Shams Tabrizi
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- For the missionary, see Shams Tabraiz (missionary).
Shams-e-Tabrizi (Persian: شمس تبریزی , d. 1248) was an Iranian Sufi mystic born in the city of Tabriz in Iranian Azerbaijan. He is responsible for initiating Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, usually known as Rumi in the West, into Islamic mysticism, and is immortalized by Rumi's poetry collection Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i ("The Works of Shams of Tabriz"). Shams lived together with Rumi in Konya, in present-day Turkey, for several years, and is also known to have travelled to Damascus in present-day Syria.
After several years with Rumi, Shams vanished from the pages of history quite suddenly. Although it is not known what became of him after his departure from Rumi, his gravesite is in a remote region of the Karakorams in Northern Pakistan at a place called Ziarat not far from the village of Shimshall. Rumi's love for Shams, and his bereavement at his death, found expression in an outpouring of music, dance, and lyric poems. Rumi himself left Konya and went out searching for Shams, journeying as far as Damascus before realizing that Shams and himself were, in fact, "one and the same" [1]
As the years passed, Rumi attributed more and more of his own poetry to Shams as a sign of love for his departed friend and master. Indeed, it quickly becomes clear in reading Rumi that Shams was elevated to a symbol of God's love for mankind, and that Shams was a sun ("Shams" is Arabic for "sun") shining the Light of God on Rumi.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- E.G. Browne. Literary History of Persia. (Four volumes, 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing). 1998. ISBN 0-7007-0406-X
- Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. ASIN B-000-6BXVT-K
