the child of earth illumined like the moon by divine rays, and to its own surprise, acknowledged its debt to dust.⁴ That light then becomes the thread that binds together in timeless succession all the prophets, Muhammad's Companions, and all the subsequent great mystics (II:905-30).

On the other side of the coin, Adam also models the experience of the murid, whom the poet seems to regard as the untutored falcon. Rumi likens Adam's forty-day development to the murid's formation: "It is not surprising that the Sufis made attempts to designate Adam as the first Sufi; for he was forty days 'in seclusion' … before God endowed him with spirit: then God put the lamp of reason in his heart and the light of wisdom on his tongue, and he emerged like an illuminated mystic from the retirement during which he was kneaded by the hands of God."⁵ Adam's forty-tearful years of exile from the garden is likewise compared to the chilla from which the seeker emerges as a fully initiated mystical adept; the safi (pure) is therefore also sufi. Unlike Iblis, who blames God for leading him on, Adam accepts responsibility for his fall and thus models repentance as the first stage on the Path.⁶

Rumi uses the image of taking refuge in Noah's ark as a metaphor for seeking the tutelage of a shaykh. In that context the flood is a metaphor for the greater jihad. Rumi often speaks rather generally in that vein, as in this reference in one of his letters, quoting a hadith: "In the flood of Noah … there was no refuge except to turn to Noah.… And the Messenger said …, 'O Umma, in every age there is a flood and a Noah and a Qutb of that time who is the caliph of the age. The ship of Noah exists in that time and whoever grasps his hem is saved from the flood.'"⁷

Sometimes the poet likens the ark to the intimate knowledge toward which the shaykh assists the seeker: "The tablet of ma 'rifa is the ark of Noah; the storm will drown whoever does not enter his ship."⁸ Though Noah had never read Qushayri's Risala or Makki's Qut al-Qulub, he possessed all the requisite qualifications of a guide and merits a place in the company of such great mystics as Karkhi, Shibli, and Bayazid.⁹ As a type of the mystic, Noah rode heavenward on the Buraq of the Ark (VI:2208). Finally, Rumi makes his most direct and explicit connection with Noah as shaykh. Alluding to a second hadith, in which Muhammad first calls himself the ship in the "flood of time" and then includes his Companions in the image, the poet says, "While you are in the presence of the Shaykh evil is far from you, for night and day you travel in a ship. Life-giving spirit shields you: asleep in the ship, you travel the path."¹⁰

In one of his lengthiest prophet tales, Rumi has David display his divinely inspired justice and skill in arbitration and discernment that make him an outstanding paradigm of the shaykh. The story uses the theme of animal as nafs. A poor man prayed earnestly that God would grant him livelihood without effort. Next day a cow battered down his door and allowed the man to slaughter it. The owner of the cow took the man before David to plead his case. At first the judge sided with the plaintiff. But when the poor man appealed, David reversed his decision after prayerful seclusion, and he ordered the plaintiff to give all his possessions to the defendant.

After this Khizresque action, David revealed to an angry crowd the reason for his decision. He showed the people a tree beneath which the plaintiff had long ago murdered his master. He then ordered the plaintiff executed with the very weapon he had buried beneath that tree. Rumi explains that David is the shaykh whose judgment aids the murid to kill the cow of nafs with the weapon of intellect. He can then render justice upon the nafs (the plaintiff) and secure unearned sustenance for the murid. "With the shaykh to help it, the intellect pursues and defeats the lower self; the nafs is a dragon with immeasurable strength and cunning; the face of the shaykh is the emerald that plucks out its eye."¹¹

Luqman then becomes a model of the murid to David's shaykh. The sage watched David at his blacksmith's furnace making chain mail. Luqman was unacquainted with the armorer's art and wanted very much to ask what David was making, but he refrained, telling himself that patience was better. Asking too many questions merely hampers the shaykh's efficiency. David rewards Luqman's virtue with a fine coat of mail, for patience defends against pain (III:1842-54). Luqman's patience as embodied in an ascetical separation from all attractive morsels (luqma) teaches seekers to seek the hidden game rather than the game that attracts by appearance only.

Finally, Muhammad naturally strikes the poet as the ideal spiritual guide. Rumi's most extended allusion to Muhammad as shaykh occurs in a story of how the Prophet went to visit one of his sick Companions. Rumi leads up to the story with a long series of interwoven frame like tales, each emphasizing the need for the kind of spiritual insight in which only a shaykh can provide instruction: "if you do not want to lose your head, become a foot, under the tutelage of the discerning Qutb" (II:1984).

