Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love by Brad Gooch - Harper (2017)
The older I get, the more I value my friendships. Platonic relationships do not impact our lives in the same way that romantic ones do. Friends do not emerge from a heady cloud of hormones and desire, and they do not leave smoldering piles of wreckage in their wake. Because of their constancy, great friendships do not make for great literary subject matter. It is much easier to write a novel about a lover than one about a best friend. The vocabulary of lust is simply more evocative than the vocabulary of mutual respect. But as I’ve come to realize, my closest friends have contributed more to my mental health and security as an individual than any of my romantic interests. Friendships are my longterm relationships, and I’ve watched them expand and develop with all the affection a mother might bestow upon a growing child. I think this is why Rumi’s poetry remains popular and relevant more than eight centuries after his death. It is rare to find stories and poems which touch upon the intimate feelings we have for our friends, and most of us feel self conscious about expressing friendship in romantic terms. Rumi never had any reservations about sighing dreamily over the virtues of his closest friends. Through the sensual, vivid language of his poetry, this thirteenth-century Persian poet shows modern readers that it is entirely possible for friendships and romances to involve similar emotional responses. There is nothing wrong with ‘falling in love’ with your friends, and this realization can bring immense relief to anyone who ever has.
Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love by Brad Gooch is a joyful celebration of friendship, compassion, and mystic belief. Gooch’s affectionate treatment of the Persian poet makes for a thoroughly uplifting read. Gooch is no stranger to biographies, having published books on Flannery O’Connor and Frank O’Hara, along with a slew of nonfiction texts focusing on significant historical periods of freedom and creative expression. He is also a frequent contributor to such publications as the Paris Review, the New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vanity Fair. Brad Gooch seems to admire those who insist on creating beauty in the midst of chaos and despair. As I consider myself to be of this camp, I greatly respect the tone and emphasis Gooch employs in Rumi’s Secret.
Although Rumi was a devout Muslim, he was also a firm believer in the spiritual components of music, dance, and poetry. His world was a bright and beautiful one, and he somehow managed to remain ecstatic even as Genghis Khan and his Mongol army swept across the Middle East, destroying such cultural capitals as Samarkand and Bukhara. Rumi was determined to find evidence of God’s grace in the people he met, the cities he explored, and the words he encountered in recitations of poetry and the Quran. Writes Gooch:
The ultimate beloved reflected in the purified heart was understood to be God: “Take a polished heart to God so that He may see Himself.” For Rumi, he and Salah [a fellow mystic] were two such mirrors, gazing into each other, their affinity inexplicable in words or thought. The polishing took place together and involved maturing through union and separation. Rumi’s passion around Salah was driven in part by his embrace of these concepts, and this vision of a world of ricocheting light and love compelled him for the rest of his life.
While many people (myself included) might descend into periodic bouts of depression, Rumi never allowed himself to dwell on present circumstances. He maintained an admirably vast perspective. Thus,
The tenor of much of Rumi’s poetry in the Masnavi is cheerful and transcendent. The conviction behind this sensibility depended on his belief in the shifting qualities of the world, so that thoughts were not taken as fixed or unchanging. Soul or spirit of even attitude could recast or illuminate the perception of all experiences. As far as the psychology of approaching death, Rumi almost reflexively counseled its embrace rather than its fear—advice, given the timing, for himself as much as anyone. He chose to see the ‘limping’ physical demands of his own aging as the fermentation of eternal love.
Reading Rumi’s poetry is a cathartic experience. Even if you do not consider yourself to be especially spiritual, Rumi’s words seem to promote a mentality rather than a specific religious creed. The poet encourages readers to approach the external world armed with the ornamental lens of poetry, rather than the cold indifference associated with realism. Even at the moment of his death, Rumi’s persistent optimism refused to depart. Writes Gooch:
No one left in the room was able to comprehend the length and breadth of Rumi’s expansive life. The companions who traveled with his family from distant Khorasan were now mostly buried near Baha Valad [Rumi’s father] in the family plot of the imperial rose garden. None of his children had ever laid eyes on the Oxus River, the great natural divide separating the Balkh region of his birth, nor was it any longer possible for them to visit the capitals of his youth, Samarkand or Bukhara, as they had been destroyed as cultural centers by the Mongols, as had Baghdad. His mother remained buried in Larande, and the grave of his first wife was not included among the rest of the family. Some closest to him had known of the remarkable Shams of Tabriz [Rumi’s best friend], but only Rumi understood the nature and extent of their months of intimate encounter that transformed him midlife from a respected religious leader into an audacious mystic and visionary poet. These experiences kept him a figure apart even in his approach to death. As everyone around him was grieving and sorrowful, he remained witty and serene.
Rumi is still one of the top-selling poets in the world. Part of this has to do with the evocative words he employs and the way he manages to bring thirteenth-century Persia to life before the eyes of (disenchanted) modern readers. But Rumi retains a spot in my heart because of his incredible capacity for love, humour, and passion. Rumi reminds readers that they have some influence over how the external world appears to them. We can choose to don the glasses of Rumi or Dostoevsky, and the world will look different indeed. With his whimsical celebrations of friendship, Rumi underscores the beautiful things in our own lives that we often take for granted. Writes Rumi of his best friend Shams:
When your love enflamed my heart
All I had was burned to ashes, except your love.
I put logic and learning and books on the shelf.
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