800th Anniversary of the birth of Mawlana Jalalud – Din Balkhi

“Go on a journey from self to self, my friend…
Such a journey transforms the earth into a mine of gold.” (Mathnawi)

Mawlana Jalal-ud-Din Mohammad Balkhi-Rumi

Mawlana Jalal-ud-Dine Balkhi-Rumi is one of the greatest spiritual masters and mystic poets of Islamic civilization. In Afghanistan, he is known as ‘Mawlana’, in Iran as ‘Mawlawi’ and in Turkey, he is known as ‘Mevlana’. To honour the greatness of Mawlana, his work, vision and philosophy that are in conformity with the objectives and mission of UNESCO “constructing in the minds of men the defences of peace”, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will be associated with the celebration of Mawlana’s eight hundred years of birth in 2007, as proposed by the Permanent Delegations of Afghanistan, Egypt and Turkey and approved by the Executive Board and the General Conference of UNESCO.

The Afghan Ministry of Culture & Youth has recently established a national committee to organize an international seminar to celebrate the birth and life of the great ethical philosopher and world’s renowned poet.This grand gathering of the world’s intellectuals, diplomats and followers of Maulana will be held in Kabul and possibly in Balkh (the birth place of Mawlana Jalalud-Din Balkhi).

Further information and a formal invitation will be sent to the relevant organizations and individuals concerned in due course.

Mawlana's Biography:

Jalal-ud-Din Mohammad was born in Balkh, Afghanistan, on the 6th day of the Islamic lunar month ‘Rabi al Awwal’ in the lunar year of 604AH, which corresponds to September 30, 1207, to a family of well known mystics and scholars. The invading Mongol army destroyed Balkh in 1221.

Since Mawlana was born in Balkh and lived in Balkh for a period of time before his father set out westward with his whole family, it gives a clear justification to view him as a ‘Balkhi’, as did Professor R.A. Nicholson on the title pages of the first volume of his work in 1925 (of the Persian text) that was followed by his complete English translation of The Mathnawi: “Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad bin Muhammad bin al-Husayn al-Balkhi, thumma (then called) al- Rumi. The word of Balkhi is recorded on the tombstone of Mawlana’s father in Konia.

When the Mongols invaded Central Asia, his father, Baha-ud-Din Walad, a famous preacher and jurist, known as Sultan-al-Ulama “the Sultan of Islamic scholars”, left Balkh, with the whole family for Baghdad and Mecca that eventually took him to Anatolia. On the way to Anatolia, Mawlana met one of the most famous mystic Persian poets, Attar, in the city of Nishapur. Attar immediately recognized Balkhi-Rumi’s spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said “Hear comes a sea followed by an ocean.” He gave the boy his Asrarnama, a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on Mawlana’s thoughts, which later inspired him in his work.

From Nishapur, Walad and his entourage set out for Baghdad, meeting many scholars and Sufis there. From Baghdad, they went to Hejaz and performed the pilgrimage at Mecca. It was after this journey that most likely, as a result of an invitation of Allah-ud-Din Kai Qubad, ruler of Anatolia, that Baha-ud-Din Walad settled in Konya, Anatolia, the westernmost territories of Seljuk Empire.

When Bhaha-ud-Din Walad died Mawlana succeeded the father at the age of twenty-five. One of his father’s students, Syed Burhan-ud-Din Mahaqqiq, continued to train Mawlana in the religious and mystical teachings of Balkhi-Rumi’s father. For a number of years, Mawlana practiced Sufism as a disciple of Burhan-ud-Din until the latter died in 1240. It was during this period that Mawlana traveled to Damascus and said to have spent four years there.

Mawlana’s first teacher was his father, but he was greatly impressed by dervish Shams Tabrizi. It was his meeting with Shams Tabrizi in the late fall of 1244 that changed his life completely. On the night of December 5th, 1248, when Mawlana and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again.

Mawlana’s love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in an outpouring of music, dance and lyric poems, Divani Shamsi Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:

Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me
I have been looking for myself!

