His desire was endless, and he was always thirsty. Muhammad’s capacity was unlimited and could never be filled. He lost himself completely and was filled with God. "So, why is it then that Muhammad said to God, ‘I didn’t know you as I should have,’ while Bayazid proclaimed, ‘Glory be to me! How exalted is my Glory! ?" Rumi explained that Muhammad was the greater of the two, because Bayazid could be filled to capacity by a single experience of divine blessings. "What a strange question! Muhammad is greater than all the saints," Rumi replied. “Who was the greater mystic, Bayazid or Muhammad?” Shams demanded. Shams caught hold of the reins of his donkey and rudely challenged the master with two questions. His reply was, "Something you do not understand." Īnother version of the first encounter is this: In the marketplace of Konya, amid the cotton stalls, sugar vendors, and vegetable stands, Rumi rode through the street, surrounded by his students.
Shams asks Rumi what he is doing, to which Rumi replies, "Something that you do not understand!" At that moment, the books suddenly catch fire and Rumi asks Shams to explain what happened. Rumi regards him as an uneducated stranger. Rumi then asked Shams, "What is this?" To which Shams replied, "Mowlana, this is what you cannot understand." (This is knowledge that cannot be understood by the learned.)Ī second version of the tale has Shams passing by Rumi who again is reading a book. Rumi hastily rescued the books and to his surprise they were all dry. Shams Tabriz, passing by, asked him, "What are you doing?" Rumi scoffingly replied, "Something you cannot understand." (This is knowledge that cannot be understood by the unlearned.) On hearing this, Shams threw the stack of books into a nearby pool of water. One day Rumi was reading next to a large stack of books. As it was said in Haji Bektash Veli's book, "Makalat", he was looking for something. He was claiming to be a travelling merchant. On 15 November 1244, a man in a black suit from head to toe, came to the famous inn of Sugar Merchants of Konya. The specificities of how this transference occurred, however, are not yet known. The transference of the epithet to the biography of Rumi’s mentor suggests that this Imam’s biography must have been known to Shams-i Tabrīzī’s biographers. This however, is not the occupation listed by Haji Bektash Veli in the Maqālat and was rather the epithet given to the Ismaili Imam Shams al-din Muhammad, who worked as an embroiderer while living in anonymity in Tabriz. Despite his occupation as a weaver, Shams received the epithet of “the embroiderer” ( zarduz) in various biographical accounts including that of the Persian historian Dawlatshah. Before meeting Rumi, he apparently traveled from place to place weaving baskets and selling girdles for a living. Shams received his education in Tabriz and was a disciple of Baba Kamal al-Din Jumdi. However, various scholars have questioned Aflaki’s reliability.
Apparently basing his calculations on Haji Bektash Veli's Maqālāt ( Conversations), Aflaki suggests that Shams arrived in Konya at the age of sixty years. In a work entitled Manāqib al-‘arifīn ( Eulogies of the Gnostics), Aflaki names a certain ‘Ali as the father of Shams-i Tabrīzī and his grandfather as Malikdad. Brooklyn MuseumĪccording to Sipah Salar, a devotee and intimate friend of Rumi who spent forty days with him, Shams was the son of the Imam Ala al-Din.