A Valuable Addition

By Sefa Kaplan, *Rumi frenzy transformed into an industry in Turkey* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, Turkey
Friday, July 16, 2010

A phenomenon sweeping both Turkey and the world, the “Rumi frenzy” is a juggernaut that has transformed a Sufi saint into a commodity bought and sold across the globe.

Books of poetry, calendars, ballets, performances accompanied by “live music,” CDs and hundreds of websites have already rendered Rumi an indispensable component of popular culture.

Some, like Franklin Lewis, however, are making a serious effort to halt the head-long rush toward the superficial popularization of Jamal ad-Din Rumi, a 13th century Persian mystic who died in the Central Anatolian province of Konya in 1273.

Lewis decries the popular appropriation of Rumi in his new biography of the Sufi, “Rumi: Past and Present, East and West.”

“I watch, feeling devastated by how popular culture dilutes and corrupts his teachings, with the foresight that the unrelenting advertising and consumerist tools of contemporary profane culture will inevitably homogenize the divine,” he said.

Although many were already aware of the breakneck speed of the Rumi industry’s development both in Turkey and elsewhere, the dervish has even been more commodified than originally thought.

Already the United States’ best-selling “poet,” Rumi’s works are read and sung as “live music” as an increasingly mainstream part of American popular culture; many others, meanwhile, listen to the great man’s poetry to relax while in traffic jams.

Naturally, there are certain contributing factors behind the introduction of Rumi to American popular culture, some of which might upset pious Turkish circles whom are most generally associated with the Sufi within the country.

For example, many articles in queer literature expound upon how Rumi and his closest friend, Shams Tabrizi, had a homosexual relationship that was covered up by Muslim scholars. Moreover, Rumi’s poetry has been appearing in LGBT poetry anthologies for a long while.

Exhaustive biography lacking

“The timing of this book is particularly on the mark, considering the current blossoming of the Rumi industry. Doubtlessly, the book will become an essential resource for students and research-seeking scientists alike because although words are as curtains, they also are signs that can point us in the right direction,” according to the preface of Lewis’ book from Professor Julie Scott of Oxford University.

Lewis himself discusses the subject in the first chapter “Rumi frenzy,” arguing that Rumi must be saved from the clutches of popular culture and delivered to the loving arms of the scientific community.

“Rumi, known for his poetry, has been kept alive in the hearts of his readers, spanning from Bosnia to India, for over 700 years. Nonetheless, right after his death in 1273, a veil of myth darkened the truthful details of Rumi’s life and in accordance with the traditional penning of a ‘menakıpname,’” Lewis said.

A menakıpname is a fantastically colored biography of an influential religious figure that is filled with elaborate exaggerations and legends about the person in question following their death.

“Rumi was transformed from a respectable human being into a mythological, even archetypal figure. Despite the efforts of Iranian, Turkish and European researchers who have been striving for the past half century to construct an account of Rumi’s life based on historical facts, nobody had undertaken the task of piecing together a scrupulous examination of all the past works published on Rumi. That was why I have been slightly distanced from the prospect of constructing an exhaustive, fully detailed biography, taking all that there is known about him into consideration.”

Two names from Turkey

Lewis’ book is a valuable addition to current literature in that his Rumi quotes are translated directly from an original source, rather than based off an English edition.

Unfortunately, such research has never been undertaken in Turkey, a country that often speaks with authority about Rumi and his philosophy.

Turkish cultural authorities seem more preoccupied with Rumi’s folkloric aspects and are more interested in making money off whirling dervishes.

In this, a “Rumi Research Institute,” would be welcome for all those who wished to investigate the life of Rumi – a possibility that is buttressed by the fact that two books by Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, a Turkish scholar who focused on Sufi movements, and an article by Şerif Mardin, one of Turkey’s premier sociologists, appear in the book’s bibliography.

Rumi on the Internet

Noting that there are hundreds of websites on Rumi, Lewis advises caution, saying: “The information on personal websites does not necessarily need to be accurate and information collected over unauthorized resources must be used with care. In addition, the Internet provides one with loads of footage, audio and information that can’t be found anywhere else. Rumi’s popularity in the West has coincided with a time when the Internet has become an attractive form of communication; in one way or another, many websites share the love that their creators have for Rumi.”