What It Means - Day 43

"S.H.N.: . . . What is needed today is to make available, first of all, translations of Rumi which are close to the original while being in a contemporary medium, and also ti explain what this poetry really entails. Among the recent-day translators, a few are well known.  There is Kabir Helmiski, who is the head of a branch of Mawlawi devishes. He received his instructions and initiation in Turkey from Sulaiman Dede, the famous Maalawi shaykh and spiritual teacher. Helminski has his own group and they preform actually the Mawlawi rites, that is, the prayers, the invocation, and the sacred concert (sama). They are Muslim, they perform their daily prayers, and then do their turning. He also translates Rumi, but unfortunately it is not from Persian but from the Turkish translation of the Persian of Rumi. The other translators who are well known include Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, Andrew Harvey, and others like them who might be poetically gifted but do not know any Persian. They usually go to the Nicholson translation and they try to paraphrase his words from his style of English to modern American English to be able to reflect the flavor of contemporary American poetry. Sometimes they receive the help of a Persian or an Afghan whose mother tongue is Persian. But the great scholars of Rumi in the West, such as Annemarie Schimmel and also my old friend William Chittick who wrote the book The Sufi Path of Love on Jalal al-Din Rumi, have been very much opposed to this kind of translation. Yet, at the same time, as I said, the wide reception of these popular translations represents the reality of the thirst that exists in America at the present moment . . .

R.J.: For spirituality.

S.H.N.: Exactly, for spirituality, a thirst that is unavoidable, seeing the condition of human society in America today. This is something that is going to continue to exist. . ."

Seyyed Hossin Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred, pp. 164-165

Continuing on from our discussion yesterday, here is Nasr discussing the American propensity for spiritual consumerism. The Coleman Barks works on Rumi are very popular, and I know I've used them myself. Years ago I edited a world civilization document reader for McGraw-Hill and I'm pretty certain the Rumi section I included was the Barks translation. I made the point the other day to a student that as much as I love Nasr there are times that he definitely makes he feel like a complete poser, both as a scholar and as a Muslim. Still, as we know from Mencius, the Heart of Shame is essential for human intellectual and moral improvement, so i guess I should thank God for Nasr on that front as well. In addition, the question of the American thirst for spirituality is a fascinating and key concept, and one that will doubtless run throughout this year.  I know am determined to pick up the Rumi translations that Nasr suggested (Schimmel wrote the book on the Mughals that we used this semester in my Indian travel course).