In the stories that precede the segments on Muhammad's visitation, the underlying pattern is that one character comes to the aid of another in trouble: the man who woke a person into whose mouth a snake had crawled; the man who rescued a bear from the dragon's mouth and did not recognize the bear for what it was—the nafs; and Moses trying to open the people's eyes to the falsehood of the golden calf. In those that come after and/or recur intermittently within the visitation story frame, images of the greater jihad appear and Rumi speaks more explicitly of the role of shaykh and pir, Muhammad as shaykh helps the sick man to realize the cause of his malady, and instructs him in the greater jihad. With imagery that recalls the first two stories—of the serpent swallowed and the dragon swallowing the bear—Rumi takes the metaphors a step further by conjuring up the image of how Moses transformed the snake-become-dragon into a potent rod against Pharaoh the nafs.

Before bringing the story of Muhammad's visitation to a close, the poet introduces several more stories exemplifying the greater jihad. Finally Muhammad discovers that the man has been praying inappropriately, asking God to inflict upon him now the pain of the next life's possible punishment, so as to let him avoid it hereafter. The Prophet, whom Rumi again likens to Moses leading out of the desert of the first stages of spiritual wayfaring, warns him not to be so arrogant as to think he could bear such a thing. He should ask rather for good and ease both here and hereafter. After concluding that frame sequence, Rumi nevertheless continues the jihad theme, returning to feature Muhammad as shaykh battling the nafs symbol called the Mosque of Opposition. The entire complex of stories (II: 1778-3026), in turn, sits between a set of stories of Moses and Jesus as shaykhs and a series, running virtually to the end of the Book, continuing the themes of the role of the shaykh in discernment and spiritual combat.

Various aspects of Muhammad's shaykh-hood emerge from this cycle, especially, but from elsewhere as well. Not only is Muhammad a shaykh, but he is the model for shaykhs. As leader in the greater jihad, Muhammad wields his famous twin-tipped sword, Dhu 'l-Faqar. Rumi uses the sword as metaphor for spiritual maturity: the seeker who submits to spiritual tutelage is transformed from a mere needle into a Dhu 'l-Faqar, thus giving a dervish power to behead his selfhood—Dhu 'l-Faqar, makes the seeker a faqir. Rumi often likens the sword to the staff of Moses.¹² The shaykh who has achieved perfection is born of Mustafa and is like a prophet to his people; and Rumi explicitly calls the model pir a nabi.¹³ …

Notes

1. Annemarie Schimmel, "Yusuf in Mawlana Rumi's Poetry," in Lewisohn, Leonard, ed. The Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism, (London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992), 45-59, esp. 47. See also I am Wind, You are Fire 118-38, and Triumphal Sun 280-89.
2. Thanks to Fatemeh Keshavarz for these suggestions after reading the manuscript of this book.
3. VI:153-54, 3134-40, 3193-99; D [Rumi's Diwan, poem: verse, Furuzanfar's one volume edition.] 2447:2; R [Rumi's Ruba'iyat, quatrain number, Furuzanfar's edition.] 1590; F [Rumi's Fihi Ma Fihi, Arberry/Furuzanfar pages.] 22/10; V:2103ff., 2610.
4. I:1246-47, 1944-5, 2657-63, 3396ff, 3403; II:17-18, 909-10, 1254, 1353-54; III:3198; V:185, 563-64; D 1597:7; 2583:5; 3212:6.
5. MDI [Mystical Dimensions of Islam, A. Schimmel.] 16; see also 419.
6. I:1480-92, 1633-36; II:2507; III:4257; IV:324ff., 363-64, 403-4, 1402, 3413ff; VI:1216; D 280:7; 1203:2; 1905:3; 2041:10; 2608:10/3121:10; F 39/27; 53/41; 113/101; M [Rumi's Maktubat, letter/page number, Jamshidpur edition.] 68/150.
7. M 72/157; IV:3357ff.
8. D 729:3. See also Rumi's prayeRumi 128/243.
9. VI:2652-55; D 879:15.
10. IV:538-41. Additional ark imagery in I:403-4; IV:1414; V:2344; D 148:3; 402:13; 539:10; 541:3; 668:9; 729:3; 876:3; 895:2; 935:6; 1020:2; 1250:5; 1301:5/1302:5; 1343:4; 1369:6; 1674:5; 1840:2; 1889:14; 2017:4; 2090:2; 2391:6; 2646:4; 2684:4; 2747:3; 2830:7; 3090:3; 3351:9; R 159; M 22/74.
11. III: 1450-89, 2306-2569, quoting 2547-48. For literary analysis of the extended tale, see J. R. King, "Narrative Disjunction and Conjunction in Rumi's Mathnawi," Journal of Narrative Technique 19:3 (1989): 276-85.
12. II:2300; IV:3374; V:2506; VI:1522, 2117, 3313; D 57:9; 202:10; 235:3; 588:8; 718:19; 871:1; 985:6; 1095:5; 1126:3; 1747:5; 1859:6; 1985:7; 2032:1; 2503:6/2531.8; 2934:9; 2965:2; 3496:3; M 138/264.
13. I:1950, 1966; II:3101; III:1773-74.