"There is nothing wrong with the popularization of Sufi poetry in the West as we find in the Islamic world itself, and in fact the impact that Persian Sufi literature has made and was bound to make globally is unavoidable. Look what happened when this poetry was first translated in the 19th century in Europe. At that time there was no pseudo-Sufis and gurus who could make a great deal of money from them, but it influenced people such as Goethe and Rilke, who were great poets. And also in England many poets such as Tennyson were influenced by it and that was unavoidable. What I mean is that once the poetic art and poetic depth of someone like Rumi or Jami is made available, people will want to read them. The tragedy in America today is that in many cases this has become commercialized and has become part of a kind of, you might say, spiritual consumerism in a society in which there is so much consumerism and everything in the society encourages consumerism.
For many Americans, not everybody, but many people in America, there is the feeling that everything must be available in such a way as to be easily consumable and digestible, like taking a pill. Then people grow weary of one product and throw it away to go to something else."
Seyyed Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred, p. 164
And since I was just singing his praises, here's a lovely passage from In Search of the Sacred, which is an extended interview with Seyyed Nasr. I think you clearly have something to say when your interview stretches to three hundred pages. This reminds me of our Skype session from the other day, except in this case he wasn't self-editing his answers in response to questions from a group of non-major undergraduates and instead is talking with another philosopher. I purchased this book the other day and it is a beautiful book that I'm just starting. The topics range from the sports he played at university to the balancing act between the esoteric and exoteric worlds of faith, so I definitely will have my hands full (quite happily). In this passage he discusses the popularity of the Sufi poet Rumi, who, as we know, is always one of the top, if not the top, selling poets in America every year. Nasr certainly has no problem with people reading Rumi, but rather how they are approaching reading Rumi or any of the other Sufi poets. Instead of studying Rumi we consume Rumi, in nice little bite size chunks. And I'm often as guilty of this as anyone else so don't think that I'm placing myself in some separate intellectually and morally purified category. Years ago my sister Beth asked me to speak at her wedding and I chose passages from Rumi as inspiration, and I know that I selected them from the most popularized, friendly translation possible without any sense of studying the deeper meaning. Now, going back to Nasr's original point, I wasn't doing anything nefarious and my words were well-received, and maybe I introduced Rumi to an audience who had never heard of him, but I was also clearly trading in a consumer friendly version of one of the most beautiful and complex thinkers of all time.
Reflecting back on all this I do think it's funny that years ago when this occurred, long before I ever converted to Islam or even thought about converting, I was drawn to Rumi. Many mainstream Muslims have sort of a tortured relationship with the Sufis, and they, like the Ahmadiyya I discussed earlier, also are sometimes persecuted by extremists inside of the faith. When I was talking to our old Imam about my interest in converting and he asked why, naturally. As part of an extended answer I mentioned my long love of the Sufi poets, and he smiled and said, "Yeah, about that . . ." He wasn't critical, just making a subtle and funny reference to the faith's peculiar relationship with Sufism. Maybe even back in the days of my sister's wedding I was searching, but that's tomorrow's topic.
For many Americans, not everybody, but many people in America, there is the feeling that everything must be available in such a way as to be easily consumable and digestible, like taking a pill. Then people grow weary of one product and throw it away to go to something else."
Seyyed Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred, p. 164
And since I was just singing his praises, here's a lovely passage from In Search of the Sacred, which is an extended interview with Seyyed Nasr. I think you clearly have something to say when your interview stretches to three hundred pages. This reminds me of our Skype session from the other day, except in this case he wasn't self-editing his answers in response to questions from a group of non-major undergraduates and instead is talking with another philosopher. I purchased this book the other day and it is a beautiful book that I'm just starting. The topics range from the sports he played at university to the balancing act between the esoteric and exoteric worlds of faith, so I definitely will have my hands full (quite happily). In this passage he discusses the popularity of the Sufi poet Rumi, who, as we know, is always one of the top, if not the top, selling poets in America every year. Nasr certainly has no problem with people reading Rumi, but rather how they are approaching reading Rumi or any of the other Sufi poets. Instead of studying Rumi we consume Rumi, in nice little bite size chunks. And I'm often as guilty of this as anyone else so don't think that I'm placing myself in some separate intellectually and morally purified category. Years ago my sister Beth asked me to speak at her wedding and I chose passages from Rumi as inspiration, and I know that I selected them from the most popularized, friendly translation possible without any sense of studying the deeper meaning. Now, going back to Nasr's original point, I wasn't doing anything nefarious and my words were well-received, and maybe I introduced Rumi to an audience who had never heard of him, but I was also clearly trading in a consumer friendly version of one of the most beautiful and complex thinkers of all time.
Reflecting back on all this I do think it's funny that years ago when this occurred, long before I ever converted to Islam or even thought about converting, I was drawn to Rumi. Many mainstream Muslims have sort of a tortured relationship with the Sufis, and they, like the Ahmadiyya I discussed earlier, also are sometimes persecuted by extremists inside of the faith. When I was talking to our old Imam about my interest in converting and he asked why, naturally. As part of an extended answer I mentioned my long love of the Sufi poets, and he smiled and said, "Yeah, about that . . ." He wasn't critical, just making a subtle and funny reference to the faith's peculiar relationship with Sufism. Maybe even back in the days of my sister's wedding I was searching, but that's tomorrow's topic.
No comments:
Post a Comment