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DOI: 10.1177/000842980803700101
2008 37: 3 Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses
Mohammed Rustom
The metaphysics of the heart in the Sufi doctrine of Rumi

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© 2008 Canadian
Corporation
for Studies in
Religion
/
Corporation
Canadienne des Sciences
Religieuses
The
metaphysics
of the heart
in the Sufi doctrine of Rumi
MOHAMMED RUSTOM
Mohammed Rustom is a doctoral candidate in the
Department
of Near and Middle Eastern
Civilizations,
University
of
Toronto, Toronto,
ON M5S
1C1;
e-mail: m.rustom@utoronto.ca. The
author wishes to
express
his thanks to Maria
Subtelny
for
introducing
him to Rumis Masnavi
and for her
helpful
comments on the first draft of this
paper.
The
author
also thanks
Bobby
Bakhtiarynia,
Atif Khalil and SRs
anonymous
reviewers for their critical feedback on its sub-
sequent
drafts.
Summary:
In the
Masnavi-yi
Manavi
(The
Couplets of Esoteric Meaning)
written
by
the famous Muslim
mystical poet, Jalal
al-Din Rumi
(d.
1273
C.E.),
countless
metaphysical teachings
are interwoven into the
fabric of the text. It
is,
as one author has called
it,
"an ocean
of gnosis"
(Nasr 1993: 183).
For this short
paper
I have
dipped
into this "ocean of
gnosis"
and resurfaced with several of the most
important passages
in
which Rumi
lays
out his
metaphysical teachings concerning
the "heart"
(lubb,
fuad, qalb
and sirr
in Arabic;
dil in
Persian),
which is a
key concept
in Sufi literature. For the Sufis it is not the
eye
but the heart that
"per-
ceives." In what follows I will first delineate some of Rumis core teach-
ings
on the heart. I will then turn
my
attention to what he has to
say
about
the heart as a means to
seeing
the
Divine,
for both human
beings
and
God Himself.
Résumé: Dans le
Masnavi-yi
Manavi
(Les
Couplets
de Sens
Esotérique),
composé par
le fameux
poète mystique
musulman
Jalal
al-Din Rumi
(mort
en 1273
après j.-C.),
un nombre incalculable
denseignements
métaphysiques
sont tissés dans la trame du texte. Un auteur a ainsi
qua-
lifié
louvrage
d « océan de
gnose»
(Nasr
1993:
183).
Dans ce court
essai, jai plongé
dans cet « océan de
gnose » pour
refaire surface avec
quelques-uns
des
passages
les
plus importants
dans
lesquels
Rumi
expose
ses
enseignements métaphysiques
relatifs au
«
coeur
» ( lubb,
fuad, qalb,
et
sirr,
en
arabe;
dil en
persan),
un
concept
clé de la littérature soufie.
Pour les
Soufis,
ce nest
pas
loeil,
mais le coeur
qui «perçoit ».
Dans le
texte
qui
suit,
je
retracerai dabord
quelques-uns
des
enseignements
fondamentaux de Rumi sur le
coeur. Je porterai
ensuite mon attention
sur ce
quil
a à dire en ce
qui
concerne le cœur en tant
que moyen
de
voir le
Divin,
à la fois
pour
les êtres humains et
pour
Dieu Lui-même.
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4
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5
the
carpet
of
good
fortune,
but also the
Carpet-spreader.
(Cited
in Chittick 1983:
38)
Elsewhere in the Masnavi Rumi
says
that a
purified
heart is
higher
than the
heavens because it has become cleansed of the
impurities
that taint it. A
purified
heart is no
longer
of this world since it has transcended the
ephemeral, phenomenal
order. It now has a direct
relationship
with the
unseen:
That heart has become
pure
and is cleansed of
clay.

It has attained
greatness
and become
complete.

It has cast the

day
aside and come towards the Sea.
-
Free from the
prison
of
day,
it has become of the Sea.
(Rumi:
3:
2249-50)
The
purified
heart
may
reflect the
things
in the
phenomenal
world in their
true
form,
since the heart itself stands between .the seen and the unseen.
