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Jalaluddin Rumi’s Religious Understanding: A Prelude to Dialogue in the Realm of Religious Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Ahmad Jalali*
Affiliation:
UNESCO, Paris

Extract

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In the course of human civilization, religion has underpinned the development of values of human respect, tolerance, peace, and the culture of peace. Unfortunately, at the same time, religion has also played the opposite role during some periods of history. Therefore, it is important to investigate how and to what extent religious faiths, or if I may say more accurately religious paradigms, have been and are ready to educate their believers in the above-mentioned value support system, and how they could set about so doing. How can religion provide us with an ambiance and a paradigm within which we can create an atmosphere of dialogue among different value systems? In this brief article, I try to seek light from the teachings of the great Persian thinker and poet, Jalaluddin Mowlavi Rumi, to be able to elaborate on this topic.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2003

References

Notes

1. See the preamble of Abul-Hasan Kharaqani, Noor al-uloom, edited by Abd Al-Rafie Haqiqat, Offset Publishers, Tehran, 1984; see also Bastani Parizi, Hemaseh-ye Kavir, p. 404.

2. The third verse of Chapter 112 of the Holy Quran.

3. This sentence refers to a hadith of the Prophet which states: ‘The thing that I love most of all that God created on this earth is granting a slave freedom, and the thing that I hate most of all that God created on this earth is divorce’.

4. Jalaluddin Rumi, Mathnavi Manavi, Second Book, pp. 105-7, Kolaleh-Khavar (Ramezani) edition, Padideh Publishers, Tehran, 1987.

5. Mathnavi Manavi, Third Book, p.157.

6. Jalaluddin Rumi, Divan Kabir Shams.

7. Mathnavi Manavi, Second Book, p.136

8. The Holy Quran, chapter al-Baqarah, verse 115.

9. Abul-Hasan Kharaqani, 1984, op. cit.

10. See, for example, Mathnavi Manavi, Second Book, p. 34, line 32; Fifth Book, p. 313, line 17.

11. The Holy Quran, chapter Zumar, verse 39.

12. The Holy Quran, chapter Al-Mulk, verse 10.

13. Preamble of the Constitution of UNESCO adopted in London on 16 November 1945.

14. Mathnavi Manavi, First Book, p. 26, lines 35-7.

15. Ibid., First Book, p. 36, line 24.

16. Ibid., First Book, p. 36, line 26.

17. Ibid., Fourth Book, p. 223, lines 7-8.