Muslim mystics believe that suffering and isolation can make us better people, says Ameed Safi, professor of Islamic studies at Duke University in America, who specializes in Islamic mysticism and the heritage of the poet Jalaluddin Rumi.

Safi grew up in Iran, has lived in the southern United States for many years, and feels an intellectual closeness to civil rights movement leaders such as Martin Luther King and, in fact, sees some similarities between their views and the mystical views of love and justice.

Safi recently spoke to "The Path to the Future" podcast about mysticism and spiritual aspects of these difficult times, according to a report by the American Fox website.

Radical love

He tackled the mystical traditions of Sufism in "radical love", which involves a mixture of divine love and human love, asking how can it be guided in today's world in light of the Corona pandemic?

He also discussed how to take advantage of suffering or isolation in this period instead of trying to escape from it without success, and attributed to Rumi saying "there is hope after despair, and many suns after darkness."

In the audio dialogue, Safi attempted to do what he called an "intellectual experience" by visualizing the life of Jalaluddin Rumi in America in the shadow of the Corona pandemic, and he said he was absolutely sure that he would have appeared in public places wearing a muzzle, so it is cruel and selfish not to wear a muzzle in public places.

Safi continued, asking whether he was sitting and praying or going to the street, and he answered, "Both together, the life of the body and the life of the soul cannot be separated from each other, because God is the one who seeks to preserve our bodies, our hearts and our souls," and added, "What distinguishes the root path of love away from many Other traditions are the idea that if you claim that you love God, then you must love God’s creation, and you cannot claim that you do not care about the suffering of humanity, but rather other living beings if you claim that you are on this path.

"I think that is what Al-Roumi's message and all of these mystics will be like today: realizing the suffering and standing with those who suffer, and the weak," added Safi.

Love and justice

Safi considered that humans currently do not lack the resources and experience to face the pandemic, but love and care, stressing that individuality is a big problem.

He considers that the Americans were not perfect when they committed genocide against the natives and also during the years of slavery across the Atlantic, but "we can become a little more perfect today than we were yesterday" as he put it.

This is through "the administration of justice", and justice is never individual. Justice is social and in society, says Safi, who discusses a mystical idea of ​​love not as emotion and feelings, but rather a wave that flows through man and from hearts into public squares and becomes a real justice achieved.

Safi quotes what Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King, African American activist Ella Baker and members of the Nonviolent Coordination Committee in the Civil Rights Era have said in the United States; They considered that "what we mean by justice in public squares is love."

As a Muslim, Sophie says, he loves to listen to Martin Luther King when he talks about "suffering and redemption" and it is similar to the statements of Jalaluddin Rumi, stressing that much of the cruelty occurs due to idol worship and ego.

"Many of us believe that we are ending at the edge of our fingertips. But you are a fluid object. Your soul is expanding and already merging with others. The same limited ego has a tendency to believe that it is the master of the universe, and it is able to determine its fate, and much of the pain we face is the realization that our ability is limited , And that we were not able to prevent pain for ourselves or for the people we love. "

Safi considers that the key to the heart is its feeling of suffering as if it were its own suffering that resonated within it.

Safi said in the dialogue that the prophets and Sufis practiced being alone or going to a cave or a mountain peak, but this was not always the goal. The aim was to bring the fruits of isolation to society, which is the opportunity currently available in light of the quarantine associated with the Corona pandemic, and he adds, "I hope that it will allow us This unplanned downturn is an opportunity to examine our private lives, think about what we were prioritizing, and what was feeding our hearts. You know, many of us are connected to telephones. We really start to panic when the battery runs out and we start to look around us: Where is my charger? ”.

"Okay, what if your heart is running out of battery? Do we know where to go for recharging? This will look different for every person. It might look like reading turkey poetry. Listening to a wonderful podcast, parks, going for a walk in the mountains. Supplication and prayer. Yoga I don't particularly care about that practice that renews your soul, but I think it is important to ask ourselves: Do we know what it is? Do we know how to define it? Do we know how to get back to it repeatedly until it becomes practice?

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- omid safi (@ostadjaan) April 15, 2020

Rumi's legacy

The legacy of Jalaluddin Rumi is receiving great attention in the United States and is received with great enthusiasm, and Rumi left several books between a system and a mantoor in which he addressed many mystical, philosophical and literary issues; Among its systems are the "Diwan Shams al-Din Tabrizi", which contains a thousand homes in which he recorded his memories with his ether teacher, he has a Tabrizi, and the "quartets" numbering 1959 quadruple, and the "Al-Mathnawi" (known as "Matnawi Maulawi"), which includes about 26 thousand verses A Persian, showing his mystical intellectual character.

It took 7 years for this "Al-Matnawi" composition, which is described as a repertoire of the world literary heritage, to which many explanations were given in Persian, Turkish and Arabic, and it was translated entirely or partially into a number of European languages.

Among his published books is a book "There is nothing in it" that includes lessons he gave in his scientific councils, answers to questions directed to him on various occasions, "my letters", meaning his letters to his acquaintances and disciples, and "councils of seven", a group of sermons.

Jalaluddin Rumi died in Konya on 5 Jumada al-Akherah in the year 672 AH corresponding to December 17, 1273, as a result of a fever that he sustained.