I. The Scholar

Before Shams came, Rumi was not a poet.

He was an orthodox Islamic scholar. Full name Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi — later called "Rumi," meaning "the one from Rome" (the Byzantine lands of Anatolia). He was born in 1207 in Balkh — in what is today northern Afghanistan.

His father, Baha al-Din Walad, was one of the most respected Sufi scholars in the region. When the Mongols came, the entire family migrated west — through Persia, through Baghdad, reportedly encountering Ibn Arabi and Attar along the way. They settled in Konya — the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, in the heart of modern Turkey.

Rumi inherited his father's position. He became one of Konya's most important religious scholars — teaching jurisprudence, Quranic exegesis, Islamic theology. He had hundreds of students. He was respected. He had standing. He had a construction.

His construction was complete: a scholar of the highest education, occupying the highest academic position in a major city, teaching students how to understand the word of God.

Then Shams came.

II. Shams

1244. Rumi was thirty-seven.

Shams of Tabriz — a wandering ascetic from the city of Tabriz. No fixed address, no students, no writings, no position. A man in a black cloak drifting between cities. He was said to have been searching for one person — someone who "could bear my companionship."

They met in Konya.

There are many versions of what happened. The most widely told: Shams stopped Rumi, who was riding a donkey, and asked him a question. That question — whatever it was — felled Rumi. A scholar who had stood atop the academic world for over a decade, who could answer any question, was struck down by a single question from a vagrant.

Some versions say Rumi fell from his donkey. Some say he fainted. Some say he went silent for a long time.

Regardless of the details, the result was the same: from that day, Rumi was changed.

He stopped lecturing. He stopped teaching jurisprudence. He and Shams locked themselves in a room for months. His students were furious — their teacher had been stolen by a stranger of unknown origin. His family was distressed — he had abandoned all his responsibilities.

What did Shams do to Rumi?

He carved away Rumi's entire construction.

Rumi's construction was knowledge — he knew the Quran, the Hadith, the law, the theology. Shams said: these are all knowledge about God. But do you know God? You know everything about fire — but have you burned?

What Shams carved away was not a particular opinion. He carved away the entire distance between "knowing about God" and "knowing God." He dragged Rumi from the book into the fire.

III. Disappearance

Shams stayed in Konya for a while. Then he left — possibly because the hostility from Rumi's students had grown unbearable. Rumi searched for him frantically. He is said to have traveled all the way to Tabriz. He found Shams. He brought him back to Konya.

Then Shams disappeared a second time.

This time he never returned.

There are many accounts of what happened. The most widespread: he was killed by Rumi's students (possibly even by Rumi's son Ala al-Din). Others say he simply left. Scholarship has not settled the question.

Rumi searched again. Everywhere. He could not find him.

Then he stopped searching.

He discovered something: he did not need to find Shams. Shams was not out there. Shams was inside him.

He later said something to the effect of: I searched everywhere for Shams, and in the end I found that he is me and I am him.

This was the turning point. Shams's physical disappearance forced Rumi's spiritual transformation. If Shams had stayed, Rumi might have depended on him forever. Shams's disappearance carved away Rumi's last remaining construction — his dependence on Shams himself.

After the teacher was carved away, Rumi became a poet.

IV. The Reed

The Masnavi — Rumi's greatest work — opens with the Song of the Reed.

Listen to the reed, how it tells a tale;
it complains of separations.

Since they cut me from the reed-bed,
in my wail men and women have cried.

I want a breast torn — torn apart by separation —
so I can explain the pain of longing.

Whoever stays far from their own origin
seeks again the time of union.

Why is the reed crying? Because it was cut from the reed-bed. It once belonged to the reed-bed — to a whole, connected, unbroken unity. Someone cut it out, hollowed its interior, bored holes into it — and then it could make sound.

Its sound is its pain. Its music is the remainder of its cutting.

This is the same structure as Du Fu, Beethoven, and Sima Qian: the vessel was carved, and the remainder became something deeper. Du Fu's remainder was poetry. Beethoven's remainder was the late quartets. Sima Qian's remainder was the Records of the Grand Historian. Rumi's remainder was song.

But Rumi added a layer the others did not: the reed, after being cut, wants to go back. It is not only crying — it is longing to return to the reed-bed. Its song is not merely an expression of pain — it is a yearning for reunion with the source.

Du Fu's remainder points toward the human world: ren.
Beethoven's remainder points toward fate: defiance.
Sima Qian's remainder points toward history: the record.
Rumi's remainder points toward God: longing.

Each remainder points in a different direction. But the structure is the same: after the carving, the deepest thing surges out.

V. Ishq

The core word of Rumi's poetry is an Arabic/Persian word: Ishq.

Ishq is not ordinary love. Not "I like you" love. Not "I care about you" love. Not even the Christian agape — that self-giving divine charity.

Ishq is burning. Consuming. What remains after the self has been burned away.

In the Sufi tradition, Ishq is an ontological force — not merely an emotion but a mode of being. It pulls you out from behind the boundaries of the self, toward something larger. You do not control it — it controls you. You do not choose it — it chooses you.

Rumi's feeling for Shams was Ishq. Not friendship. Not a teacher-student bond. Not ordinary love. It was a force that burned away his entire self — his scholarly identity, his social standing, his rational framework.

After Shams disappeared, Rumi did not withdraw this Ishq. He redirected it toward everyone.

Ishq for Shams became Ishq for God. Ishq for God became Ishq for all people.

Socrates carved everyone but no one carved him.
Rumi was carved by one person and then opened toward everyone.

