Saturday, January 20, 2007

UNESCO names 2007 ‘Year of Rumi’

This comes from the Daily Times out of Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD: The mystic literature of Islam is a source of inspiration and following its universal values of love, peace, harmony and tolerance can bridge the gap between the East and West, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Mushahid Hussain Sayed on Monday.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has designated the year 2007 as the ‘Year of Rumi’ to develop inter-faith dialogue and spread his message of humanism throughout the world.

Speaking as chief guest at the launch ceremony of Rumi Forum, Hussain said that Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi was the greatest Turkish Sufi inspirer and had championed the cause of peaceful co-existence and mutual respect. He said that through the forum, Rumi’s teachings would be made widely known to the people of Pakistan and the bond of friendship between the two countries would be strengthened.

The senator said that during his visit to the US, he inquired, at a number of popular bookstores, about who the most widely read Turkish poet was, and he was surprised to learn that it was Rumi. “If there is any general idea underlying Rumi’s poetry, it is the absolute love of Allah and his influence on the thought, literature and forms of aesthetic expression in the world of Islam,” he added.

2007 marks the 800th anniversary of the great spiritual and literary Muslim figure, Rumi. Born in Balkh, Afghanistan, in 1207, Rumi was a conservative cleric in his youth but upon his meeting with wandering dervish Shams Tabriz in 1247, he metamorphosed into an entirely different personality and from then on preached the message of Islam. His six-volume Mathnavi and Diwan Shams Tabriz were best sellers in the US and Europe. He was also a major influence on some of the most popular names in the Islamic world, including Allama Muhammad Iqbal, who considered himself as Rumi’s Hindi Mureed (Indian Disciple). staff report

***

Soul receives from soul that knowledge,

therefore not by book nor from tongue.

If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind,

that is illumination of heart.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Soul receives from soul that knowledge,...

That poem speaks to me. I know that in dreams and in visions notions have come to me that surprised me. Interesting, but where did they come from? I had never read about it, heard about it... Then much later I'd get it confirmed in literature I had been unfamiliar with before...

Many poems come from not thinking. They sorta move in...

I sometimes wonder if therein lies the solution to peace?

Relax the mind. Listen.

Before, we talked about the mind creating the realities we live in.

The active mind can fuel bad situations, I think. Criminals become heroes of a kind. What if they got no news?

Can crime live in void?

I don't believe in the death sentence. I can come around to death as punishment in case of a guy named Sadam Husein from who's being evil sprung.

Without surrounding it with public display, hype, endless opinions, evil may have lost some power by illiminating the man. Instead it led to more crime, more deaths, more fury, more insanity.

Are these wars fought for the good of people? Or are these wars fought for power and riches? Oil for example. Why do countries under cruel dictatorship, like for example Belaruse, get no attention, no help.( No Oil? )Most people don't even know about it. It draws no hype news.

Like in fairy stories, old and more modern, evil never dies. Can it be disarmed? Oops, is disarmed a war term? How conditioned we are. I am.

In this post I read about spreading the message of HUMANISM throughout the world. Maybe we need ALL CREATURESISM. Humans are so vain.

Rumi was a poet. (His feminine side?) Rumi was also a man. And notice that all characters mentioned in this post are men. A male dominated world.

I wasn't planning to say that. Just came to me. Do I start to sound like a feminist? Not a fanatic one I hope. One way or another, the human world lacks balance.

w.t.

Anonymous said...

I talked to a friend, who like me had no notion of the doomsday clock. Only lately, because of a medical problem, did she start reading newspapers. Before she was too active in practical ways to bother. Newpapers now fill a void. That's how she learned about the latest news about the setting ahead and back of the doomsday clock.

It made me feel better to learn that another intelligent woman missed out on certain world newscasts.

It also made a point that outward news items do not reach everyone in this world. That such news by reading, listening to TV, etc. is not the most efficiant way to create awareness. It means, I think, that we still have to rely on messages passed on from soul to soul. Which doesnt sent us out to go fix other people's problems, but points to solving our own. And I don't think that is passive.

wild thing

Larry Keiler said...

Aha! See, W.T., just by hanging around this blog, you've become politicized! Sorry, I didn't mean to do that!!

The purpose of the posting was to point out that this year is the year of the Pote! Last year was Mozart's year. The musician. This year the Pote!

But you're right. All men. I never noticed, but you did. Rumi lived in a male-dominated society. Muslim society is still so, it seems. (Perhaps not so much in our western society anymore...I heard on the radio this week that for the first time more than 50% of women in the US were living without a partner!) Rumi did, however, write some amazing love poems.

Question: Is potery the feminine side? Is there anything feminine about The Charge of the Light Brigade?

Anonymous said...

Good question. I asked it myself even before you did.

I haven't read that poem. But I know a number of poems, mostly Dutch ones I learned in school, that are all military. I still know one by heart. And in spite of the subject, there are observations in it, very poetically expressed, about a sunset on the dunes. The subject is masculine. There is, I think, a soft feminine touch to the poem, the way certain lines are expressed, by a man poet. I have forgotten his name.

You yourself Larry, I think make use of your feminine side when you write songs, music and poetry.

Maybe I have to drag out my masculine side trying to grasp politics.

We all have the two sides in us, right? Nothing is clear cut.

And you know, when I pointed out that the characters were all men in that blog, I didn't just mean in the poem. The commentators are male too.

I said before, that I think that you, Larry, have equal use of the right and left side of your brain. Somthing you seldom see here in the west. The Japanese are trained for it in their education.

The year of the musician, last year. "All we are saying, is give peace a chance..."

The year of the pote, this year.
Truly we need poetic vision to get out of the mess in the world we are in.

politicized wild thing (chuckle)

S. Camille said...

It's good to hear some good news on Islam, with all the fear going around regarding terrorism and muslim militancy.
Fantastic! Rumi - year of the poet! I couldn't be happier about that. I do find some of his poems quite hard to understand, and others so relevant, 800 years after they were written that it is astounding. I really hope Rumi becomes more widely understood and helps to alleviate some of the ignorance surrounding Islam.
Thanks Larry!
Camille

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