Shams Tabrīzī

شمس تبریزی‎ Shams Tabrīzī
Known for	Taking Shari’a law seriously. Honoring Persian language's greatness (as opposed to Arabic)

A great Sufi (meaning Sukhi) saint.

Biography

Childhood teacher Peer Sallebaf

During his childhood, Hazrat Shams had a passionate spiritual master, Hazrat Sheikh Abu Bakr Sallebaf (Sallebaf lterally means "Wicker-Worker") of Tabriz also known as Pir-e Sallebaf, who would often twirl him around in meditative dance (sama). Hazrat Sheikh Sallebaf had his own Sufi lodge in the Charandab district of Tabriz, to the west of the shrine of Imam Hafade (d. 1175). Unlike the customs of most Sufi Tariqas, Hazrat Sallebaf did not bestow the honorary cloak (khirqa) on his disciples to symbolise initiation into a Sufi order.

Instead, Hazrat Shams was bestowed the cloak not through a teacher but by the Holy Prophet ﷺ himself:

“ Everyone talks of his own sheikh. In a dream the Prophet, peace upon him, gave me a ceremonial cloak (khirqa), not the kind that will wear out and rip after a few days and fall in the bath house and be washed of dirt, but a cloak of converse (sohbat), not a converse that can be comprehended, but a converse that is not of yesterday, today or tomorrow. (Maqalat 326)

Meeting Kamal Jundi

After studying various sciences from Abubakar Sanjasi Tabrizi, a reknown mystic teacher of Najmuddin Kubra order. When Shams-i Tabriz demonstrated his interest in learning the esoteric and the metaphysical, he recommended that he would go to a master teacher, Kamal Jundi.

Shams Tabriz who had an innate and inborn gift for the metaphysical accomplished himself as a master within a relatively short period. He was certified by Kamal Jundi as a master himself and was cautioned that he would stay away from the odinary and the mundane and that one day he will meet with someone who will act as his mouthpiece and speak to the world on his behalf. (Rumi) He was however told that he had to wait until his future student was ready to receive from him the promised gift. He was also advised by his master to stay away from the sufis as well as the faqihs (religious scholars) which he did.

Travelling Parinda

Always traveling from place to place (he was called parinda or flying bird for hat reason), Shams would show up at times at the seminaries and madrisas, however, without revealing his credentials. He disliked the mystics because they had given up the Shari’a (practice). He detested faqihs (scholars) because they indulged in useless polemics and diatribes. He avoided staying at the seminaries and khankahs. Instead he stayed at the Traders inns, showing himself as a traveling salesman. He ate very little. An occasional meal (bread and soup) would be enough for days. He virtually starved his body, as if saying no to his self. In return, he received the uncanny gift of knowing the other person’s mind, predicting the events, even transferring himself from one place to another (ta’y ardh ).

Even though he ate very little and often went without food for several days, he still needed a source of income to cover his expenses during his travels. Therefore, he would teach children how to read the Quran and even developed a method for teaching the whole Quran in a mere three months. Hazrat Shams, like many Sufis, thus seemed very opposed to the practice of begging.

Rumi

On 15 November 1244, Shams dressed in all black Shams was on a quest to find something he was looking for and that thing was Rumi, Shams found Rumi riding a horse in which Rumi smightened Shams according to one account after asking what books are you reading him replying 'Something you don't understand' and then Shams either throwing the books in water or magically setting them a blazes questioned Rumi askes what is happening Shams says 'Something you don't understand'.

Rumi has repeatedly said in his Mathnavi and Divan that it was not him but Shams talking through him. That is why he did not use his name in any of the verses out of more than 50,000 verses that he left behind. Rumi ends most of his poems with the name of Shams of Tabriz. In so long as this phenomenon of transfer of souls had never been witnessed before nor did it happen again in the annals of history, it makes the story of these two oceans unique and one of its own kind.

Death

According to contemporary Sufi tradition, Shams Tabrizi mysteriously disappeared from Konya, Turkey.

Legacy

Shams Tabrizi’s tomb in Khoy, beside a tower monument in a memorial park, has been nominated as a World Cultural Heritage Center by UNESCO.

Quotations

• Blessing is excess, so to speak, an excess of everything. Don’t be content with being a faqih (religious scholar), say I want more – more than being a Sufi (a mystic), more than being a mystic – more than each thing that comes before you.

• A good man complains of noone; he does not look to faults.

• This world is like a mountain. Your echo depends on you. If you scream good things, the world will give it back. If you scream bad things, the world will give it back. Even if someone says badly about you, speak well about him. Change your heart to change the world.

Works

• Maqalat (his conversation with Rumi, recoded by Sultan Vald in Farsi)
• Gulzār-i Shams, “Rose Garden of Shams” (authored by Mulukshah, a descendent of the Ismaili Pir Shams)

Read More

• A Little Book of Mystical Secrets: Rumi, Shams of Tabriz, and the Path of Ecstasy, a book run by Maryam Mafi and Narguess Farzad