OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | Why are the verses of Jalaluddin Rumi such a best-seller in materialistic US? | Farrukh Dhondy

“How soon hath Time, the crocodile

Swallowed my misspent youth,

And there I was thinking all the while

Of the battle between the Lie and Truth

At last, some notion has transpired

That Time is but an illusion

And loving each Dawn has inspired

An abruptly ended fusion…”

From Sucked Vakhth, by Bachchoo

Why is the thirteenth century Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi the best-selling poet in the United States?

The question is not one that anyone is statistically qualified to answer. Yet in the last week, in the wake of the publication of my third book of “translations” of Rumi’s work, the reviewers whom my publishers have engaged to interview me all pose this question: “Why is Rumi (in translation of course) the best-selling poet in the US?” Not Walt Whitman, Robert Lowell, T.S. Eliot -- not even William Shakespeare, but Jalaludin Rumi! Why?

And, gentle reader, this is not in any sense a boast about my translations selling well in America.

They don’t! Only one of my three books of “translations” of Rumi has been published and sold there.

The “translations” of Rumi that make it to the best-seller list are by various Americans, among them a gentleman called Coleman Barks and the Californian-Indian “guru” Deepak Chopra.

A cursory answer to the question could be that singers like Madonna have made recordings of these “translations”. Their fans have, I presume, fallen under the spell and stormed the bookshops and Amazon for copies.

I say “cursory” because, after November last year, I have come to the realisation that neither I, nor any of the “analysts” I’ve read, can fathom the way the masses of America think. Why would any population, anywhere on earth, elect as their President and controller of their armed forces and nuclear weapons a misogynist, racist, chronically self-obsessed, lying, convicted criminal dimwit? Yet they did.

So, when the question of Rumi’s popularity is posed, I can’t point to the fact his verses will make America Gaga Again. I admit to being puzzled by the Americans’ choice of POTUS, which makes me uncertain or hesitant about any thoughts I have for why Americans do anything. I say, nevertheless, I shall try.

Rumi’s six books of poetry entitled the “Masnavi” or “Mathnavi” has been called “The Quran in verse”. It’s an apt description as the verses, narrative parables and aphoristic philosophy are derived from the Quran, the Haddith and from popular folk tales. His other work, the Diwan-e-Shams, consists of verses in philosophical tribute to his master and inspiration Shams-ud-din Tabrez.

All Rumi’s verses are dedicated to an exposition of his Sufi-Islamic faith. I am as sure as I am of the fact that the Pope is not a Muslim, that the Americans who buy the “translations” of Rumi’s work are not converts or aspirant converts to Islam of any sort. None of them want to pray to Allah five times a day, attend the mosque on Fridays, journey to Mecca once in their lives, give up alcohol, sausages and bacon. Nevertheless, thousands of them profess an interest and even a devotion to Rumi’s verses.

I have of course delved into the best-selling Rumi versions and am somewhat puzzled by their popularity as they have rendered Rumi’s strictly rhyming iambic pentameter in chopped up prose posing as “poetry” with bewilderingly mixed metaphors and extremely obscure phrases, devoid of all Sufi references. No rhyme, no rhythm, no reason, no digested Sufism.

Bewildering because Rumi’s work is deeply Sufi-Islamic and musical. This entails expressions of love for the “Beloved”, for “Him”, for “The Friend” … Rumi’s “Beloved” is not the girl next door or the one you want to date or have sex with. In Sufi Islam, the “Beloved” is God, and this God is not a bearded patriarch in heaven, but the spirit of the universe of which the devotee is a part. In all, the verses of the Diwan-e-Shams Rumi expresses his love for this Divinity, sometimes in metaphoric guise as the sun or moon.

In the Diwan-e-Shams, Rumi reflects on events in his relationship with Shams-u-Tabrez. When Shams leaves Rumi and disappears, Rumi writes verses about the acute feeling of loss and of being incomplete. These verses, I and my collaborators who translated the Persian for me feel, must be read in the context of Sufi religious devotion, even though some readers insist that they are expressions of heartbreak in a gay relationship.

One of the tenets of Mehvlevi Sufism, Shams and Rumi’s interpretation of Islam, is the dissolution of the ego. Thought and rationality are to be abandoned if one is to realise immersion into the universal spirit or to liberate the “God” that is within every human.

Rumi’s popularity in the US springs from the fact that a population that lives in a predominantly materialistic culture and environment seeks some refuge in “spirituality”. This longing causes thousands, even millions, to follow “God-men” such as Osho -- Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, or others who profess to bring spirituality to one’s existence without imposing disciplines and sacrifice. Doesn’t the same need account for the prevalence in the United States of evangelical cults?

Then, of course, there is the dominant theme of “love”, which I am sure the American reader does not interpret as a relationship with the Divine, but expressions of the nuance of infatuation and devotion to another human being. Sing on… Madonna!