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2008 37: 3Studies in Religion/Sciences ReligieusesMohammed Rustom

The metaphysics of the heart in the Sufi doctrine of Rumi

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© 2008 Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion / Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses

The metaphysics of the heartin the Sufi doctrine of Rumi

MOHAMMED RUSTOM

Mohammed Rustom is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern

Civilizations, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1C1; e-mail: m.rustom@utoronto.ca. Theauthor wishes to express his thanks to Maria Subtelny for introducing him to Rumi’s Masnaviand for her helpful comments on the first draft of this paper. The author also thanks BobbyBakhtiarynia, Atif Khalil and SR’s anonymous reviewers for their critical feedback on its sub-

sequent drafts.

Summary: In the Masnavi-yi Ma’navi (The Couplets of Esoteric Meaning)written by the famous Muslim mystical poet, Jalal al-Din Rumi

(d. 1273 C.E.), countless metaphysical teachings are interwoven into thefabric of the text. It is, as one author has called it, "an ocean of gnosis"(Nasr 1993: 183). For this short paper I have dipped into this "ocean of

gnosis" and resurfaced with several of the most important passages inwhich Rumi lays out his metaphysical teachings concerning the "heart"

(lubb, fu’ad, qalb and sirr in Arabic; dil in Persian), which is a key conceptin Sufi literature. For the Sufis it is not the eye but the heart that "per-ceives." In what follows I will first delineate some of Rumi’s core teach-

ings on the heart. I will then turn my attention to what he has to say aboutthe heart as a means to seeing the Divine, for both human beings andGod Himself.

Résumé: Dans le Masnavi-yi Ma’navi (Les Couplets de Sens Esotérique),composé par le fameux poète mystique musulman Jalal al-Din Rumi

(mort en 1273 après j.-C.), un nombre incalculable d’enseignementsmétaphysiques sont tissés dans la trame du texte. Un auteur a ainsi qua-lifié l’ouvrage d’ « océan de gnose» (Nasr 1993: 183). Dans ce court

essai, j’ai plongé dans cet « océan de gnose » pour refaire surface avec

quelques-uns des passages les plus importants dans lesquels Rumi exposeses enseignements métaphysiques relatifs au « coeur » (lubb, fu’ad, qalb,et sirr, en arabe; dil en persan), un concept clé de la littérature soufie.

Pour les Soufis, ce n’est pas l’oeil, mais le coeur qui «perçoit ». Dans letexte qui suit, je retracerai d’abord quelques-uns des enseignementsfondamentaux de Rumi sur le coeur. Je porterai ensuite mon attentionsur ce qu’il a à dire en ce qui concerne le cœur en tant que moyen de

voir le Divin, à la fois pour les êtres humains et pour Dieu Lui-même.

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the carpet of good fortune, but also the Carpet-spreader. (Cited in Chittick 1983: 38)

Elsewhere in the Masnavi Rumi says that a purified heart is higher than theheavens because it has become cleansed of the impurities that taint it. A

purified heart is no longer of this world since it has transcended the

ephemeral, phenomenal order. It now has a direct relationship with theunseen:

That heart has become pure and is cleansed of clay. ’

It has attained greatness and become complete. °

It has cast the day aside and come towards the Sea. -

Free from the prison of day, it has become of the Sea. (Rumi: 3: 2249-50)

The purified heart may reflect the things in the phenomenal world in theirtrue form, since the heart itself stands between .the seen and the unseen.

