Read› Daftar 4› Explanation of 'Indeed, the believers are brothers' and 'The scholars are like one soul,' especially the unity of David and Solomon and all other prophets, peace be upon them, for if you deny one of them, faith in any prophet is not valid, and this is a sign of unity: if you destroy one house out of a thousand, all of them are destroyed, and not one wall remains, for 'We make no distinction between any of them,' and for the intelligent, a hint suffices — this has gone beyond a hint› beyt 458
M4:458 — باز چون خورشید جان آفل شود / نور جمله خانهها زایل شود
M4:458
Meaning · به زبانِ تو — Your language · AI
This couplet asserts that just as the physical sun is the source of light for all houses, the 'sun of the soul' is the singular source of spiritual light for all individual souls; if that primary source diminishes, all derivative lights will also disappear.
This beyt is part of Rumi's extended analogy distinguishing between two types of 'soul' or 'life force': the animal soul (جان حیوانی) and the divine soul (جان ربانی). He first uses the example of individual lamps in houses (M4:452-453) to illustrate that the animal soul, tied to physical life and sustenance, is distinct and independent in each being; if one lamp goes out, the others remain lit. This is not the case for the divine soul.
He then shifts the metaphor to the sun (M4:455-457). The sun is a single, universal source of light. Even though its light appears in 'a hundred houses' (M4:456), it is fundamentally one light. The preceding couplet (M4:457) states that as long as the sun shines, its light is 'fixed' in every house. This beyt (M4:458) completes the analogy: if that single, universal 'sun of the soul' (خورشید جان) sets or declines, then all the lights that derived from it in individual 'houses' (souls) will also be extinguished. This emphasizes the unity of the divine source and the interconnectedness of all spiritual life, in contrast to the independent nature of individual animal lives. It foreshadows the idea of the prophets and saints being 'one soul' (کنفس واحدة), where the denial of one is a denial of all.
- خورشید جان
- Sun of the soul; the universal divine light or spiritual essence.
- آفل شود
- Declines, sets (like the sun); diminishes or vanishes.
- زایل شود
- Vanishes, disappears, is removed.
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