ABSTRACT
In previous chapters on Rumi’s practical mysticism, the concept of love was addressed on various occasions. Here, in the final chapter of this part, this fundamental notion of his Sufism will be examined more closely, particularly with regard to its pivotal function in man’s mystical advancement, as an essential link between practices and stages. The subject of love and the terms referring to it—mainly ‘ishq and maḥabba—are found most often in Rumi’s Dīvān, wherein his personal experience of love is expressed more clearly and directly. 1 As the most central motif of his mysticism, it is the spirit and connecting force of the teachings of Rumi in their entirety throughout his works, especially those belonging to the period after the dawn of Shams al-Din Tabrizi in his life. 2 Before Rumi, the concept of love was explained and elaborated not only by numerous Sufis 3 but also by philosophers such as Avicenna, in his Risāla fī al-‘ishq (“Treatise on Love”), 4 and the writers of Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ (“Epistles of the Brethren of Purity”), particularly in the thirty-seventh epistle on the nature of love, 5 in which one can see the influence of the Platonic doctrine of love. However, it is no easy task to identify other Sufis with such an intense personal experience of love as Rumi, in whose mysticism love penetrates so deeply in both its theoretical and practical aspects, and nor is it presented in such lofty poetry elsewhere. 6 Although love plays a crucial role in both Rumi’s metaphysics of creation, which regards love as the motivating force in the creation of the whole universe, 7 and in his practical way of return, in this section we concentrate more on the latter role, its function in traveling through various mystical stations. 8
