Abstract
Rumi’s wine and intoxication metaphors
Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, the 13th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic who has been referred to as the Shakespeare of the Middle Eastern world, and is regarded as one of the greatest mystical poets of all times, has achieved immense popularity in the West since the end of the 20th century.
In order to give readers an insight into the doctrines and cultural background of Rumi’s poetry, Sufism is firstly briefly looked at including definitions and descriptions by a few Sufi scholars. In brief, Sufism can be regarded as the mystical branch of Islam. The Sufi liturgies dhikr and samā’ as well as Sufi orders are discussed and explicated. The famous Mevlevi Order, also known as the Whirling Dervishes, which incorporated music and dance into their samā’, was established by Rumi’s followers after his death.
Rumi’s biographical details are outlined next. He was born on 30 September 1207 to native Persian-speaking parents in the city of Balkh, which is now part of Afghanistan. In 1219, when Genghis Khan started expanding his empire westwards, Rumi’s father, Bahā al-Dīn Walād, fled from Balkh and the family eventually settled in Konya, in current Turkey. When Bahā al-Dīn Walād who taught at the local madrasa died in 1231, Rumi succeeded him. Having received brilliant education from his father, Rumi furthered his studies in the important learning centres of Aleppo and Damascus, after which Burhān ud-Dīn, a former student of Bahā al-Dīn Walād, continued training Rumi in Sufism.
A significant meeting in 1244 with a wandering Sufi dervish, Shams-i-Tabrīzī, completely transformed Rumi’s life, resulting in an intense and passionate spiritual friendship, and awakened a profound mystical love in Rumi. Beyond the safe, dry forms of obedience and self-sacrifice, Rumi discovered that there was a meta-spirituality of love entailing a joyful relationship with God and an ecstatic celebration of the mysteries of divine love. After Shams mysteriously left Konya, Rumi went into deep despair, but continued to spend his life radiating divine love, training his disciples and writingthousands of ecstatic love poems for God.
Rumi’s work and its reception is then discussed. He was an extremely productive writer, having written more than 60 000 lines of poetry. Lewisohn (2014:35) regards Rumi as the top Persian poet in terms of the amount as well as quality of lyrics on ecstasy, intoxication, and bacchanal joy, and believes that this is possibly the reason the lyrical poetry of his Dīwānī was described as “the apogee of bacchanalian mysticism in the Persian language”. Lewisohn (2014:35) adds that “Rumi’s Mathnawī and the Dīvān-i Shams are full of allusions to ecstasy, selfless transports, stunned silences, and drunken raptures”. Aflākī, a late 13th century writer who lived in Konya, relates that Rumi often composed and recited verses during the samā’ gatherings (Aflākī, as quoted in Gamard 2020:112). These verses are still used today as part of the traditional repertoire of the samā’ (Lewisohn 2014:36).
Abou-Bakr (1994:38) points out that one of the essential characteristics of mysticism is the state of intoxication, in which a mystic experiences the suspension of ordinary, day-to-day consciousness, the normal rational consciousness, for another mode of perception and being. To express and evoke divine intoxication and ecstasy, Rumi made use of three kinds of metaphors: language relating to eroticism, wine and intoxication, and dance and music. The focus of this article is on Rumi’s wine and intoxication imagery.
Mysticism is known to be ineffable, and Reitan (2009:148) maintains that mystical discourse can – only inadequately – be brought about by metaphors and analogies.
Chittick (2008:41) points out that Sufi writers generally make use of poetry to express the divine. Poetry, often recited, has always been popular in the Islamic society amongst the literate as well as the illiterate. Mohamed Ghilan (2014:1), an Islam scholar, remarks: “As many Sufi poets and saints have warned, their poetry begins at the metaphoric level to indicate literal meanings other than what first comes to mind, all of which revolve around the Divine.” Rumi was basically a man of images, and his thinking was essentially through imagery which is manifested in his strongly metaphorical poetry.
