Mevlana Festival Konya Turkey I shall go
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photo courtesy
www.tarantism.com/mefloquine/turkjorpics/turkmev.jpg
The ability of the Whirling Dervishes to transfix and entire audience with their ecstatic spiritual energy remains a surprising testament to sometimes ridiculed Islamic mysticism. Every December in a festival commemorating the death of the founder of the Dervish tradition, the Dervishes, also known as the Mevlani Order, perform their traditional dance for the purpose of moving as one with God and transcending the material world.. The festival only occurs once a year, but in Konya, the city where it is held, the combined Mevlevi Museum and Shrine contains tombs of important members of the Order, and also has live performances nearby for the public that miss the Mevlana Festival, so no one will miss out completely. http: //www.thisisthelife.com/en/mevlana-festival.htm
Rumi, Jalal al-Din, Poet / Religious Figure
• Born: 30 September 1207
• Birthplace: Balkh (modern Afghanistan)
• Died: 17 December 1273
• Best Known As: Founder of the Whirling Dervishes
One of the greatest of Sufi poets, Jalal al-Din Rumi wrote poems in the 13th century which found a new audience in the U.S. in the 1990s. Rumi was already a teacher and theologian when, around 1244, he encountered a wandering dervish (a Muslim ascetic) named Shams of Tabriz. Spiritually inspired by the dervish to find God in worldly experiences, Rumi founded the Mevlani Order of the Sufi sect. Sometimes referred to as 'the drunken Sufi, ' he became famous during his lifetime for his poetic works, especially Divan-e-Shams, poems praising Shams, and the 6 volumes of Mathnawi (pronounced 'masnavi') . His followers, called Whirling Dervishes, combine music and dance, spinning around to achieve a trance-like state as a way to reach God. In the late 1990s, an updated translation by Coleman Barks became a bestseller in the U.S., and Rumi's work was further popularized by celebrities such as Deepak Chopra, Demi Moore and Madonna.
Jalai ed-Din Rumi
The Persian poet and Sufi mystic Jalai ed-Din Rumi (1207-1273) was a brilliant lyrical poet who founded his own religious order, the Mevlevis. His poetry showed original religious and wonderfully esoteric forms of expression.
The unsurpassable peak of all Sufi thought was reached in the thought of Jalal ed-Din Rumi, born in Balkh. He migrated to Konya in Asia Minor at a young age with his father, fleeing the Mongol invader of his day, Genghis Khan. On this trip in the city of Nishapur the young Rumi was presented to the famous old poet Attar, who, according to legend, predicted his future greatness and gave him his Book of Secrets. Then Rumi and his father traveled through Baghdad, Mecca, Damascus, and Erzincan, finally reaching Konya about 1226 or 1227, where he resided for most of his remaining life. His father was appointed to a high post in the empire of the Seljuks of Rum. Rumi inherited this post in 1231, when his father died. Thus Rumi was a man of means and could devote his efforts to more esoteric fields.
Religious Inspiration
The event which had the greatest influence on Rumi's intellectual and moral life was his meeting with the Sufi mystic Shams ed-Din Tabrizi. The latter, in the course of his wanderings, visited Konya and thoroughly inspired Rumi with religious fervor. As a result of this friendship, Rumi dedicated most of his writings to this wandering Sufi. Because of this also, Rumi founded the Mevlevi order of dervishes - the dancing dervishes. The unique trait of this order was that, contrary to general Moslem practice, Rumi gave a considerable place to music (the drum and reed) in the ceremonies.
The principal work of Rumi is his massive Mathnawi. This work is a compendium of poems, tales, anecdotes, and reflections - all meant to illustrate Sufi doctrine, the result of 40 years of work by Rumi. He also wrote a shorter Diwan and a prose treatise entitled Fihi Ma Fihi (What Is Within Is Within) .
Rumi was a poet of the first rank. His style was simple and colloquial. His tales possessed diverse qualities: variety and originality, dignity and picturesqueness, learning and charm, depth of feeling and thought. The Mathnawi is no doubt very disjointed; the stories follow one another in no apparent order. But it is filled with lyrical inspiration. Each small tale may be read separately, and one cannot help but be impressed with its succinctness.
As a philosopher, Rumi is less original than as a poet. His subject is Sufism, expressed with glowing enthusiasm. But it is not systematically expounded, and lyrical fervor seems to run rampant. But it can be said that just as Ibn Arabi summed up and gathered into a single system all that had been said on mysticism in Arabic before him, so Rumi in his famous Mathnawi comes the closest to this in Persian.
As with other Sufi poets, many Neoplatonic ideas abound in Rumi's writing. Ties to Christian mysticism can also be found. But in the last analysis, Rumi was a Moslem of very special interest. He was philanthropic and strongly emotional, and his writings seem easily to fit in with the excitement of the dance of the whirling dervishes.
http: //www.answers.com/topic/rumi-jalal-al-din
With Ted Sheridan
Trade Martin Howlin Dervish
Poem hunter support supplying the dough
This December to the Mevlani
Festival in Konya Turkey
I shall go
Dancing away
Moving my soul with the flow
Sometimes fast sometimes slow
My mind my cosmic consciousness
In a glow
My bare feet squeezing the earths primal
Energy from head to toe
My silhouette of a Seeker
Not touching the ground below
Overriding the crest of a mindless plateau
The beauty that Allah on me will bestow
Including my white friends all in a tow
dedicated to huuuuuuuu howling dervish
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