Love as reflected in the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi and Yunus Emre
Alpaslan Toker
Tishk International University, Slemani, KRG, Iraq
e-mail: alpaslan.toker@tiu.edu.iq
AGATHOS, Volume 15, Issue 2 (29): 177-193, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.13948994
© www.agathos-international-review.com CC BY NC 2024
Abstract: This paper sought to explore and examine love - one of the most affirmative and pleasant encounters that an individual may endure in his/her lifespan. This unique emotion is regarded as a unique form of human relationship laden with the most genuine, profound, and passionate emotions. The article aimed to discover how Jalaluddin Rumi and Yunus Emre reflected and addressed love in their respective works of poetry. These two prominent figures of Turkish literature were deeply affected by mysticism and considered eminent and celebrated Sufi religious Turkish poets. Rumi and Emre fostered a profound and deep-seated love for human beings as they embodied overt manifestations and strong reflections of divine power. They both maintained an all-embracing, welcoming, and inclusive attitude toward people from diverse spiritual denominations, nations, ethnicities, and cultures. Their mystical poems provided a great deal of evidence and manifestation on the issue of love for humans and that of God.
Keywords: love, human, divine, humanism, Sufi, mysticism
Introduction
Jalaluddin Rumi and Yunus Emre are two of the most prominent poets and Sufi mystic figures as well as distinguished public figures who obtained international fame, acclamation, and recognition. Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), commonly addressed as Rumi, was one of the most acclaimed and reputable Sufi poets and mystics. Numerous notable and distinguished figures were captivated by his mystic thoughts and spiritual guidance and lavishly praised him as a result of his lasting moral authority in the Islamic world and his intellectual power in Western societies. Rumi secured a prominent place in the English-speaking world and Reymond Nicholson (1995), a prominent translator of Rumi’s poems, celebrated him as the leading mystical poet of any era. His poetry transmits the reciter to an eternal foundation of joy, tenderness, creativity, and conundrum by conveying love's deepest, universal, and comprehensive aspects. Nicholson applauded Rumi’s artistic creativity further as such:
In sublimity of thought and grandeur of expression, he challenges the greatest masters of song; time after time he strikes a lofty note without effort; the clearness of his vision gives a wonderful exaltation to his verse, which beats against the sky; his odes throb with passion and rapture-enkindling power; his diction is choice and unartificial (Divani Shamsi Tabriz, xlvi)
Rumi’s lyric poetry conveys a message to all people. Everyone may relate to the message, which appeals to humanity’s fundamental ideals and aspirations for a fulfilling life. Although Rumi’s poems are artistic creations of a Muslim mystic that were composed in Persian, they rightfully transcended the obstacles of language, religion, and national boundaries to reach poetry lovers from diverse civilizations and cultures. Manifesting his profound admiration for Rumi, Coleman Barks (2005, xvii) proclaimed: “His poetry is a record of his enduring experience of living at the core. In each human being, there is a meeting with the divine. That intersection is the heart”.
Rumi’s intriguing personality and lyrical poetry attracted the interest and curiosity of diplomats and travelers who frequented the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century and familiarized themselves with the Mawlawiyya Order and its well-known symbol of the Sema show. Western Orientalists were quite instrumental in introducing Rumi to Western cultures. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson was one of the leading figures to translate Rumi’s works into the English language. Nicholson also published a translation of Masnavi over a period of 15 years and made a memorable contribution to publicizing Rumi’s poems in English culture. He made a notable remark on Rumi and his seminal work, “The Masnavi is a majestic river, calm, and deep, meandering though many a rich and varied landscape to the immeasurable ocean; the divan is a foaming torrent that leaps and plunges in the ethereal solitude of the hills” (Rumi 2015, 704). Another critical appreciation was voiced by A. J. Arberry (2009, 33), “In Rumi, we encounter one of the world’s greatest poets. In profundity of thought, inventiveness of image, and triumphant mastery of language, Rumi stands out as the supreme genius of Islamic Mysticism”. UNESCO has honored Rumi by designating 2007 as the “Year of Rumi” to commemorate his 800th anniversary of birth.
