M1:104 — رنگِ روی و نبض و قاروره بدید / هم علاماتش هم اسبابش شنید

Translation: The physician saw her face's hue, her pulse, and her urine (in the qārūre); He heard both her symptoms and their underlying causes.

Meaning: The physician, upon arriving, meticulously observed the patient's external signs like facial color and pulse, and examined her urine. He then listened to the reported symptoms to discern the illness's causes and formulate a diagnosis.

This verse marks a dramatic moment in the Masnavi's opening narrative, where the divine physician arrives to heal the ailing slave-girl. Here, Rumi delves into the nuances of medicine in his era, but ultimately, he uses it as a platform to articulate the fundamental distinction between 'bodily medicine' and 'spiritual medicine'. The conventional physician, following established protocols, begins by observing the patient's 'face's hue,' taking her 'pulse,' and examining the 'qārūre' (urine flask). These are all physical symptoms, from which the doctor attempts to deduce the manifest 'causes' of the illness.

As I have mentioned before, Rumi was not unfamiliar with the medicine of his time; indeed, he possessed a good understanding of it. For instance, later in this story, the physician will inquire: "Softly, he asked, 'Where is your city from? / For each city's folk, their cure is distinct.'" This refers to an ancient medical principle stating: "He is cured by the plant of his land" (yuʿālaju ʿalā nabt baladih). This perspective was rooted in the belief that humans had a deep harmony with their natural environment, especially in an age when human life was not as artificial and detached from nature as it is today. This point can even be found in the works of Avicenna. Ancients believed that every ailment had its remedy in nature, and these remedies would reveal themselves to indigenous peoples and wise physicians, unlike today's world where humans have pushed nature aside and undertaken to produce medicines themselves. Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi recounts a famous story of how animals read his inner intention and did not flee from him, whereas they fled from his hunting father; this signifies that nature speaks to and reveals itself to those at peace with it. Rumi speaks from this era of harmony with nature, not the current age of estrangement and rupture.

However, in describing these bodily physicians' examinations, Rumi uses the word 'urine' (بول, bol) to establish a profound contrast between this type of healing and divine healing. In his view, methods relying on the impurity of bol highlight the low station and limitations of physical medicine. He explicitly states: "Those physicians are of another kind / Who behold the heart through a pulse-beat; / For those physicians, urine is a guide, / While our guide is the Glorious Revelation." That is, the divine physicians and mystics, to grasp the truth of human conditions, are guided by 'revelation' (wahy) and divine inspiration, whereas bodily physicians look to 'urine' and superficialities. This contrast recurs frequently in the Masnavi and Divan-e Shams.

There is a ghazal from Divan-e Shams where Rumi boldly proclaims: "We are wise, we are knowing, from Baghdad we've arrived / Many sick ones from sorrow we have redeemed / We are knowing physicians who take no qārūre / For we have run through the patient's body like thought." These verses demonstrate that the divine physician needs no urine flask or pulse-taking for diagnosis; he permeates the patient's body like 'thought' (andīshe), becoming one with it, as if seeing the patient's entire being from within. This perspective clearly implies that perfect ones and divine men, even if they "hear your name from afar / They penetrate to the depth of your threads and fibers." By hearing a name or seeing a surface, they fathom the depth of an individual's existence, for the true illness is an illness of the 'heart' (dil), not the body.

In the continuation of the story, this divine physician follows the same path. By smelling the smoke from the 'wood' of the slave-girl's being, which carries a different scent, he realizes that "the illness is of another kind." He understands that "He saw from her lament that she was sick of heart / The body was well, but she was captive to the heart." This is the uncovering of the central secret: the slave-girl's pain is not from melancholy or bilious humors, nor from an imbalance of the four temperaments, but is an 'ailing heart.' The ancients considered the human body to have three centers: the physical body (jism), the heart (qalb), and the brain (dimāgh). The heart was regarded as the center of perceptions and cognition, unlike the brain, to which a secondary function (such as cooling the blood, in Aristotelian and Galenic medicine) was attributed. Quranic references to fuʾād and qalb, as well as Imam Ali's narration to Kumayl where he points to his chest and says, "Indeed, here is abundant knowledge," attest to this viewpoint.

Thus, after these observations, the divine physician concludes that "Every remedy they have applied / Is no building; they have destroyed / Unaware were they of the inner state / I seek refuge in God from what they fabricate." This means all previous treatments were futile because the true secret of the illness, hidden in the patient's 'inner state' and heart, had not been discovered. This verse, in essence, marks the beginning of the journey into the inner world and the revelation of the slave-girl's core ailment, which is not physical but a love of a different kind.

Key takeaways

• Rumi uses physical medicine as a backdrop to emphasize the superiority of spiritual and divine healing; the true ailment is not always physical.
• Diagnosing illness via 'face's hue, pulse, and urine flask' (qārūre) highlights the limitations of superficial medicine, which focuses on external, material symptoms.
• Divine physicians and mystics, like 'thought' flowing within the patient's body, penetrate to the depth of the 'inner state' and hidden secrets by observing and listening to superficialities.
• Rumi's use of 'urine' (bol) for bodily diagnosis is a subtle but profound jab at conventional doctors, contrasting their reliance on it with the mystics' 'Glorious Revelation' (wahy-e jalīl).
• The slave-girl's core illness is not physical but an 'ailing heart' (zār-e dil); in ancient thought, the 'heart' (qalb) was the center of perceptions, knowledge, and emotions.
• The principle of 'healing based on native plants' and Ibn ʿArabi's story with animals illustrate Rumi's view of nature's harmony and communication with the aware human.