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It is wrong to associate Rumi with a single order and view him as strictly confined within the rules of a single order. We have thought about Rumi's order before the Mevlevi order. Four or five years after Rumi had lost Sayyid Burhan al-Din Tirmidhi, he met Shams of Tabriz. Shams became Rumi's "shaykh of company, " but not his spiritual guide. But he took him from the scholastic path to the path of Divine Love. Rumi was no longer a serious scholar in the university busy with lecturing and educating students. He began to view the path of the Prophet as a path of love unlike some university scholars who were stuck in formalities and thought of the path of the Prophet as a path of Islamic Law (shari'ah); "The path of the Prophet is the path of love. We are born of love, and love is our mother. O our mother hidden within our physical existence composed of flesh and blood! O our Creator, concealed beyond our faithless nature that cannot grasp the truth! Rumi proceeded ever further, leaving behind all orders and religions to attain the truth and God: "The religion of love is different from all other religions. The religion and creed of the lovers is God. "
This view should not be misunderstood as Rumi denouncing all religions and creeds. On the contrary, he saw the essence of the religions and creeds. He expressed that no matter to what religion or to what creed people belonged, they all sought God according to Divine Predestination and Divine Manifestation. Some go to mosques, some to churches, and some to synagogues. But they all plead with God in their own language and according to their own religion. As a gnostic poet says: "O God! Sometimes I go to the church and sometimes I stay in the mosque. That is I seek you house by house. "
Referring to the subject of particular orders, Rumi says in the Mesnevi:
Islamic Law is like a candle. It sheds light and shows the way One cannot reach the destination solely by taking the candle in the hand, but one cannot start walking down the path without taking the candle in hand either. Once you start walking on the path in the light of Islamic Law, your walking is the Way (tariqah). And when you reach your destination, then that is the Truth. Therefore, it is said that if the truths were revealed, the Laws would have been invalidated. Indeed, if copper is turned into gold with alchemy; then there remains no need for alchemy. In other words, the processing of copper according to alchemy is not needed anymore. It is for this reason that they said: "It is inappropriate to seek a guide after one has reached a destination under guidance. But it is also inappropriate to abandon the guide before reaching the destination for which one needs a guide. "
In short, Islamic Law is like learning the science of alchemy from a teacher or from a book. The Way is like obtaining the elixir and treating copper with the elixir according to alchemy.And the Truth is copper becoming gold with the effect of alchemy. Those who know alchemy are happy that they possess this knowledge. The practitioners of this craft are happy that they do things that not everybody can do. And those attaining the truth are happy to have attained the truth and say: "We have become gold. We are free from the knowledge of alchemy We do not have to treat copper with the elixir anymore. We are free servants of God. We have no attachment to anything. “Every group is happy with what they have attained. Everybody is pleased with the path they are on.
In another analogy, Islamic Law is likened to learning the science of medicine. The Way is using medication and dieting according to the knowledge of medicine. And Truth is attaining everlasting goodness and health and hence deliverance from the need of medicine. When a man passes away from this world and dies, the jurisdiction of Law and the Way is lifted from him, but the truth remains in the following senses.
Islamic Law is likened to a candle, a source of light that shows the way. After stressing the importance of the Law by saying "one cannot start walking the path without taking the candle in hand,” he states that the Way is the walking on the path in the light of the Law, and Truth is when one reaches the destination walking the Way in the light of the Law. Expressions, such as "if the truths were revealed, the Law would have been invalidated" and "it is inappropriate to seek a guide after one has reached a destination under guidance, but it is also inappropriate to abandon the guide before reaching the destination for which one needs a guide, " are very misleading. Therefore, we must be very careful and reflect deeply in order that these statements not mislead readers to invalid con clusions. Is one supposed to throw away the Law and its commandments just like an outdated lamp after attaining the truth? Will it be inappropriate for one to seek the Law once one has attained the truth to where the Law had been the guide? These words of Rumi should not be taken in the wrong sense.
My dear readers please think about this statement. Are the daily prayers, which our utmost beloved Prophet counted as "the ascension of the believer" and described as "the light of my eye" an enjoyable duty for the believer or a burden and unnecessary task? A person who annihilated his existence in God with volun-tary death is the happy person blessed with attaining the secret: "Die before you actually die.” Is such a person supposed to aban-don his obligatory worship prescribed by Islamic Law? Is he not going to perform daily prayers, fast, or remember God anymore? No, my readers, no! Such a person will be closer to God since he now knows the truth and will be attached to the commandments of Islamic Law with even more love and enthusiasm. Such a per-son will be saved from the kind of worship that is confined to form and ostentation and performed with little or no understand-ing. He will be attached to God with love, saying: "I perform my duties neither to enter Paradise nor to escape Hell.” Such a per-son will raise his faith from the level of imitation to the level of realization and like Yunus Emre pleads: "They all say 'Paradise, paradise!' / But it has a few houses and a few houris. / Give them to whoever wants them. / all I want is You, none but You!" Although our Great Prophet had attained the truth of truths, he was praying all night long and His Holy Feet used to swell due to his extraordinarily long worship.
I find it useful to turn to the views of early Sufis concern-ing the subject of Law and Truth. In his Risala, Qushayri writes: "What is Law? The Law is doing whatever is necessary to be a true servant of God and diligently obeying the commandments of God. The Truth is observing the Greatness, Power, Creation, and Art of God in awe. No Law is acceptable other than that supported and approved by the Truth. And no Truth can be accepted other than that which is attached to the Law. Indeed, worshipping God is the Law and observing His Power and Art in His Creating and feeling Him in the heart is the Truth. " Hujwiri writes: "We see no difference between the Law and the Truth. Both are one. What is the Law is the Truth and the Truth is the Law. “Has Yunus Emre not said: "The Law and the Way are paths for those who reach (the destination) The Truth and Gnosis is further inside them"? Nimatullahi Kirmani summarizes Rumi's view in the following quatrain: "Knowing what the religion prescribes is the Law. Practicing the religion according to its rules is the Way. And if you combine religious knowledge and good deeds with sincerity, i. e. perform your acts of worship with the knowledge you acquired, not for any self-interest but only for the sake of God, then that becomes the Truth. "
If we express all these views in brief, we reach the following conclusion: The main idea behind all these discussions is to walk with the guidance of Islamic Law on the Way and thus attain the Truth and enjoy the pleasure of knowing God. It is to love God truly from the heart and to be close to Him. With this forward, Rumi tells us to take the love of God to the forefront, to abstain from being attached to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it, to find the essence of the faith, and to raise our faith from the level of imitation to the level of realization.
Since Rumi, who honored the world seven centuries ago, saw this division among believers, he disapproved of the dervish orders. In his view, there is but one order. And that is the order of Muhammad (tariqat al-mubammadiyyah) and the Way of Divine Love (tariqat al-'ashq al-ilahi}. It is for this reason that Rumi never mentioned the names of dervish orders nor saints associated with dervish orders, neither in the Mesnevi nor in Divan-i Kabir nor his other works.
In Rumi's time there were Qadiriyyah, Rufaiyyah, Suhrawardiyyah, Kubrawiyyah, and Akbariyyah orders. Rumi mentions the names of saints who are not associated with any particular order, such as Bayazid Bistami (d. 848), Dhu al-Nun al-Misri (d. 859) and Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 921), but never mentions the names of saints who were associated with an order, such as Abdal-Qadiral-Jilani (d. 1165), Ahmad Rifa'i (d. 1182), Muhy al-Din Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1239), and even the spiritual guide of his father and the founder of the Kubrawiyyah order, Najm al-Din al-Kubra (d. 1221).