Because the heart is connected to both the
spiritual
and
physical
worlds,
it
portrays images
from the
phenomenal
worlds true
origin,
which is
why
images
such as
paintings,
to use an
example
Rumi himself
gives
in the Mas-
navi,
when reflected in the mirror of the
heart,
are more
perfect
and beau-
tiful than the
paintings actually
found in the
phenomenal
world.4 The mir-
ror of the heart acts as a
type
of isthmus between the
phenomenal
and
noumenal worlds for it can
capture
the
materiality
of the
phenomenal
world
but also retain
something
of the unseen element
by
its
very
nature,
hence
pro-
ducing
an
imaginals
form of the
images
in the
phenomenal
world them-
selves. The mirror of the
heart,
when
purified,
acts as a
type
of
intermediary
which reflects the
beauty
of the unseen onto
phenomenal
existence,
and
from this
perspective
is
responsible
for
distributing
Gods
blessings
to the cos-
mos:
The heart
encompasses
this realm of existence

And
continuously spreads gold
out of beneficence and kindness
Amongst
the
people
of the world it
freely
distributes that
peace
that comes from Gods
peace.
(Rumi: 2:2272-73)
The heart of the
complete
human
It is with the above considerations in mind that the Sufis who devoted their
attention to
explaining
the
cusmological
structure of the universe could
say
that it is the heart of one
special
individual that is
solely responsible
for sus-
taining
the universe. This
persons
heart reflects the divine treasures to the
cosmos,
thus
keeping
it in order
by distributing
Gods divine names. But the
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6
heart of such a
person may
not
only
reflect the
beauty
of the unseen to the
seen world or even be
responsible
for
sustaining
the
cosmos;
it can also
reflect the unseen to Itself. One should
not, however,
be mistaken into think-
ing
that this heart is somehow accessible to
just anyone.
In
fact,
it is
poten-
tially
accessible to
everyone,
since
everyone
has a
heart,
but
very
few
people
will
perfect
their hearts. To whom does this heart
belong?6
It is the one who
has
utterly
died to the self.
According
to a sacred Muslim
tradition,
God
says,
&dquo;The heavens and the earth cannot contain
Me,
but the heart of
My
believ-
ing
servant does contain Me&dquo;
(cited
in Burckhardt
1968: 115).
In other
words,
it is that heart which is
&dquo;empty&dquo;
which can contain
God,
for
only
belief in Gods
utter Oneness
(and
ones own
nonexistence)
can render one a true &dquo;believ-
ing
servant.&dquo; It is
through
this heart that God manifests Himself to
Himself,
so that God
may contemplate
Himself in His
multiple
manifestations.
Thus,
the heart acts as a
type
of
receptacle
in which God sees the manifest form of
His Essence. This heart
belongs
to an individual known in Sufi
metaphysics
as &dquo;the
complete
human&dquo;
(al-insan al-karrcil);
that
is,
one who reflects the
divine names in their
totality.7
The
prototype
of the
complete
human is none
other than the
Prophet
Muhammad. It is
through
the
Prophets grace,
the
Muhammadan
barakah,
that
every
other
complete
human
may
come to exist
in this world.
Along
with the assistance that
accompanies
the Muhammadan
grace,
the
complete
humans mirror of the heart also becomes
polished
because of
his/her
purifying
his/her
lower self from base human
qualities
such as
envy, pride
and hatred for other sentient
beings,
and
through par-
taking
in
spiritual discipline,
such as
meditation,
reciting
the
Quran, fasting
and
performing
the canonical and
supererogatory prayers.
Once
purified
in
its
totality,
the heart of the
complete
human becomes a
polished
mirror that
reflects the form of
God,
and hence the cosmos can be said to be
nothing
but
the form of the form of God.
If the heart of the
complete
human can
display
God in His manifest
aspect,
it must
display
that
aspect
of His manifestness that is also formless. A
heart that cannot reflect both Gods form and His formless form is not a
purified
heart.
Hence,
for
Rumi,
the heart of the
complete
human is bound-
less or
non-delimited,
and is
capable
of
reflecting
Gods limitless form. From
this
perspective,
there can be no distinction between the heart and God:
Here the intellect becomes
silent,
otherwise it will lead
you astray
because the heart is with
Him, or,
it is He.
(Rumi: 1:3489)
But this is not an essential identification.
Rather,
the heart of the
complete
human can be said to be God
qua
His self-disclosures or the outward
aspect
of His Essence.8 To
employ
the
dichotomy
articulated
by
Rumis older con-
temporary,
the famous Andalusian Sufi Ibn Arabi
(d.1240 C.E.),
the heart
may
reflect the divine name Allah
(God)
but not the name al-Ahad
(the One),
which denotes the ~divine Essence in its
absolute,
undifferentiated
aspect,
whereas the name Allah denotes the divine Essence in terms of Its manifes-
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7
-- .......-- ----
-----~--
-- ---------- ----
---,,
---- ----- - --
-,
--- -
,---,-,
-----
--,--,
which is
why
Rumi refers to the heart of the
complete
human as God. But from
the
perspective
of the divine Essences
hiddenness,
the heart of the com-
plete
human is created. God
says
in a well-known Muslim sacred
tradition,
&dquo;y,;~~ j -,--,,--
..J T L..J. 1 1 i--- ,.... T . 1 -- L .1.