Because the heart is connected to both the spiritual and physical worlds, it

portrays images from the phenomenal world’s true origin, which is whyimages such as paintings, to use an example Rumi himself gives in the Mas-navi, when reflected in the mirror of the heart, are more perfect and beau-tiful than the paintings actually found in the phenomenal world.4 The mir-ror of the heart acts as a type of isthmus between the phenomenal andnoumenal worlds for it can capture the materiality of the phenomenal worldbut also retain something of the unseen element by its very nature, hence pro-ducing an imaginals form of the images in the phenomenal world them-selves. The mirror of the heart, when purified, acts as a type of intermediarywhich reflects the beauty of the unseen onto phenomenal existence, andfrom this perspective is responsible for distributing God’s blessings to the cos-mos:

The heart encompasses this realm of existence ’

And continuously spreads gold out of beneficence and kindness

Amongst the people of the world it freely distributes that peace that comes from God’s ’

peace. (Rumi: 2:2272-73)

The heart of the complete human

It is with the above considerations in mind that the Sufis who devoted their

attention to explaining the cusmological structure of’ the universe could saythat it is the heart of one special individual that is solely responsible for sus-

taining the universe. This person’s heart reflects the divine treasures to thecosmos, thus keeping it in order by distributing God’s divine names. But the

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heart of such a person may not only reflect the beauty of the unseen to theseen world or even be responsible for sustaining the cosmos; it can alsoreflect the unseen to Itself. One should not, however, be mistaken into think-

ing that this heart is somehow accessible to just anyone. In fact, it is poten-tially accessible to everyone, since everyone has a heart, but very few peoplewill perfect their hearts. To whom does this heart belong?6 It is the one whohas utterly died to the self. According to a sacred Muslim tradition, God says,&dquo;The heavens and the earth cannot contain Me, but the heart of My believ-

ing servant does contain Me&dquo; (cited in Burckhardt 1968: 115). In other words,it is that heart which is &dquo;empty&dquo; which can contain God, for only belief in God’sutter Oneness (and one’s own nonexistence) can render one a true &dquo;believ-

ing servant.&dquo; It is through this heart that God manifests Himself to Himself,so that God may contemplate Himself in His multiple manifestations. Thus,the heart acts as a type of receptacle in which God sees the manifest form ofHis Essence. This heart belongs to an individual known in Sufi metaphysicsas &dquo;the complete human&dquo; (al-insan al-karrcil); that is, one who reflects thedivine names in their totality.7 The prototype of the complete human is noneother than the Prophet Muhammad. It is through the Prophet’s grace, theMuhammadan barakah, that every other complete human may come to existin this world. Along with the assistance that accompanies the Muhammadan

grace, the complete human’s mirror of the heart also becomes polishedbecause of his/her purifying his/her lower self from base human qualitiessuch as envy, pride and hatred for other sentient beings, and through par-taking in spiritual discipline, such as meditation, reciting the Qur’an, fastingand performing the canonical and supererogatory prayers. Once purified inits totality, the heart of the complete human becomes a polished mirror thatreflects the form of God, and hence the cosmos can be said to be nothing butthe form of the form of God.

If the heart of the complete human can display God in His manifest

aspect, it must display that aspect of His manifestness that is also formless. Aheart that cannot reflect both God’s form and His formless form is not a

purified heart. Hence, for Rumi, the heart of the complete human is bound-less or non-delimited, and is capable of reflecting God’s limitless form. Fromthis perspective, there can be no distinction between the heart and God:

Here the intellect becomes silent, otherwise it will lead you astraybecause the heart is with Him, or, it is He. (Rumi: 1:3489)

But this is not an essential identification. Rather, the heart of the completehuman can be said to be God qua His self-disclosures or the outward aspectof His Essence.8 To employ the dichotomy articulated by Rumi’s older con-

temporary, the famous Andalusian Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi (d.1240 C.E.), the heart mayreflect the divine name Allah (God) but not the name al-Ahad (the One),which denotes the ~divine Essence in its absolute, undifferentiated aspect,whereas the name Allah denotes the divine Essence in terms of Its manifes-

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7-- .......-- ----

-----~-- -- ---------- ---- ---,, ---- ----- - -- -, --- - ,---,-, ----- --,--,

which is why Rumi refers to the heart of the complete human as God. But fromthe perspective of the divine Essence’s hiddenness, the heart of the com-

plete human is created. God says in a well-known Muslim sacred tradition,

&dquo;y,;~£~ j -,--,,-- ..J T L..J. 1 1 i--- ,.... T . 1 -- L .1.

