HÜDÂVENDİGÂR'I ANLAMAK: MEVLÂNA'NIN MİRASINI ANLAMANIN BİR YÖNTEMİ

Mawlana Jalalu'd-din Rumi was an outstanding mystical figure not only in the context of Islamic mysticism (Tasawwuf) but also in the context of universal mysticism as well. If one takes mysticism as a general phenomenon and discipline, the corpus of Rumi is full of striking accounts with respect to the essential subject matters of mysticism. On the other hand, Rumi, since he was also a scholar of Islam, took into account the basic Islamic doctrine in his works and, especially depending on Sufi sources, left a great Islamic legacy behind. Today, Rumi is recognized in the whole world as a great mystic poet and philosopher belonging to the Islamic tradition. Since the dominant character of language -specifically- in Sufi and -generally- mystical works is metaphorical, understanding these types of works and placing them in their actual mainstream of meaning requires an essential effort-to-understand. For this reason, misunderstanding -specifically- Sufi works and -generally- mystical works that came out in non-Muslim settings has been the fate of them and thus the fate of their authors as well. The same fate is valid for Rumi and his corpus. However, Rumi's corpus can find its essential meaning and avoid the old risk of being evaluated mistakenly when reevaluated in the light of Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi's masterpiece called Maktubat, who was both a scholar and a sufi as a pinnacle figure of the Islamic science tradition. In the same sense, the letters (maktubat) of Sirhindi, who struggled against deviations from Islamic doctrine throughout his life that he lived in a mystical Indian environment, amount to the most competent and thus valuable commentary of Rumi's corpus. In other words, to put it a bit differently, one way to understand Rumi's entire corpus is paved by Sirhindi's Maktubat.