M1:3511 — گفت تشنه بوده‌ام من روزها / شب نخفتستم ز عشق و سوزها

Translation: He said, "I have been thirsty for days; / I have not slept at night from love and burning." Meaning:* Spoken by Zayd, the Prophet's companion, this verse conveys his intense spiritual discipline, sleepless nights driven by love and spiritual fervor, leading him to a state of profound certainty and transcendence of temporal bounds.

This verse, attributed to Zayd, the Prophet's companion, who is experiencing a profound state of certainty and inner vision, is far more than a mere description of sleeplessness and thirst born of love. It is a gateway to the vast realm of timelessness and transcendence of spatial constraints, which Rumi so exquisitely unveils. Zayd, in response to the Prophet's inquiry about his state, explains that this thirst and wakefulness, fueled by love and inner burning, have elevated him to a station where he is liberated from the shackles of day and night – indeed, from the very bonds of time:

He said, "I have been thirsty for days; / I have not slept at night from love and burning. Until from day and night I became separate, / Just as the spear's tip passes through the shield."

Here, Rumi presents us with an astonishing image. How can one become separate from time? Zayd answers: just as the tip of a spear pierces a shield, meaning one cleaves through time and passes beyond it. It is as if time is a shield encompassing the cosmos, but the passionate seeker, with the sword of spiritual discipline and the fire of love, traverses it. I maintain that this statement by Rumi, centuries before Kant, points to the truth that time and space are themselves preconditions of human perception and forms of our understanding, yet realms beyond these forms are also experienceable.

In that realm beyond time, 'a hundred thousand years and one hour are one,' and 'eternity and everlastingness are united.' These are not concepts that the partial intellect or the calculative mind can grasp; for 'the intellect has no path to iftiqād' — iftiqād here meaning the absence of time. The intellect has no access where there is no time; its eye is blind. Timelessness and spacelessness are corollaries of formlessness, just as God is inherently timeless and spaceless. The noble Hadith, 'There is no morning or evening with your Lord,' precisely signifies that in the Divine realm, time itself does not exist. The timeless Being is present in all times, and Its relation to yesterday and today is identical. This is a unitive station where the mystic attains true unity and perceives that the multiplicity of time is itself a veil, drawn over the singular reality in this world.

Key takeaways

• Spiritual discipline and the fire of love can elevate the seeker to a station beyond the constraints of time and space.
• In the realm of timelessness, eternity and everlastingness unite, and thousands of years become one with a single hour.
• The partial intellect, due to its inherent structure, is incapable of grasping the truth of timelessness and spacelessness.
• The experience of separation from time parallels formlessness and liberation from the shackles of the material world.
• This human experience is a reflection of the Divine attribute of being beyond time and space.