God’s formless form is if it is He, since if the heart is other than Him, itwould also be a form, which in turn would not be able to reflect God in His

formlessness. A heart that is other than He, that is, an unpolished heart, canreflect God only imaginally, not as He is in Himself. But a polished heart, whenall traces of the dross of duality disappear, reflects God as He is to Himself,since He looks at Himself through the polished mirror and only sees Him-self (Corbin 1997: 221). It is worth noting here that when one looks into a mir-ror the observer is unconscious of the surface of the mirror itself, and can

only behold his/her own image, which is not actually &dquo;real.&dquo; In a sense, the

image reflected in the mirror is real because it accurately reflects the quali-ties of the object placed before the mirror. But the object is not &dquo;real&dquo; becauseit is not actually &dquo;there.&dquo; The reflected image in the mirror is the form or imageof the object placed before the mirror. It is a form insofar as it accuratelyreflects the object placed before the mirror, but it is a formless form and

consequently unreal, insofar as it merely &dquo;reproduces&dquo; the image of the

object. It is with this same idea in mind that we are able to understand howGod can look upon the purified mirror of the heart and only see Himself.The mirror of the heart therefore can reflect God’s formless form to Him-

self. The phenomenal universe, on the other hand, may not contain God’sformless form precisely because the things in phenomenal existence arethemselves possessed of forms. The heart of the complete human, however,does not have a form like the things in phenomenal existence, which is whyit can reflect that which is formless, which is the image of God Himself. Ofcourse, when we speak of God’s image, a form is immediately implied, butfor the Sufis God’s image, like the image of a reflected object in a mirror, isto be understood as a form without a form, or that which can be contained

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very beginning of their prayers and will therefore be able to attach theirhearts to their Object of worship, that is, the formless form of God. Just asone must first die in order to be resurrected, so too must one die to the selfin order to be resurrected before God. In the ritual prayer, people standbefore God as they will on the Last Day, and so long as they have died tothemselves, they will achieve the goal of the prayer, which is a direct encounterwith the Divine. But this encounter with the Divine is nothing other than theDivine’s encounter with Himself.

Only if the self is negated can the vision of God come about, for then theSufi becomes an empty vessel through which God may disclose Himself toHimself. When the servant beseeches God from the depths of his/her soul,what he/she does not realize is that it is not he/she who is calling out toGod. Rather, it is God who is calling out to Himself. In other words, Godsupplicates to Himself through the servant’s heart. Rumi reminds us thatour supplications are only lent to us by God (Rumi: 3:2125). In every prayerGod is at once the seeker and the sought:

Supplication is self-less. That &dquo;self&dquo; is another.

Supplication is not from the servant. It is God’s speech.The Real supplicates when the servant passes away from selfBoth supplication and answer are from God. (Rumi: 3:2219-21) 14

This statement made by Rumi is a general remark which applies to all prayersand to all types of individuals. Regardless of who is supplicating God, in thevery act of prayer, be it a saint or a sinner, it is God who turns to Himself. Itis God who prays to Himself in every prayer since every servant who prays to

Him becomes negated. But it is to the degree that the servant becomes absentto his/herself, to the degree that his/her heart becomes purified from therust of otherness, that God will be able to see Himself. And it is to the degreethat God sees Himself and thus prays to Himself, that the servant will havevision of Him and pray to Him in his/her sacred Centre, which is the heart.

Notes .

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to avoid the conceptual ambiguities that could arise when pronouns referring to theDivine are not capitalized.

