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'''"Who am I?" By Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (Mawlānā)'''

English Translation:

Who am I? What is to be done, O Muslims? For I do not recognize myself. I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, not Moslem. I am not of the East, not of the West, not of the land, not of the sea; I am not of the nature’s mint, nor of the circling heavens. I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire; […] My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. (Mawlānā, Dīvān-e Šams-e Tabrīzī, poem XXXI, translated by Bernard Lewis)

Persian Translation:

چه تدبیر ای مسلمانان که من خود را نمی دانم نه ترسا نه یهودی من نه گبرم نه مسلمانم نه شرقیم نه غربیم نه بریّم نه بحریّم نه از کان طبیعیم نه از افلاک گردانم نه از خاکم نه از آبم نه از بادم نه از آتش {...} مکانم لامکان باشد نشانم بی نشان باشد نه تن باشد نه جان باشد که من از جان جانانم (دیوان شمس – شعر ۱۱۶)

Paragraph analysis of the work:

In the poem “Who am I?” Mawlānā connotes the concept of equality among all human beings. We are all creatures of God regardless of what religion or land we belong to. So as to contemplate beyond physical being, God has privileged mankind by blessing him with the soul, which helps him understand the concepts of love, affection, sacrifice, etc. Hence, the human soul is placeless and traceless. It exists somewhere beyond the mundane world, so the body carrying the soul should also nurture it in a way that beings it closer to the ultimate Beloved. This may be achieved if all human beings consider themselves as members of an organic whole.

Summary: In the poem “Who am I?” Mawlānā connotes the concept of equality among all human beings.

Historical and cultural background:

“Who am I?” is a magnificent poem by Rumi from Selected Poems from the Divan-e-Shams-e Tabrizi translated by Reynold Nicholson. The poems in the book are both in the original Persian and English. In this poem, the term “Gabr” (in the second line) actually refers to the followers of the Zoroastrian Faith, an ancient Persian religion. This word is known to most Iranians, but not to non-Iranians, and nowadays the term is no longer officially used in Iran. Rumi asks the question “Who am I?” in considering who he might have been. Rumi was probably not concerned as much about his future as he was about his past identity and the influence that identity might have had on the present. Like many Persians, he reached back, not forward, in developing an identity for himself.

Literary analysis (utilizing Feminist and Marxist theories):

“Who am I?” criticizes the androcentric attitudes, practices, and social organizations, which have empowered the patriarchal system in today’s world. To set up a system based on equality in which men and women are not at all inferior (or superior) to one another, the assertions of essentialism towards the construction of identity should be turned into performative. Also, the concept Rumi tends to imply in his poem is a complaint of the hegemony of capitalism in the economic system, which particularly exists in western countries. Inequitable material circumstances are regarded as the sources of class conflicts and the resulting dominance of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat in production. In sum, Rumi here alludes to dialectical materialism according to which social transformation is justified through materialistic interpretation of historical development.