User:HistoryofIran/Shams Tabrizi

Shams Tabrizi was a Sufi mystic and scholar, who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Rumi, who references him with great reverence in his poetic collection, in particular the Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi.

Background
Of Persian stock, Shams Tabrizi was from the city of Tabriz in the Azerbaijan region in northern Iran. He is known to have spoken Persian and the northwestern Iranian vernacular of Tabriz. According to the 15th-century Persian poet Jami, Shams Tabrizi's full name was Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Malik-dad-i Tabrizi.

Like most of the Iranian inhabitants in Azerbaijan before and after the Mongol conquests, Shams Tabrizi was a Shafi'ite Muslim. He explicitly cites the al-Tanbih fi foru' al-shafi'iye, one of the five principal Shafi'ite legal books, written by Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi (died 1083), a teacher in the distinguished al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad. Despite the narratives that portray him as a simple man turned mystic, Shams Tabrizi was well educated. But he concealed his true identity from both religious scholars and Sufis, leaving others of his generation uncertain about whether he saw himself as a legal scholar or as a Sufi engaging in spiritual servitude. Shams Tabrizi was educated in jurisprudence (fiqh) and was a teacher by trade.

An obscure figure, Shams Tabrizi is portrayed as a man of immense spiritual strength in both his prose writings and the notes written by Rumi's older son Sultan Walad. By the time Shams Tabrizi arrived in the city of Konya on October 23, 1244, he was likely in his forties or fifties, but very little is known about his spiritual background (silsila). According to himself, he was a student of a basket maker named Abu Bakr Sallabaf, who seems to have managed a Sufi lodge in the Charandab neighborhood of Tabriz.

Shams Tabrizi is sometimes mentioned to be from a spiritual background of the Sufi Kubrawiya order. He may have been close to the qalandars, as Rumi often used the term in a very positive manner.

Travels
Shams Tabrizi traveled the world in quest of an understanding person, always staying in caravanserais rather than places of worship. He met the Persian poet and Sufi mystic Awhad al-Din Kermani in the Iraq region, whose story of seeing the moon reflected in a lake while staring at young people without facial hair inspired him to utter the famous line, "If you haven't got a boil on your neck, why don't you look at the sky?".

Shams Tabrizi stayed in the Syria region for a while and met the Islamic scholar Ibn Arabi there. Shams Tabrizi did not like Ibn Arabi since he "did not follow the Sharia," but he did find "something useful" in him. He later compares Ibn Arabi to Rumi, calling the former "a pebble" and the latter "a pearl". Shams Tabrizi worked as a teacher in the city of Erzerum for a while, but he was never able to find a friend because of his harsh temper and swift punishment of his pupils.

The dreams of Shams Tabrizi made him ultimately go to Konya, where he met Rumi, who he says "understood him". Rumi quit his job as a teacher to spend weeks in isolation with Shami Tabrizi. Recognizing the growing hostility among the residents of Konya, Shams Tabrizi discreetly departed on 15 February 1246, while Rumi subsequently became a poet in his honor. When Sultan Walad eventually located Shams Tabrizi in the city of Damascus, he brought him back to Konya. Shams Tabrizi resided in Rumi's home for a few months, marrying a girl from the household. The girl died a few days prior to the disappearance of Shams Tabrizi on 5 December 1247.

According to a relatively late report, Shams Tabrizi had been murdered by envious disciples assisted by Rumi's younger son Ala ad-Din, from whom Rumi appears to have been separated (at least until Shams Tabrizi's departure). Advocates of this theory identify his grave's location in Konya, close to Rumi's burial site, the Mevlâna Museum. Another theory is that he died in 1273 and was buried in the city of Khoy. His legendary status is further enhanced by the fact that he is also connected to tombs in other Islamic countries. According to Franklin Lewis, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Shams Tabrizi was murdered. Rumi's longest work was the Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi, a 40,000 collection of short love poems. It was named after Shams Tabrizi, because Rumi, in a self-effacing manner, shifts the spotlight onto Shams Tabrizi and positions him as the central and underlying object of devotion. The collection is primarily about love for God, but Rumi's account of the ups and downs of love depicts Shams Tabrizi as more than just a regular person or even a prophetic guide. Instead, he is portrayed as the real, living representation of God. According to Franklin Lewis, Shams Tabrizi "might have remained an obscure footnote in works on the history of Sufism had Rumi not made of him a virtual god and bruited his name about."

The Discourses of Shams-i Tabrizi
During Shams Tabrizi's and Rumi's conversations, one or more circle members took notes. Although these writings were never finalized, they were kept and occasionally duplicated by succeeding generations, finding their way into different libraries located around present-day Turkey. The lengthy process of compiling and editing the writings was finished fifteen years ago by an Iranian scholar, who then published the results in a book titled Maqalat-i Shams-i Tabrizi ("The Discourses of Shams-i Tabrizi").

The Maqalat depicts Shams Tabrizi as an appealing speaker who articulated himself in a basic yet deeply influential Persian. Apart from Rumi's own works, the Maqalat is the most significant primary source for comprehending Rumi's spiritual transformation and teachings.

Legacy
The friendship between Shams Tabrizi and Rumi is so popular that even the distinguished scholar of religious studies Huston Smith mentions Rumi's love for Shams Tabrizi in his most recent book Why Religion Matters.