Gods formless form is if it is
He,
since if the heart is other than
Him,
it
would also be a
form,
which in turn would not be able to reflect God in His
formlessness. A heart that is other than
He,
that
is,
an
unpolished
heart,
can
reflect God
only imaginally,
not as He is in Himself. But a
polished
heart,
when
all traces of the dross of
duality disappear,
reflects God as He is to
Himself,
since
He looks at Himself
through
the
polished
mirror and
only
sees Him-
self
(Corbin
1997:
221).
It is worth
noting
here that when one looks into a mir-
ror the observer is unconscious of the surface of the mirror
itself,
and can
only
behold
his/her
own
image,
which is not
actually
&dquo;real.&dquo; In a
sense,
the
image
reflected in the mirror is real because it
accurately
reflects the
quali-
ties of the
object placed
before the mirror.
But
the
object
is not &dquo;real&dquo; because
it is not
actually
&dquo;there.&dquo; The reflected
image
in the mirror is the form or
image
of the
object placed
before the mirror. It is a form insofar as it
accurately
reflects the
object placed
before the
mirror,
but it is a formless form and
consequently
unreal,
insofar as it
merely &dquo;reproduces&dquo;
the
image
of the
object.
It is with this same idea in mind that we are able to understand how
God can look
upon
the
purified
mirror of the heart and
only
see Himself.
The mirror of the heart therefore can reflect Gods formless form to Him-
self. The
phenomenal
universe,
on the other
hand,
may
not contain Gods
formless form
precisely
because the
things
in
phenomenal
existence are
themselves
possessed
of forms. The heart of the
complete
human, however,
does not have a form like the
things
in
phenomenal
existence,
which is
why
it can reflect that which is
formless,
which is the
image
of God Himself. Of
course,
when we
speak
of Gods
image,
a form is
immediately implied,
but
for the Sufis Gods
image,
like the
image
of a reflected
object
in a
mirror,
is
to be understood as a form without a
form,
or that which can be contained
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9
very beginning
of their
prayers
and will therefore be able to attach their
hearts to their
Object
of
worship,
that
is,
the formless form of God.
Just
as
one must first die in order to be
resurrected,
so too must one die to the self
in order to be resurrected before God. In the ritual
prayer, people
stand
before God as
they
will on the Last
Day,
and so
long
as
they
have died to
themselves,
they
will achieve the
goal
of the
prayer,
which is a direct encounter
with the Divine. But this encounter with the Divine is
nothing
other than the
Divines encounter with Himself.
Only
if the self is
negated
can the vision of God come
about,
for then the
Sufi becomes an
empty
vessel
through
which God
may
disclose Himself to
Himself. When the servant beseeches God from the
depths
of
his/her soul,
what
he/she
does not realize is that it is not
he/she
who is
calling
out to
God.
Rather,
it is God who is
calling
out to Himself. In other
words,
God
supplicates
to Himself
through
the servants heart. Rumi reminds us that
our
supplications
are
only
lent to us
by
God
(Rumi: 3:2125).
In
every prayer
God is at once the seeker and the
sought:
Supplication
is self-less. That &dquo;self&dquo; is another.
Supplication
is not from the servant. It is Gods
speech.
The Real
supplicates
when the servant
passes away
from self
Both
supplication
and answer are from God.
(Rumi: 3:2219-21) 14
This statement made
by
Rumi is a
general
remark which
applies
to all
prayers
and to all
types
of individuals.
Regardless
of who is
supplicating
God,
in the
very
act of
prayer,
be it a saint or a
sinner,
it is God who turns to Himself. It
is God who
prays
to Himself in
every prayer
since
every
servant who
prays
to
Him becomes
negated.
But it is to the
degree
that the servant becomes absent
to
his/herself,
to the
degree
that
his/her
heart becomes
purified
from the
rust of
otherness,
that God will be able to see Himself. And it is to the
degree
that God sees Himself and thus
prays
to
Himself,
that the servant will have
vision of Him and
pray
to Him in
his/her
sacred
Centre,
which is the heart.
Notes .
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10
to avoid the
conceptual ambiguities
that could arise when
pronouns referring
to the
Divine are not
capitalized.
The literature on Rumi in
Persian, Turkish,
English,
French and German is vast. I list
here the most
important
works in the field. On the
life,
teachings
and influence of
Rumi,
see Banani et al.