Yunus Emre, who was believed to have lived in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, was considered one of the most remarkable Sufi poets of Turkish Anatolia to disseminate the doctrines of Islam and successfully forged a fusion of Islam’s fundamental values and spiritual folk poetry. He was a prominent Turkish mystic thinker and poet who has been illuminating humanity for several centuries through his advice to embrace the positive values of endurance, contentment, tolerance, benevolence, righteousness, and virtue in conformity with the essential doctrines of Islam. Yunus is especially well-recognized and famous for his poems. In the words of Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan (1989, 7), his poems “express the deepest aspirations of the Turkish people, an independent, undogmatic, humanistic, and mystical race”. Similarly, Talat S. Halman (2011, 16) deftly highlighted Yunus Emre’s contribution not only to Turkish society but also the entire humanity and regarded him as “the first great Turkish humanist, stood squarely against Muslim dogmatists in expressing the primary importance of human existence”. He composed over 416 poems including his lengthy didactic poem, Risalat an Nushiyya (The Book of Advice), written between 1307 and 1308. His poems are extremely mesmerizing and exceptional in subject as well as in style. The recurring themes in his poetry range from love, death, and worldly life, to perfected human beings, the unity of being, nature, the Prophet, and so on. To corroborate his place in Turkish civilization and literature and appreciate the outstanding literary nature of his poetry, Helminski, and Algan (1989, 8) observed,
If I were to suggest the importance of Yunus Emre within Turkish civilization, I would invoke Francis of Assisi, Blake, and Yeats. Like Francis, he was simple and saintly. He loved the natural world and sang songs. Like Blake, his songs are full of symbols. And as Blake stood squarely within his own truth and voiced a cry against much that was mechanical and insensitive in his times, Yunus, with gentleness and charm, attacked the spiritless orthodoxy of his day. Finally, like Yeats, his lyrics master stanzas and line and can appeal to ordinary people, as well as those with literary interests.
In the poetry of Yunus Emre, there were two literary figures who exercised a profound influence, namely Ahmed Yasawi, a Sufi poet who played a crucial role in the establishment of the Sufi order, and Hadji Bektash, a great mystic and philosopher who was commonly accepted as one of the greatest Sufi leaders to have lived in Anatolia. Yunus effectually mastered and perfected the poetic tradition introduced by these two influential personalities as his poetry has captivated the hearts of everyone who recited his poems and has been a source of inspiration for his successors as he made a great contribution to their works. Kamil Sarıtaş appreciated the lasting and enduring nature of Yunus’s poetry as he aptly pointed out: “Yunus Emre offers us the key to true happiness on the path of truth. We still need Yunus Emre’s language and heart as we needed them yesterday” (Sarıtaş, 2020).
Love is one of the most affirmative and pleasant encounters that an individual may endure in his/her lifespan. It is regarded as a unique form of human relationship laden with the most genuine, profound, and passionate emotions. Perhaps, it is unquestionably the most intense emotional experience a person will ever go through in life. The love that is under discussion is a vital aspect of what makes a person in the world. Oscar Wilde offered a unique definition of love when he stated, “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring” (Wilde, as cited in Weis 2010, 184). Love occupies a prominent place in the poetry of Jalaladdin Rumi and Yunus Emre. Love is a prevalent theme in plenty of Rumi’s poems. In “Love Is the Water of Life,” for instance, Rumi observed that a life devoid of love is no life by any chance. He used his poems as an ideal platform to communicate the prominence of love. On the other hand, Yunus mainly addressed his profound love for God in most of his poems. He felt the mysterious and indefinable excitement emanating from the love of God and invited his readers and other people to experience it. He revealed the transformation that he went through with love he began to feel,
a spark of Love’s fire
can make the seas boil.
I fell in, caught fire, and burned.
A soul in love is free of worries.
With love all problems left me.
With love I became happy (Helminski & Algan 1989, 40)
This article attempted to discover how Jalaluddin Rumi and Yunus Emre reflected and addressed love in their respective works of poetry. These two prominent figures of Turkish literature were deeply affected by mysticism and considered eminent and celebrated Sufi religious Turkish poets. Being a man of peace, a champion of humanism, and a proponent of love, Rumi candidly advocated the integrity and purity of tranquility in a person’s heart and throughout the world. He was both an eminent poet of love and a fervent advocate of the religion of love. On the other hand, Yunus, a contemporary of Rumi, contended that love was the purpose and nature of everything. He articulated deep personal mysticism, humanity, and love for God in his poetry. The study sought to find answers to these two research questions: How is love for human beings and God treated in the poetry of Rumi? How does Yunus Emre portray love for human beings and divine power in his poetry? The paper will illustrate with examples how these two eminent Sufi mystics dealt with this overly sensitive topic.
