There is a wind in Cape Town that periodically visits and blows the town clean of dross and miasmas; such a breeze blew through the paths of Rumi yesterday freeing the words of sufi-woofyism.

It blew away Steingass who hides his naughty words in latin, took off for him his shawl of prudery.

It visited Nicholson and cleared his breast of ‘on certain topics Rumi is too outspoken for our taste and many pages are disfigured by anecdotes worthy of an Apuleius or Petronius but scarcely fit to be translated …’

Only through the efforts of these and several other victorian-minded gentlemen do the vast majority of the global public know of Mawlana; if the Persian of the pre-Safawids is too much for them, then may they pause before visiting a colourful spectacle of dancing-dees financed by unesco.

Let us study how Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar understands the opening story of the Mathnawi. But first a literal translation:

There was once a king who was a King in the dunya and a king possessed of the deen….

In the commentary of Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyari we find:

Important here is to retain the word dunya, which while indicating this earthly world, has its semantic, Quranic, root in ‘base’, ‘low’: i.e. this world of darkness as opposed to the akhira, the world of the Garden and light.

That he was a King with regard to the deen, demonstrates that he was a skilled in the science of the fuqaha, concerned with the knowledge of and application of the outward laws of the shariat governing every aspect of human life; this story, as all of Rumi’s stories, is not mystic, but rather the opposite, utterly evident, its figurative aspect merely a means of pointing to clarity and truth.

By fortunate occurrence while the King was out riding on a hunt with his closest courtiers he caught sight of a slave girl on the King’s avenue…

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar:

By fortunate occurrence is to stress that Allah’s blessing accompanied the King: the word in Persian indicates that the activity of the King was in harmony with His will, cf. tawfeeq, from the same root, often translated as ‘success’

Hunting is the preserve of Kings who by their love of this sport are concerned for the welfare of the deer and ensure that the health of the woods and meadows they inhabit is maintained.

his closest courtiers i.e. the elite of the court, those in tune with the King – who as King and Muslim, speaks with the royal ‘We’, the ‘we’ of society, by which current social norms are established, who is never alone, except when with one of his wives.

a slave girl – but not to be confused with christian slavery or the slavery of refugee camps, the point here being that she may be sold – and as is well-known, slaves girls were purchased as much for sexual enjoyment as service and enjoyed the same standard of living as their masters; it may be of help in overcoming any linguistic hurdles to reflect that prostitution is accepted globally, indeed legally in many countries – and that the state ensures that tax is paid on the proceeds.

the King’s avenue points to a hunting reserve particular to the King, a reserve containing perhaps houses and villages where the slave girl lives.

The King himself became enslaved by his love for the slave-girl, his heart palpitating wildly like a bird trapped in a cage…

Dr Sulaiman Hikmatyar: