Layla broke into a smile. “Yes, I am Layla. But you are not Majnun,” she answered. “You have to see me with the eyes of Majnun. Otherwise you could never solve this mystery called love.”
How can I explain the same mystery to my family, friends, or students? How can I make them understand that for them to grasp what is so special about Shams of Tabriz, they have to start looking at him with the eyes of Majnun?
Is there a way to grasp what love means without becoming a lover first?
Love cannot be explained. It can only be experienced.
Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.
Kimya
KONYA, AUGUST 17, 1245
Breathlessly I wait for a summons, but Rumi doesn’t have time to study with me anymore. As much as I miss our lessons and feel neglected, I am not upset with him. Maybe it’s because I love Rumi too much to get cross with him. Or maybe it’s because I can understand better than anyone else how he feels, for deep inside I, too, am swept up by the bewildering current that is Shams of Tabriz.
Rumi’s eyes follow Shams the way a sunflower follows the sun. Their love for each other is so visible and intense, and what they have is so rare, that one can’t help feeling despondent around them, seized by the realization that a bond of such magnitude is missing in one’s own life. Not everyone in the house can tolerate this, starting with Aladdin. So many times I’ve caught him looking daggers at Shams. Kerra, too, is ill at ease, but she never says anything and I never ask. We are all sitting on a powder keg. Strangely, Shams of Tabriz, the man who is responsible for all the tension, either is unaware of the situation or simply doesn’t care.
Part of me is bitter at Shams for taking Rumi away from us. Another part of me, however, is dying to get to know him better. I have been struggling with these mixed feelings for some time now, but today, I am afraid, I might have given myself away.
Late in the afternoon, I took out the Qur’an hanging on the wall, determined to study it on my own. In the past, Rumi and I had always followed the order in which the verses were handed down to us, but now that there was nobody guiding me and our lives had been turned topsy-turvy, I saw no harm in reading without an order. So I haphazardly opened a page and put my finger on the first verse that came up. It turned out to be al-Nisa, the one verse in the whole book that has troubled me the most. With its unpromising teachings on women, I found the Nisa hard to understand and harder to accept. As I stood there reading the verse one more time, it occurred to me to ask for help. Rumi might be skipping our lessons, but there was no reason I couldn’t ask him questions. So I grabbed my Qur’an and went to his room.
To my surprise, instead of Rumi I found Shams there, sitting by the window with a rosary in his hand, the dying light of the setting sun caressing his face. He looked so handsome I had to avert my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I was looking for Mawlana. I’ll come later.”
“Why the rush? Stay,” Shams said. “You seem to have come here to ask something. Perhaps I could be of help.”
I saw no reason not to share it with him. “Well, there is this verse in the Qur’an that I find a bit hard to understand,” I said tentatively.
Shams murmured, as if talking to himself, “The Qur’an is like a shy bride. She’ll open her veil only if she sees that the onlooker is soft and compassionate at heart.” Then he squared his shoulders and asked, “Which verse is it?”
“Al-Nisa,” I said. “There are some parts in it where men are said to be superior to women. It even says men can beat their wives.… ”
“Is that so?” Shams asked with such exaggerated interest that I couldn’t be sure whether he was serious or teasing me. After a momentary silence, he broke into a soft smile and out of memory recited the verse.
“Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.”
When he finished, Shams closed his eyes and recited the same verse, this time in a different translation.
“Men are the support of women as God gives some more means than others, and because they spend of their wealth (to provide for them). So women who are virtuous are obedient to God and guard the hidden as God has guarded it. As for women you feel are averse, talk to them suasively; then leave them alone in bed (without molesting them) and go to bed with them (when they are willing). If they open out to you, do not seek an excuse for blaming them. Surely God is sublime and great.