At the end of the day, our fates are in the hands of God, and only He can tell when or how we each will depart the world. For my part I decided to do my best to slow Shams down and accustom him, as much as I could, to a more tranquil way of life. And for a while I thought I might succeed. But then came winter, and with the winter came the messenger carrying a letter from afar.
That letter changed everything.
The Letter
FROM KAYSERI TO BAGHDAD, FEBRUARY 1243
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,
My dear brother Baba Zaman,
May the peace and blessings of God be upon you.
It has been a long time since we have last seen one another, and I hope my letter finds you in good spirits. I have heard so many wonderful things about the lodge you built on the outskirts of Baghdad, teaching dervishes the wisdom and love of God. I am writing this letter in confidentiality to share with you something that has been preoccupying my mind. Allow me to start from the beginning.
As you know, the late Sultan Aladdin Keykubad was a remarkable man who excelled in leadership in difficult times. It had been his dream to build a city where poets, artisans, and philosophers could live and work in peace. A dream many called impossible given the chaos and hostility in the world, especially with the Crusaders and Mongols attacking from both sides. We have seen it all. Christians killing Muslims, Christians killing Christians, Muslims killing Christians, Muslims killing Muslims. Warring religions, sects, tribes, even brothers. But Keykubad was a determined leader. He chose the city of Konya—the first place to emerge after the great flood—to realize his big dream.
Now, in Konya there lives a scholar you may or may not have heard of. His name is Mawlana Jalal ad-Din but he often goes by the name Rumi. I have had the pleasure of meeting him, and not only that, of studying with him, first as his teacher, then, upon his father’s death, as his mentor, and, after years, as his student. Yes, my friend, I became a student of my student. So talented and judicious was he, after a point I had nothing else to teach him and started to learn from him instead. His father was a brilliant scholar, too. But Rumi has a quality that very few scholars ever have: the ability to dig deep below the husk of religion and pull out from its core the gem that is universal and eternal.
I want you to know that these are not solely my personal thoughts. When Rumi met the great mystic, druggist, and perfumist Fariduddin Attar as a young man, Attar said of him, “This boy will open a gate in the heart of love and throw a flame into the hearts of all mystic lovers.” Likewise when Ibn Arabi, the distinguished philosopher, writer, and mystic, saw the young Rumi walking behind his father one day, he exclaimed, “Glory be to God, an ocean is walking behind a lake!”
As young as the age of twenty-four, Rumi became a spiritual leader. Today, thirteen years later, the residents of Konya look up to him as a role model, and every Friday people from all over the region flock to the city to listen to his sermons. He has excelled at law, philosophy, theology, astronomy, history, chemistry, and algebra. Already he is said to have ten thousand disciples. His followers hang upon his every word and see him as a great enlightener who will generate a significant positive change in the history of Islam, if not in the history of the world.
But to me Rumi has always been like a son. I promised his late father that I would always keep an eye on him. And now that I am an old man who is nearing his final days, I want to make sure he is in the right company.
You see, as remarkable and successful as he no doubt is, Rumi himself has several times confided in me that he feels inwardly dissatisfied. There is something missing in his life—an emptiness that neither his family nor his disciples can fill. Once I told him, though he was anything but raw, he wasn’t burned either. His cup was full to the brim, and yet he needed to have the door to his soul opened so that the waters of love could flow in and out. When he asked me how this could be done, I told him he needed a companion, a friend of the path, and reminded him that the Qur’an says, “Believers are each other’s mirrors.”
Had the subject not come up again, I might have forgotten about it completely, but on the day I left Konya, Rumi came to me to ask my opinion on a recurrent dream that had been bothering him. He told me that in his dream he was searching for someone in a big, bustling city in a land far away. Words in Arabic. Delightful sunsets. Mulberry trees and silkworms waiting patiently in secretive cocoons for their moment to arrive. Then he saw himself in the courtyard of his house, sitting by the well with a lantern in his hand, weeping.
At the outset I had no idea what the fragments in his dreams indicated. Nothing seemed familiar. But then one day, after I had received a silk scarf as a gift, the answer came to me and the riddle was solved. I remembered how you were fond of silk and silkworms. I recalled the wonderful things I had heard about your tariqa. And it dawned upon me that the place Rumi saw in his dreams was none other than your dervish lodge. In short, my brother, I can’t help wondering whether Rumi’s companion lives under your roof. Hence the reason I write this letter.