Literature review
Love has generally been a prominent and recurring theme in literature throughout history. It regained its popularity and began to occupy a conspicuous place in literature in the sixteenth century onwards despite an exponential decrease it experienced with the adoption of more intriguing themes that caught the attention of potential readers. It has been a familiar and popular subject in the works of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, etc. However, the term resourcefully avoids proper definition as the world as a whole has ignored or neglected its real meaning. Love exists in the essence of everything and warmly penetrates every fiber and tissue of creation just as oil can be traced in every part of the olive. Since the words might fail to describe the taste of an apple, one has to sample the fruit to experience its flavor. It is the same with the word love. Generally, there are two major kinds of love: human love and divine love. Herein, these two types of love will be addressed and defined below. In the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, love is one of the dominant themes. On this issue, Barks (2005, xix) observed “All of Rumi’s poems may be heard as love poems. They attend the soul’s flowering from grief, and from every emotion that streams through the guest house of consciousness”.
Human love
Human love is a complex emotional experience that is generally portrayed as a feeling of passionate affection, connection, and caring toward another individual. It can manifest itself in many forms, such as romantic love, spiritual affection, familial romance, and self-love. In his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare highlighted love’s incredible power of transformation and warned the lovers not to assess one another based on their physical looks but, on the contrary, on a distinct perception of the beloved. He observed,
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.
And therefore, is winged Cupid painted blind
(Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I, I, 235-41)
Similarly, Paul Kottman (2017, 11) noted, “Love is itself an enacted attempt at understanding, a practical form of self-education—one that is communally shared, undertaken with others in ways that change deeply over time”. The experience of human love is often characterized by a wide variety of emotions, including happiness, joy, warmth, and a sense of safety and security. However, love can also be followed by sentiments of vulnerability, worry, and anxiety, particularly if there was a risk of rejection or loss.
Human love is entwined with acts that can be observed, heard, and perceived. It is considered both spontaneous and reasonable, creative, and predicting the expectations of the other person. Several research has indicated that human love does not only refer to an emotional experience but also relates to its physiological and neurological influences on the body and brain (Hatfield and Rapson, 2002; Bartels and Zeki, 2003; Zeki, 2007; Diamond, 2016; Burunat, 2016). The human body releases oxytocin during physical intimacy such as hugging, snuggling, kissing, holding hands, etc. As David Schmitt (2006, 250) observed, “Love as romance or attraction involves dopamine and serotonin and leads to people falling in love with one particular person. Love as attachment involves oxytocin and leads to the type of long-term commitment”. All in all, human love is a significant facet of human experience that can bestow meaning, goals, and relationships in our individual lives.
Divine love
Divine love is often described as a transcendent, unconditional, and all-encompassing love that comes from a higher power or spiritual source. It is believed to be a fundamental aspect of many religious and spiritual traditions and is often described as the ultimate source of peace, happiness, and fulfillment. It is frequently considered a force that unites all animate creatures despite their observed differences or genuine beliefs. It is believed to be a sort of love that circumvents human comprehension, and that can solely be felt through spiritual worship such as prayer, self-reflection, or meditation. For John Peckham (2015, 76), divine love is “a purely creative, willed love of beneficence”.
The concept of divine love manifests a striking difference in traditional religious practices. The love of God is “essentially the same as the belief in God, in God’s existence, God’s justice, God’s love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience.” However, in the Eastern belief systems and mysticism, it indicates “an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living” (Fromm 1956, 80). It is thought to be a love that remains firm even amid distress and misery, and that can conveniently offer patience and perseverance during hard times.
