Celebration of Rumi

Tomorrow, December 17, is the Urs of Rumi – the anniversary of the death of the Sufi poet Rumi – which is observed by Sufis in much the same way a “feast day” is observed in liturgical Christian churches. (Sufis sometimes refer to one’s death day as a “wedding day” when one is reunited with the Divine Beloved.)

Tomorrow afternoon, some of us in the Atlanta Sufi community will gather to celebrate the Urs of Rumi by sharing poems, writings, prayers, and dances based on his writings. In going through some of Rumi’s many beautiful poems, I came across the following gems which I plan to share at the celebration tomorrow:


People of the Path
who know
the secret of meaning
are hidden from the eyes
of the narrow-minded.

Ironically, though,
everyone who comes to know
the divine Reality
possesses the purest faith –
but is labeled an “unbeliever”
by the pious.

~ from Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition,
translated from the Persian by David and Sabrineh Fideler


Love is here; it is the blood in my veins, my skin.
I am destroyed; He has filled me with Passion.
His fire has flooded the nerves of my body.
Who am I? Just my name; the rest is Him.

~ from Perfume of the Desert, ed. by Andrew Harvey & Eryk Hanuk


“We came whirling out of nothingness scattering stars like dust. The stars made a circle and in the middle we dance. Turning, and turning it sunders all attachment. Every atom turns bewildered – and it is only God circling Himself.”

~ from In Search of the Hidden Treasure,
by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan