7 ms·

The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi (2017)

37 points by sokols 5y ago

scrubs 5y ago
I've read Rumi. Now, if you know the C Jung quote paraphrasing that, in the end all human problems are unsolvable from inside the package in which they came, and that change happens from a new perspective which itself requires a new, higher charging life force you might like Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.
PraetorianGourd 5y ago
A lot of "new-age" style spiritual/self-help contexts abuse and debase original intent to present a prepackaged "ready to eat" style of insight and guidance. Though the motivations in undermining the context of Rumi by removing Islam may be more nefarious, the same thing happens with Stoicism. Take a few aphorisms, oversimplify them as an answer to a complex problem and repeat. Much like Rumi can't be read without the context of Islam, Seneca or Epictetus can't be understood without the metaphysics of Stoicism, but endless volumes of self-help books disagree. I may be the wrong one in light of that.
- hinkley 5y ago
  Check out secular buddhism, same (general) thing is going on there as well. And don't get me started on Mindfulness. It's hard to say with certainty where these things are 'back to basics' versus a high-brow form of cultural appropriation. Western, lower-case-p philosophy has been accused countless times of being reductive in nature (and our relationship to Nature is perhaps one of the clearest cases of this). You would think that studying eastern philosophy and indigenous ways of thinking/being would counteract that, but even that is breaking down now.
  - HDMI_Cable 5y ago
    I don't think this is something endemic to the West, or even America in general. America and the West has produced a lot of upper-case Philosophy, like Satre and Camus (although they're French). This seems more like a problem of our current moment, where previous religious doctrines -- like Catholicism, Orthodox Islam, & traditional American Protestantism -- don't really fit anymore, and new ones haven't taken hold yet. Mix that with our very busy and efficient culture, and you get all of this mindfulness stuff.
- microtherion 5y ago
  If it's any consolation, self-help literature doesn't do that just to other people's culture. The transformation of the Christian message into contemporary "Prosperity Gospel" is downright bizarre.
dang 5y ago
It's true, of course, but the alternative seems to be the erasure of poetry from the poetry of Rumi. Here's a sample of the translation they recommend at the end: I'm now compelled through uttering Shams' name To tell you of his gifts and spread his fame Hosamoddin has flung me by my skirt So I can breathe in scent from Joseph's shirt https://books.google.com/books?id=icAlT_hrlTUC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=%22Hosamoddin+has+flung+me+by+my+skirt%22&source=bl&ots=gYNNHIgZ6B&sig=ACfU3U1FvoqOoeNwkBff9n2PYYVtcvf3Qg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt5OSNs9HwAhXUsZ4KHS_wDeIQ6AEwAHoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=icAlT_hrlTUC&pg=PA12&lpg=P... Now, it's not a fair comparison, but I think it makes the point. Barks' Rumi became such an unlikely best-seller because the poetry is breathtaking.
- morelisp 5y ago
  Ah, this is reminiscent of best-worst translation of the Tao Te Ching from Suzuki & Carus. The valley spirit not expires, Mysterious woman ’tis called by the sires. The mysterious woman's door, to boot, Is called of heaven and earth the root. Forever and aye it seems to endure And its use is without effort sure
  - dang 5y ago
    Ouch. There's a conflict between the scholarly impulse and the poetic one. T.S. Eliot famously observed that great poets were shameless about stealing. Probably they're equally shameless about omitting things. I read the OP a year ago, as well as a Twitter thread that was sharply criticizing Barks for what the critic felt was dishonest distortion in the famous "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there." The next morning, by coincidence, I was listening to an online talk by a Sufi teacher (not a newfangled sort - from one of the ancient orders predating Rumi). To illustrate the theme of his talk, what did he quote? "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there." I figure if the Sufi masters themselves are quoting Barks, that's got to count for something.
    - shanhaiguan 5y ago
eternalban 5y ago
How perverse of the New Yorker to omit mention of William C. Chittick in an article regarding Western translation of Mowlana (Rumi) and Shams, and Islam. He is, after all, the definitive and authoritative English translator of Rumi. I just opened my copy of The Sufi Path of Love by Chittick at random. The chapter is called Attainment to God. Here is (a sample of) Chittick's translation (indentations mine): Oh rose, adorn the meadows and laugh for all to see! for you had to hide among the thorns for months. Oh garden, nurture well these new arrivals the tales of whose coming you had heard from the thunder. Oh wind, make the branches dance in the remembrance of the day you wafed over union. Behold these trees, all of them joyful like a gathering of the felicitous Oh violet why are you bent over in heartache? The lily says to the buds: though your eyes are closed they will soon open, for you you have tasted of good fortune. ... I speak of roses, nightingales and the beauties of the garden as a pretext. Why do I do it? For the sake of Love's Jealousy! At any rate, I am describing God's graces. The pride of Tabriz and the world, Shams al-Din [Sun of Religion] has again shown me favor. https://www.williamcchittick.com/ https://www.williamcchittick.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157126.Sufi_Path_of_Love https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157126.Sufi_Path_of_Love
HDMI_Cable 5y ago
It's so annoying that when talking about poetry and religion, the author just has to involve current politics. > Islam is regularly diagnosed as a “cancer,” including by General Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national-security adviser, and, even today, This was in the middle of a paragraph about new-age books. How is this relevant? It's so annoying how everything has to do with modern politics.