Sufism, also called Tasawwuf, refers to a spiritual body of religious tradition found within Islam through which Muslims strive to discover the essence of divine love and knowledge through exclusively unique experiences with God. In the conviction of Sufi mystics, love cannot be acquired, it is the blessing of divine grace, and the initiative originates from God (Kelly 2012). In the world’s religious belief systems, the ultimate purpose is to love and be loved by God, to live in close spiritual connection with God, and, thereby, to attain unity with the Beloved (Levin 2010). Sufi mystics also drew from this doctrine and installed it at the heart of their faiths. Jalaluddin Rumi and Yunus Emre both fell under the influence of this religious order and made it their lives mission to seek and attain this unity with the Beloved. Being captivated and inspired by this truth, Rumi (The Masnavi, 3, 235) exerted: “No lover ever seeks union with his beloved /But his beloved is also seeking union with him”. In his poems, Yunus expresses profound spiritual mysticism, altruistic humanism, and pure and holy love for God. He observed,
The heart that falls into Your love, burns and burns.
The one who gives himself to You
gives up everything else ( (Helminski & Algan, 1989, 20)
As a whole, divine love retains a central prominence in several spiritual belief systems and is viewed as a vigorous and effective force that can provide individuals the chance to establish connections with their religious selves, and, eventually with the divine power.
Love in the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi
Love is one of the foremost themes in the poetry of Rumi who acquired fame and popularity as a Sufi mystic and enlightened poet in the thirteen century. In his poems, love is mainly portrayed as a spiritual route and passage toward a glorious union with the divine. His poems applauded various kinds of love, such as romantic affection, companionship, and the love for divine power. Brad Gooch (2019) confirms the literary significance of Rumi and observes that “Rumi was the soaring poet of love, the impassioned preacher of a religion of love, as well as the suffering martyr of love, writing of a felt experience of separation that might best be compared to torture”. Rumi views himself as captivated by the vastness of God’s love and compassion. He feels encompassed by the love of God and observes nothing but benevolence and love in Him. He nurtures a strong and steadfast belief in the strength and efficacy of love in opposition to reason and rationale in searching for God and significance in life. Manijeh Mannani celebrated Rumi’s prominence and his recurring treatment of the theme of love and asserted that “to him, love is everything; it shapes everything, it gives birth to everything, and it is the ultimate killer” (Mannani 2010, 165).
Rumi’s best-known work is undoubtedly his The Masnavi, divided into six volumes and consisting of approximately 26,000 verses. This unique poetry collection occupies a well-deserved notable place in Sufi literature and has often been praised as “the Quran in Persian” (Mannani 2007, 116). Sir James Redhouse (1898) held a view that The Masnavi focused on those who depart from this world, seek to discover God and unite with Him, keep out of sight, and solely commit themselves to spiritual soul-searching. One of the prevalent themes in the work is the notion of the lover and the beloved. The lover is generally observed as an aspirant looking for the beloved to enjoy love’s profound, magical power. This spiritual quest toward the beloved is generally seen as a noble and sacred pursuit in the direction of illumination and intimate union with the beloved. Rumi’s love and compassion for fellow humans were so profound and were adeptly manifested in his universal call as he declared,
Come, come, whomever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of living, it doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come even if you have broken your vow a thousand times,
Come, yet again, come, come (as cited in Citlak & Bingul 2007, 81)
This is a perfectly all-embracing, comprehensive, and inclusive invitation that encourages people from different religions, races, and ethnicities, languages, walks of life to come and join hands and learn to live in harmony, tolerance, and compassion. Rumi does not exclude anyone due to his/her any form of difference and is willing to embrace fellow human beings with open arms displaying nothing but genuine sympathy, affection, and benevolence.
Rumi identified the intricate nature of love, a nature that might enable a thorough transformation in the essence of the human, by declaring that love is a characteristic of God, and using it, man is released from the shackles which determine his position in the world (Chittick 2005). The Sufis favored the words, ‘ishq’, and ‘mahabbah’, to describe the passionate love in poetry indicating that the love of God was considered an imperative attribute satisfying the heart of the mystic and its expression was no more an appreciation of the divine grace of God. In Rumi’s poetry as in Sufi poetry, there is an established tradition of the devout supplicant, on the one hand, being labeled as the lover of God, and, on the other, God is designated as the Beloved. Rumi’s poetry abounds with numerous verses that expand ideas on the affinity between the lover and the Beloved. A striking example of this can be seen in the following lines from Rumi’s poetry:
Lovers share a sacred decree
to seek the Beloved.
they roll head over heels
rushing toward the Beautiful One
like a torrent of water (Rumi 1992, 100)
In these lines, Rumi addressed God with two titles, the Beloved and the Beautiful One. He introduced the conviction that the driving force to love originates from God, as it is a divine injunction, and, therefore, it is insuppressible as the gush of water.
