The Mesnevi — A Closer Reading

structions and departure from Qonya to Qaysariyya, where he died, and after Jelāl’s studies at Aleppo and Damascus, with his subsequent return to Qonya and appointment to the four colleges, another great saint came to visit Jelāl at this latter city. This was Shemsu-’d-Dīn of Tebrīz, for whom Jelāl conceived a very great friendship. He is mentioned in the Mesnevī several times in very high terms. He appears to have been exceedingly aggressive and domineering in his manner. This roused a fierce animosity against him, which at length broke out in a tumult. Jelāl’s eldest son, ‘Alā’u-’d-Dīn, was killed or mortally hurt in this disturbance. The local police seized Shemsu-’d-Dīn in consequence, and he was never again seen alive by his friends. Jelāl went himself to Damascus, in hopes that he might have been sent away, or have got away, privately. But the effort was fruitless. Later traditions cause his corpse to have been recovered and buried at Qonya, differing, however, as to the place of interment.

When Jelāl found that he required assistance in conducting all the various duties that fell on him, he selected first for that office his former fellow-student-, Sheykh Salāhu-’d-Dīn Ferīdūn, surnamed Zer-Kūb (the Goldbeater), from his business. He assisted Jelāl for about ten years, and died in A.D. 1258.

Jelāl now took as his assistant his own favourite pupil, Hasan Husāmu-’d-Dīn, surnamed the son of Akhī-Turk, through his being descended from some man of celebrity of the name or designation of Akhī-Turk. There appears to have been a large family of very influential men residing at Qonya and other towns of Asia Minor, all calling themselves Akhī, and distinguished as Akhī Ahmed, Akhī Eshref, &c. The word “Akhī” is Arabic, and signifies “my brother.” It may also mean “one related to a brother,” as a servant, slave, client, &c., of some prince, &c.; or of some dervish “brother” of some religious order. Indeed, these very numerous individuals named Akhī, may have been each a “brother” of such a fraternity or fraternities, or even of some industrial guild.

Ten years after Husām was taken as his assistant by Jelāl, this latter was called to his rest in December A.D. 1273; and was buried in his father’s mausoleum, leaving Husām as his successor. But meanwhile, at Husām’s suggestion, and with himself as the first amanuensis thereof, the Mesnevī had been composed, in six volumes, books, or parts, by Jelāl. The second volume was commenced in A.D. 1263. There had been an interval of two years between the completion of the first and this, caused by Husām’s grief at the death of his wife. The whole work is stated to contain twenty-six thousand six hundred and sixty couplets. A seventh volume or book has been also attributed to the Mesnevī, to make up the number to that of the “seven planets;” some say it was composed or collected by Sultān Veled. The anecdotes of Eflākī make mention of many hundreds of odes composed also by Jelāl.

He is said to have instituted his peculiar order of dervishes, with their special dress, the Indian garb of mourning, in memory of his murdered friend, Shemsu-’d-Dīn of Tebrīz; and to have adopted the use of instrumental music, the flute, the rebeck, the drum, and the tambourine, with singing or chanting, as an accompaniment to the holy dance, on account of the lethargic nature of the “Romans.” As a child is tempted to take a salutary medicine by the exhibition of a little jam or honey, so Jelāl judged that the “Romans” might be tempted to a devotional love for God through the bait of sweet sounds addressed to their outward senses. Dancing or twirling by dervishes was of much older date, as will be recollected in one of the tales of the Arabian Nights.

Husām died in A.D. 1284, just ten years after his teacher Jelāl; whose son, Bahā’u-’d-Dīn, Sultān Veled, succeeded Husām as chief of the order, and died in A.D. 1312. His son, Chelebī Emīr ‘Ārif, succeeded him, and passed away in A.D. 1320; two of his half-brothers becoming chiefs of the order after him in succession.