Rumi the Philosopher “. . . a mystic who is capable of philosophizing and penetrating into the meaning of physical and spiritual phenomena.” (Nicholson: Rumi Poet and Mystic) By: MIRZA IQBAL ASHRAF The Physical and Spiritual Phenomena After many years of pondering, I believe that the mystical poet-saint-literary genius Jalaluddin Rumi, in the field of Islamic literature and philosophy, stands high above other sages (hukama), philosophers, and religious scholars of the past or present. The magnitude and insight of his thought and his instinctive and experiential approaches supported by his formal education have proved Rumi fully capable of inquiring, penetrating, and philosophizing deeply into the meanings of both physical and spiritual phenomena. His profound understanding and address of the complexities of a coherent philosophy is at least comparable with that of any contemporary philosopher of his period. Although he does not stand in the order of a particular school of philosophers, he was fully aware of the commentaries and interpretations of Muslim thinkers about Classical Greek philosophy. The impact of Muslim philosophers’ translations and their commentaries on Greek philosophers, especially of Averroes (Ibn Rushd 1126-1198) and his contemporary Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204), on Latin philosophical thought was such that Western thought between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries is inexplicable without considering the conceptual contribution of Averroes’ presentation of rational and scientific discourses. Averroes and many other Jewish and Muslim philosophers reflected that there are different routes to the same truth, that served as a modern foundation for theoretical openness, political freedom, and religious tolerance in Western thought. Rumi’s Mathnawi is sufficient testimony that he comprehends the wisdom of the rational philosophy of classical Greek thinkers, while remaining ever conscious that logic is a poor substitute for life. When Rumi argues, he is no less a dialectician than Socrates or Plato. He places the guiding role of spiritual wisdom over and above that of worldly wisdom. In one simple verse in the Mathnawi, he appreciates and praises the stellar figures of Greek philosophy, in rhyming poetry, within an overarching holistic frame of Love: 1