Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi

The title translates to "The Works of Shams of Tabriz." "Divan" is a Persian and Arabic term for a collection of poems, particularly those of a single author. "Shams" means "sun," and "Tabrizi" refers to the city of Tabriz, the origin of Rumi's influential companion, Shams. The collection is named in his honor, signifying his illumination of Rumi's soul.

Divan-i Kabir (Persian: دیوان کبیر), also known as Divan-i Shams (دیوان شمس) and Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi (دیوان شمس تبریزی), is a collection of poems written by the Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi. A compilation of lyric poems written in the Persian language, it contains more than 40,000 verses and over 3,000 ghazals. While following the long tradition of Sufi poetry as well as the traditional metrical conventions of ghazals, the poems in the Divan showcase Rumi’s unique, trance-like poetic style...

To read the Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi is to step into a whirlwind of spiritual fervor, a testament to the alchemical power of love and loss. Rumi, the great 13th-century poet and mystic, poured his soul into these verses, not as mere literary exercises, but as the very breath of his transformed being. The collection is named in honor of Shams-i Tabrizi, the enigmatic dervish whose presence ignited Rumi's spiritual awakening. The loss of Shams, his subsequent disappearance, plunged Rumi into a profound abyss, from which emerged this torrent of poetry.

These are not poems of quiet contemplation; they are ecstatic cries, passionate declarations, and the dizzying dance of a soul intoxicated by the divine. Mircea Eliade, in his studies of mysticism, often highlighted the importance of ecstatic states, and Rumi's Divan is a prime example of such an experience rendered into language. The verses pulsate with the agony of separation and the rapture of reunion, mirroring the Sufi path of ishq, divine love, which is both a burning fire and a sweet intoxication.

The language itself is a form of spiritual practice. Rumi employs a breathtaking array of metaphors, often drawing from the natural world—the sun, the ocean, the rose—to describe the indescribable. His poetry, as Annemarie Schimmel notes in her extensive work on Rumi, is a direct expression of the heart's journey, a journey that leads through the annihilation of the ego (nafs) to the realization of the divine within. The seemingly chaotic exuberance of the Divan reflects the breakdown of ordinary consciousness, the shedding of the self's limitations to embrace a vaster reality. It is a reminder that true wisdom is often found not in intellectual dissection, but in the surrender of the self to the overwhelming presence of the Beloved.

RELATED_TERMS: Divine Love, Mystical Ecstasy, Annihilation of Self, Spiritual Love, Beloved, Union with God, Sufi Poetry, Rumi