In chapter 5 of his book, “Rumi’s World: The Life and Work of The Great Sufi Poet”, Schimmel explores Maulana’s thoughts about God and His creation. He refers to God as the hidden treasure (Schimmel 73). According to Maulana, God is infinite and omnipresent. Although man can never reach God’s essence, on the other hand, God listens to mankind’s prayers.
Maulana also argues that our God is the God of the Koran and the source of love. God’s existence cannot be proven by intellectual and/or logical means. He is the hidden treasure. God had to create the world so that man can know him. Schimmel describes God as a treasure of beauty and mercy. He further opines that God is inexhaustible (Schimmel 74).
The world is a mirror of God’s beauty; he is the one who decided when to create the world and He manifests himself to mankind through His majesty, power, and beauty. God’s duality is inherent in his creation (Schimmel 75). For example, He expands and presses together. He can lower and raise. He takes life away and He gives life back. God is
overpowering and loving. He manifests himself in new epiphanies (Schimmel 76). His grace is hidden in wrath. For example, he can destroy and rebuild as well. Although God despises sin, He requires sinners so that He can show His forgiveness and mercy.
God’s beauty and majesty, His kindness and love form the woof and wrap of life. Justice is one of God’s innate qualities. Some people are blessed and happy and appear destined to paradise while others endure affliction, suffering and pain and appear destined to hell. This is a testament to God’s glory and majesty.
Getting to know God is the greatest blessing man could ever hope for. God is a wise Creator who is always aware of the needs of His creatures (Schimmel 79). Maulana contends that God is hidden behind a veil in each of His creation. He is also a mystical being and his manifestations transcend unfathomable depths.
Although Maulana agrees that man has the freedom to enjoy the world for a time, he is also quick to caution him against forgetting his Creator. The world is important to man so that God can manifest His power, and also to allow man to develop something more powerful and higher.
God is love and He shapes the world according to His plan (Schimmel 81). Maulana likens God to a master calligrapher who gives form and shape to both the ugly and beautify in equal skills. God’s eternal wisdom and grace keeps Maulana hopeful in moments of deepest grief.
Maulana argues that mankind can only imagine God in paradoxes. Maulana has unshakable faith in God in spite of the feeling that He evades the restrictive weakness of every human description (Schimmel 86).
Maulana uses prose and poetry to preach the need to have strong faith in God because once mankind gets hold of such faith he will understand God’s wisdom and how he comprehends all His creations. Maurana also argues that a true human being never gets tired of wandering around the light of God’s majesty and beauty. Man does not seem to stop from striving, while God annihilates and consumes man, and there is no way man can comprehend Him.
Works Cited
Schimmel, Annemarie. Rumi’s World: The Life and Work of The Great Sufi Poet. Boston & London: Shambhala, 2001. Print.