The literature on Rumi in Persian, Turkish, English, French and German is vast. I listhere the most important works in the field. On the life, teachings and influence of Rumi,see Banani et al. 1994; Chittick 1983; 1994b; and 2005; the articles devoted to Rumi in

Chelkowski 1975; Furuzanfar 1954; Gölpmarh 1952; Keshavarz 1998; Nasr 1987: chapters7 and 8; Meyerovitch 1972; Renard 1994; Schimmel 1975: 309-28; Schimmel 1993. The most

thoroughly documented study of Rumi’s life, work and influence up to present times isLewis 2000. For Rumi’s hagiographic image and the intimate way in which it conveyed his

spiritual teachings and personal sanctity to those generations immediately following him,see Safi 2008 (forthcoming). For Shams-i Tabrizi’s relationship with Rumi, see Tabrizi2005 (a translation of nearly two thirds of Shams’ autobiography) and Safi 2008 (forthcom-

ing). A useful index of Qur’anic references in the Diwan and Masnavi is to be found in Ha’iri

1328 (solar). Although there are a number of well-intended poetic renditions of Rumi’sworks available in English, they often do a great injustice to his teachings for the simplereason that, as Schimmel (1993: xiv) notes, their "enthusiasm is unfortunately not matched

by an equally good knowledge of the Persian language and Islamic culture." I list here someof the better translations of Rumi’s works in English by specialists in Islamic studies. Forthe first and perhaps still most authoritative Persian edition of Rumi’s Masnavi, alongwith an accompanying English translation of the entire work and a handy commentary,see Rumi 1924-1940. Chittick 1983 contains excellent translations from all of Rumi’s

works (particularly the Diwan and the Masnavi). Translations of select tales from the Mas-

navi can be found in Rumi 1965 and 1966. A versified translation of book one of the Mas-

navi is available in Rumi 2004. Rumi 1994 is a complete translation of the Fihi ma fihi, acollection of Rumi’s prosaic spiritual counsels.

2 The words ruh in Arabic and jan in Persian denote the "spirit," whereas the words ’aql inArabic and khirad in Persian denote the "intellect." Unless otherwise stated, all translations

are my own. References to Rumi’s Masnavi will be cited by book number and line num-

ber(s).3 For al-Ghazali’s discussion on the heart see Gianotti 2001: chap. 4 and 5; and Ghazali

2008 (forthcoming). The translated treatise (attributed to the very important early Sufi

figure, al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi) in Heer and Honerkamp 2003 finely analyzes the psycho-logical aspects of the Sufi concept of the heart. For the various ways in which the heart is

depicted in the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions in general, and in Ibn ’Arabi’s teach-

ings in particular, see Morris 2005. A good summary of Sufi teachings on the heart inFrench and German can be found in Meyerovitch 1972: chap. 3; and Jassemi 2003: chap.3 respectively. Some of the best discussions of the metaphysical significance of the heartin Sufi doctrine can be found in Corbin 1997: chap. 4; Lings 1975: chap. 5; Murata 1992:

chap. 10; Nasr 2001; Sells 1994: chap. 3 and 4; and Shah-Kazemi 2006: 116-18. One ofthe earliest treatments in Sufi Qur’anic exegesis of the esoteric function of the heart ofthe Prophet Muhammad (qalb Muhammad) can be found in Böwering 1979: 157-65. Foran exposition of the mystical concept of the eye of the heart (’ayn al-qalb in Arabic, chism-i dil in Persian) see Schuon 1994: 13-26.

4 Rumi makes this point in his tale of the contest between the Chinese and Greek painters,which is to be found at 1:3467-99 of the Masnavi. He makes a similar point in the storyof the Sufi in the garden at Masnavi: 4: 1358-72. A Sufi was in deep meditation in a gar-den when somebody reproached him for not paying attention to the beautiful signs of God’s

blessings in the garden. The Sufi then retorted that what this person was referring to asGod’s signs were in fact the "traces of the traces" of God’s signs. In other words, this Sufi

was in a state of contemplation in which he was in direct contact with the traces of the divine

self-disclosures, the locus of which was his heart. On the other hand, his heart acted as a

receptacle, displaying the traces of the divine imprints upon his heart onto the phenom-enal world.

