By Raheel Lakhani
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field; I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about. -Rumi
When one reads the Persian mystic Rumi allegorically, it feels as if both the creator and the created are speaking. As if Truth is saying that He dwells beyond the fields of paradise and hell, essentially everywhere and the creation shows readiness to indulge in love and praise of HIM. If this talk of sacredness is outside the measures of right and wrong then Rumi here is inviting us to embrace pluralism while appreciating God’s creation.
The notion of love is presented as a cornerstone for developing pluralistic spirit in the poetry of two most eminent mystic poets of Persia and Sindh, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi and Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai respectively. The paper elucidates the concept of love as described by these two mystics, the Ihsani traditions which have emerged from these concepts and the way these traditions promote the pluralistic practices. More blogs.aaj.tv.
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