Nicki Chapman sits in, joined by Jim Kerr

From Sarah Joseph, Editor of a Muslim lifestyle magazine:

Today, in 1207, the Muslim poet, scholar, and Sufi mystic, Jamaluddin Muhammad Rumi was born.

 Rumi wrote of passion, of ecstasy, of love.

 “Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.” Rumi wrote.

 “Love is the whole thing. / We are only pieces.” 

“You cannot hide love. / Love will get on its way.”

“Love is a river. Drink from it.”

 Such powerful verses about love are probably the reason that Rumi is America’s best-selling poet, and why he has achieved renown throughout the world.

His poetry fills not only books, it adorns jewellery, cards, and artwork. People have tattoos of his poetry. Wedding speeches are full of his poems, as are love letters exchanged between lovers.

 Yet whilst lovers may send his couplets to each other, the focus of Rumi’s ardent devotion went well beyond the realm of worldly love.

 “The One I love is everywhere” – said Rumi, and with this the reader can begin to realise that in fact Rumi’s poems are describing his overpowering love of The Divine.

 He is not alone in this.

When Rabia Al-Basri, the great Iraqi female poet and mystic, wrote, “You are enough for me” – she was writing about her true beloved – God.

In our ever-worldly existence, it can be hard, even strange, to speak of loving God so passionately.

 Love is RomComs. Love is Valentines. Love is another human – and how much we invest in them.

 Yet for Rumi, and also for me, God’s love is ultimately what will give us happiness.

To be distant from The One hurts, just like being distant from a worldly love may feel.

But Rumi did not shy away from the pain of heartbreak, rather he saw it as necessary for spiritual growth and fulfilment.

“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens,” he wrote in one poem.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you,” he wrote in another.

 This world will hurt according to Rumi, but we should not fear. Pain and heartbreak are a way to connect to God. They help us rely on, and seek comfort in The Divine; for, as the Qur’an reminds, “it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace”.