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5 The term "imaginal" in the context of Sufism should by no means be understood as "imag-inary." Terms such as "imaginal" or "imagination" are direct translations of the Arabic

khayal, which denotes the "intermediary" nature of a thing’s existence between the mate-rial and spiritual worlds. A good example of something imaginal but not imaginary is adream: it conveys something to us of the reality with which we are familiar since the

objects which appear to us in our dreams often correspond to the concrete forms with whichwe are familiar in this world; but our dreams are also somehow tied to the unseen or spir-itual world since the objects we perceive in them are equally incorporeal and "spiritual-ized." A dream rests, therefore, somewhere between the material world and the spiritualworld. Because the objects in dreams are both materialized and spiritualized, their statusis ambiguous: they do not belong entirely to the unseen, nor do they belong entirely tothe seen. They lie somewhere in between. See Chittick 1988: 53-58; Chittick 1989: 14-16;Corbin 1997: 179-83, 216-20; Corbin 1977: vii-xvi, 86-90; and Lory 2003: 302.

6 See Masnavi: 3:2270 for a similar question posed by Rumi.7 The word insan in Arabic is not gendered. Therefore, the complete human can be either

a man or a woman. See Chodkiewicz 1994.

8 Corbin 1997: 221 notes that God reveals Himself to the heart of the mystic in His mani-fest aspect and "... not as He inwardly knows Himself."

9 I will occasionally explain Rumi’s discussions on the heart with reference to the formula-tions of theoretical Sufism, particularly as found in the work of Ibn ’Arabi. It would indeedbe quite difficult to explain Rumi’s theosophical teachings without recourse to the expo-sitions of theoretical Sufism (of which Ibn ’Arabi is the foremost representative). It is forthis reason that generations of commentators on Rumi’s Masnavi have also taken recourseto the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi to explain the metaphysical implications of his poetry. Inso-far as both Rumi and Ibn ’Arabi were writing from the standpoint of the Oneness of Being(wahdat al-wujud), their Sufi doctrines do indeed complement one another. The differ-ences in the way they articulated their experience of the Oneness of Being has, morethan anything else, to do with their own temperaments, spiritual dispositions, intellectual

makeup, language and medium of communication. However, Chittick (2005: xiii) rightlynotes that reading Rumi through the lenses of Ibn ’Arabi "... is not completely fair to his[Rumi’s] perspective, though it is certainly preferable to methodologies not rooted inthe tradition." On the question of Rumi’s being "influenced" by Ibn Arabi see Chittick 1994aand 1994b; Safi 1999. For a good comparative overview of the views of Rumi and Ibn’Arabi on the heart and the intellect, see Pittman 2002.

10 On Ibn ’Arabi’s "He/not He" distinction, see Chittick 1989: 90-96 and 113-15.11 Literally translated, these lines would run as follows: "From the mirror of [his] heart, that

Moses contains within the bosom ...." But such a literal translation may lead one to pre-sume that the "heart" and "bosom" are two different things, which is certainly not thecase. Chittick 1983: 38 renders these verses as follows: "The Moses-like saint possess within

his breast, in his heart’s mirror...." R.A. Nicholson (Rumi: 2:189), on the other hand,translates the passage rather questionably as "That Moses (the perfect saint) holds in hisbosom the formless infinite form of the Unseen (reflected) from the mirror of his heart."The words "Moses" and "bosom" are an allusion to the Qur’an 27:12 and 28:32.

12 This line literally reads, "... nor in the heavens or on the fish." The "fish" referred to hereis the creature that, according to medieval lore, upholds the cow which itself upholds theearth. See Schimmel 1993: 71. For the cosmological significance of the symbol of the fishin various traditional civilizations, see Guénon 1995: 105-9.

13 For Rumi’s use of this tradition in his works see Schimmel 1993: 225; and Chittick 1983:

48-49, 56, 71 , 99, 137 and 149.14 Similar passages in the Masnavi are to be found in Schimmel 1993: 352, 354, 363-65.

Schimmel (1993: 353) briefly documents the interesting way in which Rumi’s verses aboutGod’s self-veneration were received by nineteenth and twentieth century Orientalists. ForRumi’s exposition of how it is that our prayers actually "belong" to God, see Thackston (1999:71-72).

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