The Concept of Suffering from the Rumi’s Point of View

Subject Areas : Christianity

فاطمه  لاجوردی ¹ (ندارد)
زینب  ابراهیمی ² (ندارد)

Received: 2009-07-15 Accepted : 2009-08-16 Published : 2009-03-21

Keywords: suffering, creation, Love, freedom of choice, Determinism,

Abstract :

As a fact of sentient life, suffering is a concomitant problem of thehuman existence. Throughout the history people from differentbackgrounds and points of view, such as psychological, philosophicaland mystical, have tried to solve this problem. Thus suffering, morethan any other fact of human life, raises the philosophical questions thatreligion customarily tries to answer; questions such as: Is there anyrelation between suffering and evil? As the absolute Good, what is therole of God in relation to suffering and evil? What is the best remedy ofhuman suffering? Theists answered to these questions in differentways. Rumi was one of them who tried to find reasonable explanations.His reflections about suffering, as revealed in Mathnavī, can be tracedback to his Islamic beliefs on the one hand, and to the teachings ofBorhān Al-dīn Tirmadhī, a sufi master who emphasized the blame(malāma) and asceticism (riyada), and Shams Tabrizi, who stressed theimportance of love in thariqah (the Path) on the other hand.As a Muslim, Rumi observed the suffering from the Islamic pointof view. Firstly, he referred to creation as the purposeful act of God andthen by explaining the problem of freedom and determinism, describedthe true suffering as the sweet fruit of the Divine love, so much so thata true lover should willingly submit her/himself to it. Rumi’s frequentreferring to Islamic sayings and traditions is the sign of the influence ofreligious teachings on him.