Islamic mysticism, quotations
[Masnavi, quotations]
Jalaluddin Rumi, Masnavi, quotes

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Rumi - the Masnavi
quotations & quotes

Islamic mysticism and the
idea of the Tripartite Soul

  The Masnavi is an overtly religious work written more than seven hundred years ago which today enjoys a very wide respect in the Islamic world and beyond!.

  As well as conveying a range of Spiritual Insights, as demonstrated on our "Spiritual insights" pages, it also contains several passages which suggest that personal spirituality is relative and that Humanity has a Tripartite Soul:-


 
    The lamp of reason in the brains of the head;
Smell in the nostrils and speech in the tongue,
Concupiscence in the flesh and courage in the heart.
These connections are not without a why and a how,
But reason is at a loss to understand the how.

Masnavi Book 2 Story 5


 
 
  He renounced lust and anger and concupiscence,
And showed himself a man of the lineage of the prophets.

Masnavi Book 5 Story 8


 
 
 
    The faithful will say on the last day, "O King!
Was not Hell on the route all of us travelled?
Did not faithful as well as infidels pass through it?
Yet on our way we perceived not the smoke of the fire;
Nay, it seemed Paradise and the mansion of the blessed."
Then the King will answer, "That green garden,
As it appeared to you on your passage through it,
Was indeed Hell and the place of dread torment;
Yet for you it became a garden green with trees.
Since you have laboured to make hellish lusts,
And the fire of pride that courts destruction,-
To make these, I say, pure and clean,-
And, to please God, have quenched those fires,
So that the fire of lust, that erst breathed flame,
Has become a holy garden and a guiding light,-
Since you have turned the fire of wrath to meekness,
And the darkness of ignorance to shining knowledge,
Since you have turned the fire of greed into bounty,
And the vile thorns of malice into a rose-garden;
Since you have quenched all these fires of your own
For my sake, so that those poisons are now pure sweets;-
Since you have made fiery lust as a verdant garden,
And have sowed therein the seed of fidelity,
So that nightingales of prayer and praise
Ever warble sweetly around this garden;-
Since you have responded to the call of God,
And drawn water out of the hell of lust,-
For this cause my hell also, for your behoof,
Becomes a verdant garden and yields leaves and fruit."

Masnavi Book 2 Story 10


Plato, Socrates and Shakespeare endorse
a Tripartite Soul view of Human Nature. Platos' Republic

 
Introductory quotations
.
Jesus - The Parable of the Sower
.
Indian philosophy
 

Start of
Rumi Masnavi
Tripartite Soul quotations