Topic 42: Shams

Carol:

The Poet and the Dervish

       
A 1997 Christian Science Monitor article identified the most popular poet in America that year as a 13th century Persian Sufi mystic named Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, better known to us as Rumi. American poet Coleman Barks is currently his best-known translator with sales of over 250 million copies of various Rumi collections. (Source: Christian Science Monitor 11/27/1997)  I own  Barks’ The Glance: Songs of Soul-Meeting, a collection of  80 free-verse poems from about 12-25 lines in length published in 1999.
 

Rumi

Middle-eastern scholars such as UCLA Professor Majid Nacify criticize Barks for commercializing Rumi to fit the tastes of New Age readers;his best-sellers are too little Rumi and too much Barks,who “tries to disconnect the mystical concepts of Rumi from their historical and social backgrounds and modify them for our contemporary tastes” (Source: Majid Naficy).   Barks acknowledges  that he neither translates the literal words (he can’t read Persian) nor the literary forms of Rumi, but hopes to capture the “fire and the ecstasy” of the original, In The Glance Barks interprets verses that were first translated into Turkish from the14th century Farsi version of the Dīwān-e Kabīr, then translated from the Turkish into English by Nevit Ergin. Other translators have shown more fidelity to the original verses but lack the poetic energy of Barks. (Source: Barks 95).  

What of the poet himself, his Islamic culture and religious roots in Sufism? According to several sources, perhaps the most significant event in Rumi’s life came after he had become a lawyer, a religious leader and Islamic preacher. In 1244 Rumi met a Muslim religious man from Tabriz, a wandering mystic and dervish who became Rumi’s spiritual teacher and beloved friend.  The intensity of their love for each other and the depth of Rumi’s bereavement after his teacher’s death found their expression in music, dance, and in the thousands of lines of poetry. Sometimes the poet describes their relationship through simple images, as in  “Friend, you are Moses. I the wooden walking stick”(44). Sometimes, the language is more lyrical: “The singer sings about love, until the Friend appears in the doorway” (Barks 29).

American readers may connect to  a universal theme in these verses,  imagining in the poetry their own passions and romantic relationships with “soul mates.” However, according to ProfessorNacify, “love for Rumi has two mutually exclusive parts: corporal and spiritual. A male sufi can only reach spiritual love, that is, devotion to God, prophets and sufi masters if he avoids corporal passions” (Nacify 2). Contemporary readers may not be able to grasp the depth or sacredness of the relationship between Rumi and his spiritual master, the dervish Shams ad-Dîn Tabrîzî:

                                                       A
transparent tree grows in the night sky

orchard where I have found a little
corner to be in,. as when two planets

intersect. I have met Shams.  (“Transparent Tree” Barks 57)

Whatever the controversy about Coleman Barks, he has introduced American readers to one of the Muslim world’s most revered poets and mystics. And through Rumi, we have met Shams.

Cover of 15th Century manuscript.

Sources:

Barks, Coleman.  The Glance. Songs of Soul-Meeting. New York: Penguin, 1999.

Marks, Alexandra. “Persian Poet Top Seller In America.” Christian Science Monitor

Nacify, Majid. “Coleman Barks and Rumi's Donkey.”
Rumi biography
Shams-i- Tabrizi
       

Megan:

The Definition of 'Sham'

 "One cannot too highly praise the perfect justice and candor of the pillow."

Shams…  as usual, I need a definition:
1: a trick that deludes: hoax
2: cheap falseness: hypocrisy  

3: an ornamental covering for a pillow
4: an imitation or counterfeit purporting to be genuine
5: a person who shams – (WORD IN DEFINITION = MY PET PEEVE)

There’s an essay in our book called “The Friendly Pillow,” and it’s all about how our pillow is our friend. It has made rethink my relationship with pillows and realize I had never appreciated all that a pillow can do. Makes me wish I had a special pillow, instead of whichever one I happen to land on when I finally pass out for the night.

 "If you outline to your pillow the plot of your new story, it does not point out flaws or nail incongruities. It is patient; it waits for you to see them yourself. If you softly whistle to it the theme of an embryonic sonata, it does not hint plagiarism, or in any other way convey disapproval" (132).

If I were the type of person who wrote my stories out loud, instead of with my hand, this might work for me. Or maybe the author is suggesting a telepathic connection with the pillow (after all, pillows have no ears), sort of like editorial support by osmosis.  

The author continues, enumerating more ways our pillow listens to us, and, like, muffles our cries, and absorbs our tears, and

“There is nothing about it of pretense, -- unless possibly the sham ; and that, thank Heaven, is obsolescent. You always remove the sham, too, before getting at close quarters with the pillow ; whereas, in the case of most people, the sham, whatever there is of it, is fixed” (132).

OK now he's gone too far. I concede the interesting point made about how you can remove the artifice of the pillowcase, but not the façade presented by a person – fair enough and well stated.  My objection now concerns the word “obsolescent” which, according to Merriam and Webster, means “going out of use.” What scientific advances were occurring in the 1920’s that suggested it would soon be sanitary to use a pillow without a (washable) sham? Have you ever looked at a bare pillow? It’s totally gross. What sort of “close quarters” was the author aiming for – how much closer to a pillow can you get beyond resting your face upon it for 8ish hours? Was the author anticipating the total annihilation of drool, hair oil and nose bleeds? Not that pillowcases prevent those nasty events either – they just cover up the evidence.

That’s why they‘re called shams.

 

What else was the author wrong about?