Rumi was an eminent saint and mystic highly influenced by his father from whom he inherited wisdom, conduct, and character and who played a unique role while Rumi was burnt and dissolved in the pool of Divine Love. He was a man of ideals and distinction as well as a man of genuine love and intuition. He was relieved of all conflicting and negative ideas when he immersed himself deeply into the ocean of love. He was completely separated from good and evil. His conduct and attitude toward everybody and everything were based on this perspective. He observed everybody with the same outlook. In his eyes, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians were equally the same. Rumi observed,
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, …
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being (Barks & Moyne 1997, 32)
Here, Rumi’s remarkable tolerance and all-embracing attitude became clearly evident. Therefore, he advised people not to despise or sneer at non-Muslims and to show respect for people’s religious faith and practices.
Rumi went through a unique transformation from a traditional and mainstream religious mentor into an exultant and enthusiastic lover of God. This conversion was materialized by his opportune meeting with a traveling and nomadic dervish by the name of Shams of Tabriz. His encounter with Shams must have stimulated and kindled in him the vigorous and intense energies of the soul. As the case with countless others before him, Rumi began to experience the force and urge of these powerful energies which Sufis viewed as a fervent and insatiable longing in the heart and soul for communion with whatever or whomever they feel so painfully away and disconnected from which could only be discharged through yielding to the rhythmic movements of the dance. The prominent eminence and distinction that he attributed to Shams could evidently be noticed in “I was raw, then I was cooked, then I was ash.” Elsewhere, Rumi expressed his adoration of Shams:
I have seen the king with a face of Glory,
He who is the eye and the sun of heaven,
He who is the companion and healer of all beings,
He who is the soul and the universe that births souls
(Helminski 2005, 11)
The chance meeting with Shams acted as a stimulant that served to kindle potential emotions, vitalities, and excitement in Rumi, and an innate response to this fort of kindling was to begin whirling. Thus, for Rumi, whirling evolved into a type of mystical prayer that serves to free the firm grip of the self and to undergo forces of elation and euphoria.
Rumi dealt broadly with the subject of divine love which he regarded as the utmost type of supreme love. In his lyrical odes, he made frequent uses of imagery and metaphors to portray the powerful affinity between the lover and the divine like the image of a moth attracted to the fire or a river gushing towards the ocean.
No one looks for stars when the sun’s out.
A person blended into God does not disappear.
He or she is just completely soaked
in God’s qualities (Barks 2005, 95)
These lines clearly indicate Rumi’s view of divine love. His literary language gracefully provides a spiritual vision of the beauty and glamour of God that surpasses any metaphors that can be used to portray and describe this alluring beauty. Sefik Can highlighted this spiritual transformation that Rumi underwent and revealed the reformed Rumi: “He was a superior being who was cleansed of grudge, hatred, evil, selfishness, and ostentation and all human weaknesses through the experience of Divine Love (Can 2009, 93).
Rumi paid particular attention to the Names and Attributes of God every moment of his personal life. He was quite conscious that his temperament was a true outcome of the kindness and blessings granted to him by Almighty God. It is unlikely for those whose peripheral vision is ignored to reach this optimal level. Rumi made use of brilliant literary language to offer a perception and understanding of the beauty of God that surpasses any metaphor that may be available in a language to portray or describe this divine beauty. He made specific emphasis on the mercy of the Beloved: “His Mercy’s prior to His wrath. If you want spiritual priority, go, seek the prior Attribute! (Rumi 2017, 340). These indicated that God’s mercy is available to anyone who appeals to Him.
Man is the astrolabe of those exalted attributes,
The attribute of man is to manifest God’s signs.
