M1:392 — هر شبی از دام تن ارواح را / می‌رهانی می‌کَنی الواح را

Translation: Every night, from the body's snare, You release the souls; You separate them from the tablets (of worldly attachments and identities). Meaning: Each night, during sleep, God liberates souls from the prison of the body and its earthly attachments, allowing them a temporary oblivion from the world.

This particular verse clearly illustrates a shift in Rumi's spiritual state. Having previously lamented his weakness and despair in the face of worldly snares, he now experiences an inner surge of strength and capability. Much like Saint Francis, who would enter his prayer cave with a frail body and a depressed spirit, only to emerge like a lion, Rumi too draws power from his intimate communion with God, granting him mastery over his inner world.

Here, Rumi alludes to an ancient and Quranic truth: that sleep is a temporary liberation and separation of the soul from the body. The Holy Quran states: "Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die, in their sleep" (Quran 39:42). This "taking" (توفی) and liberation of the soul from the "snare of the body" (dām-i tan) and its "tablets" (alwāḥ)—referring to the physical attachments and earthly identities—though difficult for us to precisely grasp, as it defies material notions of distance, is articulated by Rumi based on this traditional understanding: that every night, God frees souls from the body's grasp and its material constraints.

The result of this nightly liberation is freedom from the body's prison. In sleep, souls are released from "judgment, speech, and stories" (حکم و گفتار و قصص), meaning all daily anxieties, calculations, narratives, and dictates. Whether one is a prisoner or a king, in sleep, all are oblivious to their worldly status; they have no worries of profit or loss, nor do they ponder "this person or that person" (social identities). All are equal in sleep, absent from the world's stage.

Rumi uses this universal experience of sleep as an introduction to understanding the "state of the mystic" (ḥāl-i ʿārif). This is where we grasp the profound depth of Rumi's insight. He states: "The mystic's state is this even without sleep; / God also spoke of 'those asleep' in this marvel." This alludes to the Quranic verse regarding the People of the Cave: "You would have thought them awake, while they were asleep" (Quran 18:18). This 'sleepiness' for the mystic is not born of ignorance, but of a deeper gnosis; the mystic is "asleep" to the affairs of the world day and night, yet is "awake" in another sense. The mystic is like "the pen in the hand of the Lord's transformation" (qalam dar panjeh-ye taqlīb-i rabb); they perceive God's invisible hand in every stroke and action of the world, whereas others only see the movement of the pen (the outward forms). For the mystic, the world is like dream scenes and visions seen in sleep, for they have passed beyond the veil of appearances and observe the hidden secrets and the hands governing the universe. This "sensory sleep" that has seized them is, in truth, a deeper awakening to the world of meaning.

Key takeaways

• Sleep is a symbolic liberation of the soul from material constraints and worldly anxieties.
• The soul's temporary separation from the body during sleep foreshadows death and the promise of ultimate freedom.
• In sleep, all human beings, regardless of their worldly status (king or prisoner), are freed from social identities and attachments.
• The universal experience of sleep serves as a prelude to understanding the "state of the mystic" (ḥāl-i ʿārif), who is perpetually oblivious to the sensory world and awake to the realm of meaning.
• Rumi sees sleep as a manifestation of God's power in precisely retrieving and returning souls.