Thread by @PersianPoetics

Mawlānā Rūmī’s first encounter with Shams al-Dīn-i Tabrīzī.

Though he did not know it at the time, Rūmī’s meeting with the wandering mystic (qalandar) Shams al-Dīn would change his life and Islamic mysticism forever.

Mawlānā later wrote about it: (1/5)

‘I left the house, a drunk approached,
in his eyes I saw hundreds of gardens and nests*.’

(*The Sufi is a divine bird trapped in the world, the spiritual mentor is the nest)

(az khāna burūn raftam mastīm bih pesh āmad
dar har nazarash muzmar-i ṣad gulshan o kāshāna) (2/5)

Before this encounter, Rūmī was a conventional scholar who preached like his father and grandfather before him.

He was familiar with sufism as a subject of study, but Shams showed him that its essence was learned via experiential knowledge, as Rūmī would later write: (3/5)

‘That knowledge they learned in the madrassa
is one thing and love (‘ishq) is another’

(ān ‘ilm kih dar madrassa ḥāṣil kardand
kār-i digar ast o ‘ishq kār-i digarī) (4/5)

Mawlānā never disregarded the madrassa, but via his mystical experiences with Shams he balanced his exoteric knowledge (recorded in books) and esoteric knowledge (taught through mystical experiences).

This is what made Jalāl al-Dīn the Mawlānā Rūmī that we know today. (5/5)