Whatever is seen in man is the reflection of God,
Even as the reflection of the moon in water (Masnavi, 6, 459)
Rumi considered every human as a true representation of God and humanity as the impeccable manifestation of God. Therefore, Rumi valued and nourished love toward everyone as God’s love led Rumi to love humanity.
Love in the poetry of Yunus Emre
A contemporary of Rumi and a prominent epitome of mysticism, Yunus Emre also made extensive use of the theme of love in his folk poetry. For Yunus, love did not only indicate a human passion but also a journey toward religious refinement and sacred union with the divine. One of the major themes in Emre’s poetry was the notion of a profound and all-comprehensive love that went beyond human restrictions and brought all individuals together. This type of love was frequently portrayed as an immense power that joined the lover with the beloved, and that may assist people in suppressing their worries and despairs to reach religious refinement. Talat Halman argued that Yunus was the best spokesperson for the convention of Turkish humanism and fairly observed: “His poetry embodied the quintessence of Turkish-Anatolian- Islamic humanism and served as a fountainhead of the humanistic concepts which were also at work, overtly or implicitly, in the intellectual life of the Turks in later centuries” (Halman 2011, 16). Several of Emre’s core ideas are deeply rooted in the Sufi convention, especially as articulated by Rumi, who made use of Persia’s cultural and linguistic heritage. Rumi preferred to use the Persian language as his medium of expression following the example of medieval writers and intellectuals in Europe who abandoned their local languages in favor of Latin. However, like Dante, selected the native language of his own people.
His firm and steadfast faith was humanism, which elevates man with respect to God, nature, and the local community. A cultivated humanist acknowledges man as the paragon of creation. However, the doctrine of several chief religions, inclusive of Islam, vigorously contented that man’s mortal existence in the natural world was deprived of importance and meaning. Yunus Emre, who was celebrated for his profound humanism and whose mystic folk poetry was appreciated for its “universalist humanism,” glorified the fundamental importance of human existence (Halman 2011, 7):
I see my moon right here on earth
What would I do with all the skies?
My eyes are on the ground from where
The rains of mercy come down on me (Sari 2016, 72)
This should not be seen as a renunciation of a supreme and magnificent God. On the contrary, it can be considered internalizing or humanizing the divine power. Unlike the prevalent religious institutions of his period, Yunus openly defied this widespread practice and embraced an unprecedentedly moderate attitude toward humanity. He presented a notion of man not as a vagabond, but as an adjunct of God’s existence and love:
We love the created
For the Creator's sake (Sari 2016, 12)
Yunus’s idea of love or ‘ashk’ in the local vernacular, which denoted a profound, passionate love that was anchored in the heart, was one of the central ideas of his poetry. This form of love was regarded as a powerful force that could assist people in restraining their egoism and initiating a relationship with the divine. Yunus inherently cultivated and experienced it and widely portrayed it in his poems particularly the affection between friends and companions. He frequently highlighted the vitality and significance of kindness, mercy, and sympathy in fostering tender and caring relationships with fellow humans. He explicitly declared,
Come let us all be friends for once,
Let us make life easy on us
Let us be lovers and loved ones
The earth shall be left to no one (Sari 2016, 6)
In these lines, Yunus possesses a universal human spirit that encircles personal and public lives. He maintained an all-embracing attitude and aspired to win the hearts of fellow humans as well as to make friends across countries and boundaries. In a similar vein, Yunus further emphasized his view of superior humanity:
Come, let's get to know each other
and make our work easier.
Let's love, let's be loved.
No one inherits this world (Helminski & Algan 1989, 79)
Yunus carried on to express his all-encompassing view of love for humanity and encouraged human beings to come together and learn to love one another.
For Sufi mystics, the attainment of divine love or love for God was the ultimate target in their worldly lives. To them, everything in the world carried a striking indication of God, and the divine will could not be perceived by temporal logic, insight, or instinct, but only by true love. Divine love is the element and the objective of mortal existence. The mystical poetry of Yunus is overflowed with these notions and images of Sufism built on an essential dedication to cultivating a crucial awareness of God by the prudent reflection of the universe and the self.
Your love has wrested me away from me,
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.
Day and night I burn, gripped by agony,
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave (Halman 2005, 23)
These lines demonstrate Yunus’s burning desire and supernatural longing for the achievement of divine love. He frequently articulated the love of God sought by every true and devout believer.
