Abstract
The poetic legacy of Jalal-ud-din Rumi, as reflected in his magnum opus Mathnavi, is a
literary monument to Sūfism‘s enduring power which allows it to transcend cultural and
historical boundaries. Engaging with the past and anticipating future challenges, Rūmi
enters into conversation with all possible strands of thought through poetic and
metaphoric language. His coverage of the relationship between language and meaning
predates, and in some instances, corresponds with all linguistic themes that would form
the core of European philosophy in twentieth century, subsequently labeled as the
―linguistic turn‖ in Social Sciences. Saussere‘s relational theory of language,
Wittgenstein‘s ‗language games,‘ Gadamerian hermeneutics, French postmodernism, all
these themes have been raised in one way or another within the overall scope of
Mathnavi. Rūmi‘s ruminations on language are scattered throughout and interspersed
with terse but deep poetic expressions within the manifold stories of Mathnavi. In the
current paper, I intend to critically compare Rūmi and major representatives of European
linguistic philosophy and highlight the commonalities and differences between them.
This comparison is undertaken not to formulate Rūmi‘s notion of language per se in
relation to European philosophy of language. References to language in Rūmi‘s poetry
cannot be understood separately from his overall worldview defined by sūfism‘s main
idea of the unity of being (vaḥ dat al-vujūd). Language is viewed through this idea as a
powerful tool for tracing transcendental presence in a phenomenal world of ‗color and
scent‘. The paper demonstrates Rumi‘s employment of the limitless capacity of language
to ‗track‘ invisible traces of transcendental unity of being including the unity of religions.
Bokhtar Bakozoda. (2018) Behind the Veil of Language: From the Philosophy of Language to Rūmi’s Mystical Poetry, Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Volume VIII, Issue 2.
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