1994;
Chittick
1983; 1994b;
and
2005;
the articles devoted to Rumi in
Chelkowski
1975;
Furuzanfar
1954;
Gölpmarh
1952;
Keshavarz
1998;
Nasr 1987:
chapters
7 and
8;
Meyerovitch
1972;
Renard
1994;
Schimmel 1975:
309-28;
Schimmel 1993. The most
thoroughly
documented
study
of Rumis
life,
work and influence
up
to
present
times is
Lewis 2000. For Rumis
hagiographic image
and the intimate
way
in which it
conveyed
his
spiritual teachings
and
personal sanctity
to those
generations immediately following
him,
see Safi 2008
(forthcoming).
For Shams-i Tabrizis
relationship
with
Rumi,
see Tabrizi
2005
(a
translation of
nearly
two thirds of Shams
autobiography)
and Safi 2008
(forthcom-
ing).
A useful index
of Quranic
references in the Diwan and Masnavi is to be found in Hairi
1328
(solar).
Although
there are a number of well-intended
poetic
renditions of Rumis
works available in
English, they
often do a
great injustice
to his
teachings
for the
simple
reason
that,
as Schimmel
(1993: xiv) notes,
their "enthusiasm is
unfortunately
not matched
by
an
equally good knowledge
of the Persian
language
and Islamic culture." I list here some
of the better translations of Rumis works in
English by specialists
in Islamic studies. For
the first and
perhaps
still most authoritative Persian edition of Rumis
Masnavi,
along
with an
accompanying English
translation of the entire work and a
handy commentary,
see Rumi 1924-1940. Chittick 1983 contains excellent translations from all of Rumis
works
(particularly
the Diwan and the
Masnavi).
Translations of select tales from the Mas-
navi can be found in Rumi 1965 and 1966. A versified translation of book one of the Mas-
navi is available in Rumi 2004. Rumi 1994 is a
complete
translation of the Fihi
ma fihi,
a
collection of Rumis
prosaic spiritual
counsels.
2 The words ruh in Arabic
and jan
in Persian denote the
"spirit,"
whereas the words
aql
in
Arabic and khirad in Persian denote the "intellect." Unless otherwise
stated,
all translations
are
my
own. References to Rumis Masnavi will be cited
by
book number and line num-
ber(s).
3 For al-Ghazalis discussion on the heart see Gianotti 2001:
chap.
4 and
5;
and Ghazali
2008
(forthcoming).
The translated treatise
(attributed
to the
very important early
Sufi
figure,
al-Hakim
al-Tirmidhi)
in Heer and
Honerkamp
2003
finely analyzes
the
psycho-
logical aspects
of the Sufi
concept
of the heart. For the various
ways
in which the heart is
depicted
in the
Quran
and the
Prophetic
traditions in
general,
and in Ibn Arabis teach-
ings
in
particular,
see Morris 2005. A
good summary
of Sufi
teachings
on the heart in
French and German can be found in
Meyerovitch
1972:
chap.
3;
and Jassemi
2003:
chap.
3
respectively.
Some of the best discussions of the
metaphysical significance
of the heart
in Sufi doctrine can be found in Corbin 1997:
chap.
4;
Lings
1975:
chap.
5;
Murata 1992:
chap.
10;
Nasr
2001;
Sells 1994:
chap.
3 and
4;
and Shah-Kazemi 2006: 116-18. One of
the earliest treatments in Sufi
Quranic exegesis
of the esoteric function of the heart of
the
Prophet
Muhammad
(qalb
Muhammad)
can be found in
Böwering
1979: 157-65. For
an
exposition
of the
mystical concept
of the
eye
of the heart
(ayn al-qalb
in
Arabic,
chism-
i dil in
Persian)
see Schuon 1994: 13-26.
4 Rumi makes this
point
in his tale of the contest between the Chinese and Greek
painters,
which is to be found at 1:3467-99 of the Masnavi. He makes a similar
point
in the
story
of the Sufi in the
garden
at Masnavi: 4: 1358-72. A Sufi was in
deep
meditation in a
gar-
den when
somebody reproached
him for not
paying
attention to the beautiful
signs
of Gods
blessings
in the
garden.
The Sufi then retorted that what this
person
was
referring
to as
Gods
signs
were in fact the "traces of the traces" of Gods
signs.
In other
words,
this Sufi
was in a state of
contemplation
in which he was in direct contact with the traces of the divine
self-disclosures,
the locus of which was his heart. On the other
hand,
his heart acted as a
receptacle, displaying
the traces of the divine
imprints upon
his heart onto the
phenom-
enal world.
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11
5 The term
"imaginal"
in the context of Sufism should
by
no means be understood as
"imag-
inary."
