How Rumi Opens the Eye of the Heart

Event Description

How Rumi Opens the Eye of the Heart:

Understanding the Perspective of the Masnavi as a Revealed Text

A talk and Seminar with Alan Williams

The 13th century Masnavi of Jalāloddin Rumi is not a story book, yet, like the Bible and the Quran, it is full of stories. It is a didactic mystical text of very great length – yet all to what purpose? What are the secrets the Masnavi reveals? They may be summed up in the phrase ‘the opening of the eye of the heart’.

The primary question of this lecture, which will be developed in the discussions and workshop that follow, is: how does the Masnavi effect the opening of the heart? Does it lie in a philosophy or esoteric instruction hidden in a cryptic code to be deciphered? No. Rather, it is found in the act of attentive reading of the poetical text, following the guidance Rumi dispenses in his own voice in imagery and parables. Therein a new perspective on reality is glimpsed. The question also provides an answer to another question: why are people drawn so strongly to Rumi after 750 years since he passed? The answer is that the opening of the eye of the heart is the manifestation of love – something much in demand in our time, as in his.

Alan Williams is Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion at The University of Manchester. He is the author of books, articles and essays on Middle Persian and Classical Persian religious texts (Zoroastrian and Islamic), on the history of religions, on translation studies, and on comparative literature. Recently he published two volumes of Rumi’s Masnavi (2020) in an ongoing series of six for IB Tauris, London. The third will follow soon. He is a Fellow and Trustee of the British Institute of Persian Studies, The Royal Asiatic Society, and a trustee of the E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust. In 2016 he gave the Beshara Lecture ‘Love Beyond Belief’.

Saturday 14th October 2023  
14:00–17:00 BST

The October Gallery,
24 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AL

Refreshments Provided