Listen!

Listen to the ney

Listen to the one who is giving himself up

Listen to the one is has emptied himself

Listen to the one from whom the voice of Allah is heard

Turn, turn around the meaning of the beloved

Do sema, turn, turn listening to what is being sung

Turn, understanding what is being sung

Turn, turn joining Allah

Who manifest Himself a new every moment

while turning become so pure so beautiful that you

start turning around yourself to

while turning know that the whole universe

even the electrons of an atom

from the tiniest to the greatest of the created

Turn, only to reveal this meaning

sema is for the soul that cannot stand still

Do not sit with the idol get up at once go further

Do not sit lost in your own thoughts

Get up go to where the beloved is

With one foot i am grounded in Sharia

with my other foot i am One with all nations,

I am free, free i am free because i am in love with Allah

I am in love with my Creator,

Slave to no human i am the servant of my love Allah

There is nothing to tie me down

I am free, free, free

They figured the value of my head, my robe and my turban

They were not worth more than a cent

Have you heard my name in this world?

I am Nothing, Nothing, Nothing

As long as i live i am the servant of the Quran

I am the dust under the feet of the Prophet Muhammad

Who ever belongs to God, God belongs to Him

Let yourself go, the ney will guide you to your goal

Demonstrate your love with your actions, your morals,

Be aware of the ways of servant people for the sake of Allah

Feel the pleasure of serving without expectations

Look at those with any faith with the eyes of your soul

From them nothing but a cry of Ya Hayy, or Ya Rabb can be heard

according to their beliefs

Friend I am you and You are me

Don't loose yourself

Don't forget who you are

The one following you like a shadow is me

My friend don't pierce your soul with your own dagger

since you miss the sea let go of being a drop

Since you are me and i am you

what is this talk of me and you

After death comes don't look in to the ground for our grave
Our graves is in the hearts of Areefs

Life of Rumi

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of

Love and being a Lover. The way of our

prophets is the way of Truth. If you want to

live, die in Love; die in Love if you want

to remain alive.

I silently moaned so that for a hundred centuries to come,
The world will echo in the sound of my hayhâ1 hayhâ and hayhât, a corruption of the same term in Persian means 'alas' or 'woe to me!'
It will turn on the axis of my hayhât

(Divan, 562:7)

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The name Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi stands for Love and ecstatic flight into the infinite. Rumi is one of the great spiritual masters and poetical geniuses of mankind and was the founder of the Mawlawi Sufi order, a leading mystical brotherhood of Islam.

Rumi was born in Wakhsh (Tajikistan) under the administration of Balkh in 30 September 1207 to a family of learned theologians. Escaping the Mongol invasion and destruction, Rumi and his family traveled extensively in the Muslim lands, performed pilgrimage to Mecca and finally settled in Konya, Anatolia, then part of Seljuk Empire. When his father Bahaduddin Valad passed away, Rumi succeeded his father in 1231 as professor in religious sciences. Rumi 24 years old, was an already accomplished scholar in religious and positive sciences.

He was introduced into the mystical path by a wandering dervish, Shamsuddin of Tabriz. His love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in a surge of music, dance and lyric poems, `Divani Shamsi Tabrizi'. Rumi is the author of six volume didactic epic work, the `Mathnawi', called as the 'Koran in Persian' by Jami, and discourses, `Fihi ma Fihi', written to introduce his disciples into metaphysics.

If there is any general idea underlying Rumi's poetry, it is the absolute love of God. His influence on thought, literature and all forms of aesthetic expression in the world of Islam cannot be overrated.

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi died on December 17, 1273. Men of five faiths followed his bier. That night was named Sebul Arus (Night of Union). Ever since, the Mawlawi dervishes have kept that date as a festival.

The day I've died, my pall is moving on -
But do not think my heart is still on earth!
Don't weep and pity me: "Oh woe, how awful!"
You fall in devil's snare - woe, that is awful!
Don't cry "Woe, parted!" at my burial -
For me this is the time of joyful meeting!
Don't say "Farewell!" when I'm put in the grave -
A curtain is it for eternal bliss.
You saw "descending" - now look at the rising!
Is setting dangerous for sun and moon?
To you it looks like setting, but it's rising;
The coffin seems a jail, yet it means freedom.
Which seed fell in the earth that did not grow there?
Why do you doubt the fate of human seed?
What bucket came not filled from out the cistern?
Why should the Yusaf "Soul" then fear this well?
Close here your mouth and open it on that side.
So that your hymns may sound in Where- no-place!

Schimmel, Annemarie. Look! This Is Love: Poems of Rumi.
Boston, Mass.: Shambhala Publications, 1991.