After meeting Shams, Mawlana had been spontaneously composing Ghazals that had been collected in the Divani-i-Kbir. Mawlana found another companion in Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith. After Saladin death, Mawlana’s scribe and favorite student, Husam Chelebi assumed the role. One day, when Husam and Mawlana were wandering through the vineyards outside Konya, Hasum described his idea to Mawlana and said “If you were to write a book like the Ilahinama of Snnai or Mantik’ut-Tayr’i of Attar, it would become the companion of many poets. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it.”Mawlana Balkhi-Rumi smiled and took out a peace of paper on which were already written the opening eighteen lines of his Mathnwi, beginning with:

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
How it sings, complains of separation?

Mawlana spent twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Mathnawi to Husam. In December 1273, Mawlana fell ill and died on December 17, 1273 in Konia. Mawlana Balkhi-Rumi was laid to rest beside his father in a splendid shrine, the Yesil Turbe “green Tomb”, located in the garden offered to his father by the Seljuk King Kai-Qubad I. Over his tomb, his epitaph reads:

“When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men”

Mawlana left behind as the record of his extraordinarily intense and rich intellectual, moral and spiritual life, lived on the grandest height spirit, love and humanism, the Mathnawi, a mystical epic; 3,500odes; 2000 quatrains; a book of table talk; and a large volume of letters. The Mevlevi order that he founded and that his son, Sultan Walad continued spread his vision and mystical and moral teachings all over Asia and Africa and now has centers all over the world.

The Mathnawi is Mawlana’s greatest poetic work, composed during the last years of his life. It is a compendium of ethical and social precepts as well as mystical teachings. It is deeply permeated with Qur’anic meanings and references. Mawlana himself called it” the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion….and the explainer of the Qur’an.” It is divided into six books, and Mawlana wrote in prose prefaces for each book. Scribes completed the earliest complete manuscript the “Konia manuscript” in December 1278, five years after Mawlana’s death.

There are also several prose works by Mawlana: 145 of his letters, “Maktubat”, the Seven Sermons, “Majalis-e-Sa’ah”, and 71 of his spiritual lectures or “Discourses” (Fihi Ma Fihi).

According to Andrew Harvey “Mawlana’s work in its passion, honesty, and gorgeous imagery has become a way of connecting directly with the Divine beyond the constrictions of religion or dogma. Mawlana now commands in the West what he had long commanded in the East-an unassailable position as the most poignant and vibrant of all celebrators of the Path of Love and as a supreme witness, in a way that transcends all national, cultural and religious boundaries, to the mysteries of Divine Identity and Presence.”

The world of Mawlana is not exclusive; it is the highest state of a human being a fully evolved human. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. A perfect human being who touches every one of us. For the Islamic readers, Mawlana remains an important commentator on the Qur’an and a brilliant exponent of Sufi philosophy, the strain of Islam that stresses direct and ecstatic communion with Allah. Mawlana, who was strictly educated in religious law and philosophy, is viewed in the Islamic world as a spiritual descendant of two other great Sufi writers, Sanai of Ghazna and Attar.

Andrew Harvey says, “ Mawlana combined the intellect of a Plato, the vision and enlightened soul-force of a Christ, and the extravagant literary gifts of a Shakespeare. This unique fusion of the highest philosophical lucidity with the greatest possible spiritual awareness and the most complete artistic gifts, give Mawlana unique power as what might be called a Sacred Initiator or Initiator into the Sacred. Born out of the fire of a vast Awakening, Mawlana’s work has an uncanny direct force of illumination; anyone approaching it with an open heart and mind, at whatever stage of his or her evolution, will drive from it inspiration, excitement, and help of the highest kind. Everything Mawlana wrote or transmitted has the unmistakable authority of total inner experience, the authority of human being who has risked and given everything to the search for divine truth.”

Mawlana’s very broad appeal and highly advanced thinking, humanism, open heart and mind, may derive from his genuinely cosmopolitan character, because in his lifetime he enjoyed unusually good relations with diverse groups of social, cultural and religious background. Born in Balkh, Afghanistan where, in the course of history, several civilizations were born and met, where people were accustomed to these rich cultural diversities, traditions and religions, Mawlana apparently was familiar with all of them and therefore he was friendly with believers of many religions. Most of those scholars who studied Mawlana admit that there was no more beautiful tribute to Mawlana’s universality than his funeral, a forty-day marathon of grieving attended by distraught, weeping Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists who cried and mourned in a manner that one would have thought that Mawlana belonged to each one of them.

Mawlana’s vision, words, thoughts and life teach us how to reach inner peace and happiness and act throughout our life for the well-being of the entire humanity.