The history of the relationship between wine/intoxication and mystical ecstasy can be traced to pre-Christian times, having its origin with Philo of Alexandria according to Minnaar (2000:141). Wine as a central element in religious rituals is discussed. The word ’ishq that Rumi uses for love, is synonymous with noetic knowledge or gnosis (ma‘rifa) and for Rumi it was related to the intuitive which is immediately, primarily, and inevitably removed from the sphere of intellect and speech. ’Ishq is derived from ’ashaqah, a type of vine, which, when it spirals around a tree, causes the tree to wither and die. Spiritually, the root of the self, the ego, is smothered by spiritual love.
Chittick discusses wine imagery within the context of Sufism and refers to the well-known hadīth qudsī (holy tradition) which is the key to understanding God’s intention with creation: “I was a hidden treasure; I wished to be known (or, to know) and I created the world” (Schimmel 1975:189). Based on this hadīth which Rumi often quoted, Chittick (1981:193) explains that the world is the locus of manifestation for God’s reality. Sufis regard all things in this world as loci of theophany for the divine, therefore each thing, for example wine, refers ontologically to the mystical as well as the secular. An inner meaning is seen in the outer form.
By emphasizing the relation between wine/intoxication and love in Sufi poetry, the 15th century Persian Sufi poet Jāmī offers a deep perspective on the poetic function of metaphoric imagery in Sufi poetry. He maintains that poets use words from daily life, like earthly wine, as metaphors because it simulates an imaginary experience of what they want to convey to their readers. Jāmī speaks of “meanings in the clothing of forms” (DuBois 2022:193).
According to Keshvarz (1998:9) Sufi poetry should be seen in the active and interactive performing posture that it has long displayed. Poetry is an active part of the experience, the incomprehensible rendered comprehensible through poetic transformation. In this respect, poetry with all its elements is not the key to a mystical truth, it is the mystical truth in the guise of a linguistic message. The effect of this new approach is to foreground the poetry and not the hidden message.
In the Quranic universe, wine stands apart from other created things: forbidden by the sharīʿa, yet held aloft by the Quran as an image of paradise. DuBois (2022:200) explains that wine has a special ontological significance in its ability to point to what is beyond it and to guide human beings from the World of Form to the World of Meaning, but God must reveal the pointing. So even though Jāmī says “metaphor is the bridge to reality”, he suggests that it is God alone who allows the crossing. The description of wine, Jāmī says, is understood only by the Folk of Tasting who have been given leave to enter the tavern. They are the seals of the jugs and the inheritors of the treasure; they dwell in privacy in the world of meaning and speak a language that glitters with the “jewels of spiritual knowledge” (DuBois 2022:200).
Rumi makes use of wine and related metaphors to create and reinforce the idea of divine intoxication/ecstasy. Baldock’s (2016:77–8) explanations of the following metaphors that Rumi uses, are discussed: wine-seller, cup-bearer, drunkard, drunkenness/intoxication, tavern. Other metaphors to express divine ecstasy, are “wine of Alast” and the “winehouse of Alast” which refer to the Sufi covenant of Alast. This primordial covenant refers to the Quran (2001 7:172): “And (remember) when the Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify.” The word alast means “am I not”. The notion of spiritual intoxication is associated with the covenant of Alast. In the words of Öke (2017:113): the beloved servants of God reel in their cups with the love of the divine and the ecstasy of the compassionate; they immediately lose themselves in the great intoxicant. That intoxication stays with them as they are sent into this world, to their homes in new lands. Under the same influence they return to God or are made to return to Him.
Lastly, selected poems expressing divine intoxication by means of wine-related metaphors are analysed and discussed to demonstrate that in Rumi’s work these metaphors convey an inner meaning and do not indicate earthly drunkenness.
Keywords: divine ecstasy; metaphors; mysticism; poetry; Rumi
- This article’s featured image was created by cottonbro studio and obtained from Pexels.