Haji Yaqub Charkhi Mosque in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
The Islamic University of Tajikistan
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says…
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
This poem by Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks) illustrates Rumi’s embrace and promotion of experiential, mystic knowledge over scholarly, academic knowledge–which is radical considering his upbringing. Tajiks and many others believe that Rumi was born in Vakhsh, Tajikistan. Rumi’s father, Bahā ud-Dīn Walad, was a celebrated scholar of theology referred to as the “Sultan of Scholars.” Rumi initially followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a teacher of theology and jurisprudence himself. But everything in Rumi’s life changed in the wake of his legendary first encounter with Shams of Tabriz–a wandering mystic who encouraged Rumi to leave his academic knowledge behind, and instead step on to the path of the love…
When I was living in Tajikistan to improve my Persian–in hopes of reading Rumi in the original–I visited a number of Sufi teachers and shrines. In Tajikistan, as in Afghanistan, Rumi’s legacy is alive and well–as is Sufism (even the mosque pictured above is named after a Sufi). I was very fortunate to return to Tajikistan several times to study the transmission of Sufism at the Islamic University–where Rumi features prominently in the curriculum. Even though Rumi left his scholarly books behind, today many people–from theology students in Tajikistan to poetry lovers in America–can’t seem to put his books down…
