The Birth of Yeshua...

Jesus Christ in Rumi’s Poetry and Parables
By Dr. Rasoul Sorkhabi
http://www.interreligiousinsight.org/April2008/April08Sorkhabi.pdf
Dr. Rasoul Sorkhabi, is a professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and directs the Rumi Poetry Club (rumipoetryclub@earthlink.net).



Christians and Muslims have much in common, not only because we all are humans, not only because both Christianity and Islam originated in the Middle East and trace their ancestry back to Abraham, but also because Jesus Christ is a holy figure in Islam. This is rarely known to the Western public and is often overlooked by the mass media. It is thus saddening to see that some extremist and violent events of recent years and the mass media’s thirst for polarization and confrontation have portrayed an anti-Christian Islamic world against the Christian Western world. Such a polarization does not really exist in either Christianity or Islam; it is portrayed only to serve certain political and misguided doctrinal purposes. Perhaps a very useful portal of entry to understand the sacred position of Jesus Christ in Islam is Mawlānā (“Master”) Jalāluddin Rumi (1207-1273), the renowned Persian and Sufi poet of the thirteenth century and currently one of the most popular poets in North America and other English speaking countries. As a person born and raised in Iran (Rumi’s cultural land) I have been fascinated with Rumi’s poetry for nearly three decades, and am privileged to share with you some facets of Jesus Christ in Rumi’s book of poetic parables to which he himself gave the title of “Rhymed Couplets on Spiritual Matters” (Masnawi Ma’nawi).

Isā Masih, as he is called in Arabic, literally means “Jesus the Messiah”. Muslims believe in the “virgin birth” of Jesus Christ. According to the Qur’an (15: 29; 38: 72), the Divine (Allah) breathed his spirit into Adam when he created humanity. Sufis extend this quality to the virgin birth of Jesus through Mary (Mariyam in Arabic, which is also the title of the chapter 19 in the Qur’an) so that Jesus was born without an earthly father. This is consistent with the Islamic epithet of Jesus as the Divine Spirit (Ruh Allah) among the prophets (in a similar vein, Abraham is called Khalil Allah, the Loyal Friend of God, and Moses Kalim Allah, the Interlocutor and Conversant with God). The Divine Spirit or Holy Spirit as a medium between the Divine and the world of creation is called Ruh al-Qods in the Quran. Sufis particularly praise the purity and piety of Mary, and emphasize that the same Holy Spirit does wonders with every human who is devoted to the Divine.

In a long poem in the Masnawi (Book III, lines 3702-3790), Rumi revisits the virgin birth of Jesus. After referring to the story in the Qur’an (Mary, verses 17-18) where it is said that, in order to give birth to Jesus, the Holy Spirit was sent by God and appeared to Mary as a very good-looking man, and where Mary says, “I seek refuge in God”, Rumi then continues:

The Holy Spirit said to Mary:
Oh, the exemplar of charity!
Don’t fear me!
I am the trusty one sent by the
Divine.
Don’t hide yourself from me.
I am your dignity and honor!
Don’t hide yourself from me,
I am your comfort and confidant.
As the Holy Spirit uttered these
words
The rays of pure light sprang
from his lips
And shone upon the stars of the sky.
The Holy Spirit continued:
Oh Mary, how can you escape
from my presence to non-existence?
I am the king of non-existence
and I possess all of knowledge.
My very foundation and my seat
is non-existence.
What is present before you is only
an image of me.
Oh Mary! Look at me. I am an
image hard to come by
I am the crescent you see up in
the sky
I am the image within your heart.
When such image as this one
settles in your heart
Wherever you go, it is within you.
This is not the delusion a false
daylight
That appears and disappears
before the morning.
I am the genuine light at dawn
And the darkness of night never
gathers around my daylight.