37 points by sokols 5y ago

I've read Rumi. Now, if you know the C Jung quote paraphrasing that, in the end all human problems are unsolvable from inside the package in which they came, and that change happens from a new perspective which itself requires a new, higher charging life force you might like Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.

PraetorianGourd 5y ago

A lot of "new-age" style spiritual/self-help contexts abuse and debase original intent to present a prepackaged "ready to eat" style of insight and guidance. Though the motivations in undermining the context of Rumi by removing Islam may be more nefarious, the same thing happens with Stoicism. Take a few aphorisms, oversimplify them as an answer to a complex problem and repeat. Much like Rumi can't be read without the context of Islam, Seneca or Epictetus can't be understood without the metaphysics of Stoicism, but endless volumes of self-help books disagree. I may be the wrong one in light of that.

hinkley 5y ago
Check out secular buddhism, same (general) thing is going on there as well. And don't get me started on Mindfulness. It's hard to say with certainty where these things are 'back to basics' versus a high-brow form of cultural appropriation. Western, lower-case-p philosophy has been accused countless times of being reductive in nature (and our relationship to Nature is perhaps one of the clearest cases of this). You would think that studying eastern philosophy and indigenous ways of thinking/being would counteract that, but even that is breaking down now.
- HDMI_Cable 5y ago
  I don't think this is something endemic to the West, or even America in general. America and the West has produced a lot of upper-case Philosophy, like Satre and Camus (although they're French). This seems more like a problem of our current moment, where previous religious doctrines -- like Catholicism, Orthodox Islam, & traditional American Protestantism -- don't really fit anymore, and new ones haven't taken hold yet. Mix that with our very busy and efficient culture, and you get all of this mindfulness stuff.
microtherion 5y ago
If it's any consolation, self-help literature doesn't do that just to other people's culture. The transformation of the Christian message into contemporary "Prosperity Gospel" is downright bizarre.

dang 5y ago

It's true, of course, but the alternative seems to be the erasure of poetry from the poetry of Rumi. Here's a sample of the translation they recommend at the end: I'm now compelled through uttering Shams' name To tell you of his gifts and spread his fame Hosamoddin has flung me by my skirt So I can breathe in scent from Joseph's shirt https://books.google.com/books?id=icAlT_hrlTUC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=%22Hosamoddin+has+flung+me+by+my+skirt%22&source=bl&ots=gYNNHIgZ6B&sig=ACfU3U1FvoqOoeNwkBff9n2PYYVtcvf3Qg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt5OSNs9HwAhXUsZ4KHS_wDeIQ6AEwAHoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=icAlT_hrlTUC&pg=PA12&lpg=P... Now, it's not a fair comparison, but I think it makes the point. Barks' Rumi became such an unlikely best-seller because the poetry is breathtaking.

morelisp 5y ago
Ah, this is reminiscent of best-worst translation of the Tao Te Ching from Suzuki & Carus. The valley spirit not expires, Mysterious woman ’tis called by the sires. The mysterious woman's door, to boot, Is called of heaven and earth the root. Forever and aye it seems to endure And its use is without effort sure
- dang 5y ago
  Ouch. There's a conflict between the scholarly impulse and the poetic one. T.S. Eliot famously observed that great poets were shameless about stealing. Probably they're equally shameless about omitting things. I read the OP a year ago, as well as a Twitter thread that was sharply criticizing Barks for what the critic felt was dishonest distortion in the famous "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there." The next morning, by coincidence, I was listening to an online talk by a Sufi teacher (not a newfangled sort - from one of the ancient orders predating Rumi). To illustrate the theme of his talk, what did he quote? "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there." I figure if the Sufi masters themselves are quoting Barks, that's got to count for something.
  - shanhaiguan 5y ago

eternalban 5y ago

How perverse of the New Yorker to omit mention of William C. Chittick in an article regarding Western translation of Mowlana (Rumi) and Shams, and Islam. He is, after all, the definitive and authoritative English translator of Rumi. I just opened my copy of The Sufi Path of Love by Chittick at random. The chapter is called Attainment to God. Here is (a sample of) Chittick's translation (indentations mine): Oh rose, adorn the meadows and laugh for all to see! for you had to hide among the thorns for months. Oh garden, nurture well these new arrivals the tales of whose coming you had heard from the thunder. Oh wind, make the branches dance in the remembrance of the day you wafed over union. Behold these trees, all of them joyful like a gathering of the felicitous Oh violet why are you bent over in heartache? The lily says to the buds: though your eyes are closed they will soon open, for you you have tasted of good fortune. ... I speak of roses, nightingales and the beauties of the garden as a pretext. Why do I do it? For the sake of Love's Jealousy! At any rate, I am describing God's graces. The pride of Tabriz and the world, Shams al-Din [Sun of Religion] has again shown me favor. https://www.williamcchittick.com/ https://www.williamcchittick.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157126.Sufi_Path_of_Love https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157126.Sufi_Path_of_Love

HDMI_Cable 5y ago

It's so annoying that when talking about poetry and religion, the author just has to involve current politics. > Islam is regularly diagnosed as a “cancer,” including by General Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national-security adviser, and, even today, This was in the middle of a paragraph about new-age books. How is this relevant? It's so annoying how everything has to do with modern politics.