Terms such as
"imaginal"
or
"imagination"
are direct translations of the Arabic
khayal,
which denotes the
"intermediary"
nature of a
things
existence between the mate-
rial and
spiritual
worlds. A
good example
of
something imaginal
but not
imaginary
is a
dream: it
conveys something
to us of the
reality
with which we are familiar since the
objects
which
appear
to us in our dreams often
correspond
to the concrete forms with which
we are familiar in this
world;
but our dreams are also somehow tied to the unseen or
spir-
itual world since the
objects
we
perceive
in them are
equally incorporeal
and
"spiritual-
ized." A dream
rests, therefore,
somewhere between the material world and the
spiritual
world. Because the
objects
in dreams are both materialized and
spiritualized,
their status
is
ambiguous: they
do not
belong entirely
to the
unseen,
nor do
they belong entirely
to
the seen.
They
lie somewhere in between. See Chittick 1988:
53-58;
Chittick 1989:
14-16;
Corbin 1997:
179-83, 216-20;
Corbin 1977:
vii-xvi, 86-90;
and
Lory
2003: 302.
6 See Masnavi: 3:2270 for a similar
question posed by
Rumi.
7 The word insan in Arabic is not
gendered.
Therefore,
the
complete
human can be either
a man or a woman. See Chodkiewicz 1994.
8 Corbin 1997: 221 notes that God reveals Himself to the heart of the
mystic
in His mani-
fest
aspect
and "... not as He
inwardly
knows Himself."
9 I will
occasionally explain
Rumis discussions on the heart with reference to the formula-
tions of theoretical
Sufism,
particularly
as found in the work of Ibn Arabi. It would indeed
be
quite
difficult to
explain
Rumis
theosophical teachings
without recourse to the
expo-
sitions of theoretical Sufism
(of
which Ibn Arabi is the foremost
representative).
It is for
this reason that
generations
of commentators on Rumis Masnavi have also taken recourse
to the
teachings
of Ibn Arabi to
explain
the
metaphysical implications
of his
poetry.
Inso-
far as both Rumi and Ibn Arabi were
writing
from the
standpoint
of the Oneness of
Being
(wahdat
al-wujud),
their Sufi doctrines do indeed
complement
one another. The differ-
ences in the
way they
articulated their
experience
of the Oneness of
Being
has,
more
than
anything
else,
to do with their own
temperaments, spiritual dispositions,
intellectual
makeup, language
and medium of communication.
However,
Chittick
(2005: xiii)
rightly
notes that
reading
Rumi
through
the lenses of Ibn Arabi "... is not
completely
fair to his
[Rumis]
perspective, though
it is
certainly preferable
to
methodologies
not rooted in
the tradition." On the
question
of Rumis
being
"influenced"
by
Ibn Arabi see Chittick 1994a
and
1994b;
Safi 1999. For a
good comparative
overview of the views of Rumi and Ibn
Arabi on the heart and the
intellect,
see Pittman 2002.
10 On Ibn Arabis
"He/not
He"
distinction,
see Chittick 1989: 90-96 and 113-15.
11
Literally
translated,
these lines would run as follows: "From the mirror of
[his] heart,
that
Moses contains within the bosom ...." But such a literal translation
may
lead one to
pre-
sume that the "heart" and "bosom" are two different
things,
which is
certainly
not the
case. Chittick 1983: 38 renders these verses as follows: "The Moses-like saint
possess
within
his
breast,
in his hearts mirror...." R.A. Nicholson
(Rumi: 2:189),
on the other
hand,
translates the
passage
rather
questionably
as "That Moses
(the
perfect
saint)
holds in his
bosom the formless infinite form of the Unseen
(reflected)
from the mirror of his
heart."
The words "Moses" and "bosom" are an allusion to the
Quran
27:12 and 28:32.
12 This line
literally
reads,
"... nor in the heavens or on the fish." The "fish" referred to here
is the creature
that,
according
to medieval
lore,
upholds
the cow which itself
upholds
the
earth. See Schimmel 1993: 71. For the
cosmological significance
of the
symbol
of the fish
in various traditional
civilizations,
see Guénon 1995: 105-9.
13 For Rumis use of this tradition in his works see Schimmel 1993:
225;
and Chittick 1983:
48-49, 56, 71 , 99, 137
and 149.
14 Similar
passages
in the Masnavi are to be found in Schimmel 1993:
352, 354,
363-65.
Schimmel
(1993: 353)
briefly
documents the
interesting way
in which Rumis verses about
Gods self-veneration were received
by
nineteenth and twentieth
century
Orientalists. For
Rumis
exposition
of how it is that our
prayers actually "belong"
to
God,
see Thackston
(1999:
71-72).
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