Were the poet Rumi and Shams gay lovers? (or was simply Bhakti love?)
Contents:
- WERE THE POET RUMI AND SHAMS GAY LOVERS? (OR WAS SIMPLY BHAKTI LOVE?)
- IF RUMI WAS GAY, HE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN RUMI: MUZAFFAR ALI
WERE THE POET RUMI AND SHAMS GAY LOVERS? (OR WAS SIMPLY BHAKTI LOVE?)
In a recent article here on Elephant, Yogijulian wr that Rumi, the 12th century ecstatic poet and mystic, was probably murred bee he was gay. I have also heard mored before that Rumi and Shams were gay lovers, most notably by wrer and spirual activist Andrew Harvey, who himself is openly gay. This ia, that Rumi’s beloved was actually his gay lover Shams, has bee ntroversial.
Was really bee Rumi and Shams were gay lovers? Personally, I thk the ia of Rumi and Shams beg gay is one big ntemporary projectn.
Not, of urse, that beg gay self is a problem, but this se I thk is unlikely. So to nflate Rumi’s love for his Beloved teacher Shams to a gay relatnship is probably as mistaken as to nflate Ramakrishna’s spirual geni, who is nsired the Este of nscns by many Indian scholars today, to a babblg lunatic. So, a strange way, I suggt that those who rce the rich ner world of the spirual mystic of the stature of Rumi to simply beg gay ( realy, do not matter whether he was gay or heterosexual, of urse) is dog the oppose of what they thk they are dog; they sanize his image; they block the view of the full spectm of the mystic nscns by rcg to the realm of the flh only.
IF RUMI WAS GAY, HE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN RUMI: MUZAFFAR ALI
So, ultimately, the spirual journey is not about fdg a gay (or heterosexual) lover, but simply about lovg ourselv. Such relative openns towards homosexual love ed to be wispread the Middle East. Khaled El-Rouayheb, an amic at Harvard Universy, explas that though sodomy was emed a major s by Mlim urts of law, other homosexual acts such as passnate kissg, fondlg or lbian sex were not.
Homoerotic poetry was wily nsired part of a “refed sensibily”, he says. A survey by Pew Rearch Centre 2013 found that most people the regn believe homosexualy should be rejected: 97% Jordan, 95% Egypt and 80% Lebanon. In 2007 Mahmoud Ahmadejad, then the print of Iran, told a crowd of crlo stunts at Columbia Universy New York that “ Iran we don’t have homosexuals”.
In 1885 the Brish ernment troduced new penal s that punished all homosexual behavur.