Emre was able to articulate an all-encompassing love of humans and notions of universal fellowship that surpassed all conflicts and religious denominations in a period when atrocities, fights, and destructions were commonplace. His humanism aimed to elevate human existence by releasing man from religious tenets and putting him in a relationship that ensures affinity with God.
For those who truly love God and His ways
All the people of the world are brothers and sisters (Sari 2016, 30)
Humanism advocated the model of a collective society that harbored people regardless of their religion, nationality, culture, and race. Emre’s humanist philosophy and tenet also echoed this universal perception that removes all racial, political, and factional divisions. He firmly declared,
The man who doesn’t see the nations of the world as one
Is a rebel even if the pious claim he’s holy (Sari 2016, 31)
In his far-reaching view, love possessed the power to unify the world and dismissed all conflicts and dichotomies. He further vocalized his firm conviction in integrity and unitarianism as such:
Mystic is what they call me,
Hate is my only enemy;
I harbor a grudge against none.
To me, the whole wide world is one (Sari 2016, 31)
On the whole, in a period full of atrocities and religious oppressions, he proved to be a true humanist whose love of God constituted a vital part of his love for humanity. His abomination for disputes and clashes and his disapproving position toward wealth and worldly possessions have been reflected over time.
Yunus acquired a pantheistic view that maintained a firm belief that God is ubiquitously present in the universe. He was considered neither separately, isolated nor distant from the universe, but, rather, in tandem and conjunction with it. For Emre, every matter possessed a spirit or cognizance and could only attain grand morals and principles through true love. His system of religious beliefs was fundamentally based on naturalistic and ecumenical perspectives. He observed,
With the mountains and rocks
I call you out, my God;
With the birds as day breaks
I call you out, my God.
With Jesus is the sky,
Moses on Mount Sinai,
Raising my scepter high,
I call you out, my (Sari 2016, 14)
By his passionate love for God, Yunus cultivated a sentimental fondness toward nature, humans, and trivial things that most people would not find appealing. He encouraged people to foster a love for people irrespective of their identity, ethnicity, or religious denomination and acknowledged this fact as a prerequisite of his spiritual conviction.
Conclusion
Jalaluddin Rumi and, his contemporary, Yunus Emre, left their indelible marks in Turkish literature as well as in the hearts of the Anatolian people. Although Rumi conveniently selected the Persian language and Yunus wrote his poems in vernacular language, they were both highly influenced by Sufi mysticism and its religious doctrines and efficiently expressed these conservative views in their respective poetry. They skillfully demonstrated their love for human beings and divine love in the extracts presented above. Rumi and Emre fostered a profound and deep-seated love for human beings as they embodied overt manifestations and strong reflections of divine power. They both maintained an all-embracing, welcoming, and inclusive attitude toward people from diverse spiritual denominations, nations, ethnicities, and cultures. Their mystical poems provided a great deal of evidence and manifestation on the issue of love for humans and that of God.
Rumi and Yunus articulated intense personal mysticism and humanism in their poems. Rumi’s love and compassion for human beings were so intense that he extended a universal call and invited people to come together regardless of their religion, race, culture, and language. In a similar vein, having been highly regarded for his sincere humanism and received favorable appreciation for his mystic poetry due to its prevalent note of universal humanism, Yunus celebrated the vital importance of human existence and strove to conquer the hearts of fellow humans and encouraged to make friends across continents, countries, and boundaries.
Divine love occupied a notable place in the poetry of both Rumi and Yunus Emre. Rumi was a man of unwavering commitment and sincerity. He did not fail to follow his heart’s desires as long as they did not contradict his firm belief and unflinching devotion. His heart was burning with spiritual love and passionate longing as he placed his unwavering faith at the center of his life and showed the noble path for others to follow. On the other hand, Yunus was overwhelmed with a burning craving and irrepressible yearning to attain divine love. He regularly expressed the love of God sought by ardent and zealous believers. His profound love of God greatly influenced his love for humanity and guided him to maintain an all-encompassing and inclusive attitude toward people of distinct spiritual faiths, nations, ethnicities, and linguistic variations.
References:
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