Socrates carved from the outside in — he carved other people's constructions.
Rumi flowed from the inside out — after being carved, what poured through the cracks filled the entire world.

Two directions. Two structures. But both are products of carving.

VI. Whirling

Rumi originated (or inspired) the whirling dance — Sema.

The whirling dervishes. White robes, arms extended — right palm facing up (receiving grace from heaven), left palm facing down (transmitting it to the earth). Then they begin to spin. And keep spinning.

What is whirling?

From the body's perspective, whirling is a technique for loosening ordinary consciousness. Spin long enough and the boundaries of the self — "I am here, the world is there" — begin to blur. You are no longer certain which is you and which is the world. This moves in the same direction as the Sufi practice of fana — the annihilation of the ego-self.

From this series' perspective, whirling is the bodily version of carving.

Your body is a construction — it has clear boundaries, occupies definite space, faces a definite direction. Whirling loosens all of this. You have no direction — because you are turning in every direction. You have no fixed orientation — because your orientation changes every instant. Your boundaries blur — because your robes spread outward in centrifugal force, and you do not know where you end and the air begins.

Zhuangzi's xiaoyao (free wandering) is spiritual freedom — unbound by any construction.
Rumi's whirling is bodily freedom — using rotation to liberate the body from fixity.

Two kinds of freedom. Zhuangzi's is still — zuowang, "sitting in oblivion," sitting until the self dissolves. Rumi's is dynamic — spinning until the self dissolves.

The Japanese scholar Toshihiko Izutsu, in Sufism and Taoism, compared the Sufi concept of fana with the Daoist concept of zuowang — both are techniques of self-dissolution. The difference is the path: Daoism dissolves through stillness; Sufism dissolves through motion. But the destination is the same: the boundaries of the self loosen, and something larger flows in.

VII. What He Wrote Was Not His

Rumi's collected poems bear a strange title: Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi — "The Poems of Shams of Tabriz."

He named his own poetry collection after Shams. Not after Rumi.

Why?

Because he felt the poems were not his. They were Shams writing through him. Shams had carved him open, and the poems poured through the cracks — but the true source was not Rumi. It was Shams, or more precisely, the greater thing that Shams represented.

This is the same structure as Bach's S.D.G. — "Glory to God alone." Bach felt the music was not his; it was God's music flowing through his hands. Rumi felt the poems were not his; they were Shams — or God — flowing through his cracks.

Both men did not consider themselves the source. Both considered themselves the conduit.

The difference: Bach's conduit was intact — he was not carved; he was born a conduit, spending his life carrying God's music from heaven to paper. Rumi's conduit was formed by being shattered — Shams carved him, broke his scholarly identity apart, and from the fractures the poetry surged.

Bach was an intact pipe.
Rumi was a pipe broken open — and the fractures are where the poetry came through.

VIII. His Funeral

December 17, 1273. Rumi died in Konya. He was sixty-six.

At his funeral, something remarkable happened: it was not only Muslims who came. Christians and Jews came too.

In thirteenth-century Anatolia, members of three religions attending the same man's funeral was nearly unimaginable. But they came. When asked why they were attending the funeral of a Muslim scholar, they said: he helped us understand our own faith.

This is the transmission of Ishq. Rumi's trust in Shams became trust in God, which became trust in all people — regardless of religion. His poetry is filled with the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad, Islamic theology — he was not a man "beyond religion." He was a man who reached the deepest root of the Islamic tradition and discovered that the root connects to everyone.

He did not leave Islam. He went to the root of Islam and found that the root touches all.

His tomb is in Konya. Today it is called the Mevlana Museum. Millions visit every year. Muslims, Christians, atheists, tourists. They stand for a while before the tomb of a thirteenth-century Sufi scholar. Many do not know why they came. They only feel they should.

IX. Carved into Song

This series has written many people who were carved.

Du Fu was carved into poetry — the remainder was ren.
Beethoven was carved into depth — the remainder was the late quartets.
Sima Qian was carved into pain — the remainder was the Records of the Grand Historian.
Darwin was carved into truth — the remainder was the theory of evolution.

Rumi was carved into song.

His remainder was not knowledge (he had knowledge; Shams carved that away), not a system (he did not build a system), not argumentation (he did not use logic to prove anything). His remainder was song. The voice of the reed. The cry that comes after being cut from the reed-bed — a cry so beautiful it makes you want to be cut open too.

He is the only person in this series who makes you want to be carved.

Socrates carves you — and it is uncomfortable. He forces you to admit you know nothing. This is not pleasant.
Reality carves Du Fu — and Du Fu suffers. No one wants Du Fu's experience.
Deafness carves Beethoven — and Beethoven rages. No one wants to lose their hearing.
Castration carves Sima Qian — and Sima Qian's intestines churn nine times a day. No one wants that pain.

But after Rumi was carved by Shams — the poems, the songs, the Ishq — you feel: I want to be carved open too. I want to be cut from my reed-bed. If being cut means I can sing like that, then I am willing.

This is Rumi's most singular quality: he makes carving attractive. He makes the remainder more beautiful than the wholeness before the carving.

One more at the bridgehead. He wears a white robe. He is whirling. He does not look at anyone — he is turning. His right palm faces up, his left palm faces down. Receiving, transmitting. Receiving, transmitting.

He is the only person at the bridgehead who is moving — everyone else stands or flies. He turns. His whirling has no single direction — or rather, his direction is every direction.

He is singing. You cannot quite make out the words. But you hear the sound of the reed. The sound says: be cut open. Be cut open. Be cut from your reed-bed. Then you will be able to sing.

Han Qin (秦汉) · @hqinjarsy · Great Lives