M6:1741 — آنک زو هر سرو آزادی کند / قادرست ار غصه را شادی کند

Translation: He, from Whom every cypress gains its lofty freedom, / Is capable, if He wills, to turn all sorrow into joy. Meaning: This verse, spoken by the Sufi, questions why God, who bestows noble stature upon the cypress, does not simply transform all the world's sorrows into joys, given His absolute power.

This verse is among the Sufi's challenging questions, posed in the presence of the Qazi (who represents Rumi himself), regarding divine wisdom in the creation of a world fraught with suffering and calamity. The Sufi, here a symbol of ordinary humanity with its inherent doubts and inquiries, confronts God's absolute power with the harsh realities of life.

The verse states: 'He, from Whom every cypress gains its lofty freedom.' The term 'āzādī' (freedom) here, as Rumi has previously stated and as can be traced throughout the Masnavi, refers to the loftiness and majestic stature for which the cypress is known; it is not freedom in the conventional sense of liberation from constraint. The cypress symbolizes steadfastness and growth, and God has bestowed upon it this 'freedom of stature.' So, if God, from whom every cypress receives this lofty pride and graceful form, 'is capable, if He wills, to turn all sorrow into joy,' why does He not transform all sorrows into joys?

Through this question, the Sufi points to God's boundless power, arguing that a God capable of such feats (as he asks earlier: a God who turns fire into roses and trees, transforms thorns into flowers, and winter into spring), why has He not created a world of unceasing joy, devoid of grief? This is an implicit demand for a paradisiacal, angelic realm where pain, transience, illness, and the struggle for existence have no place. The Sufi yearns for a state akin to the angelic world. This query expresses human dissatisfaction with confronting evils, calamities, and the passage of time—the very 'loss' (khusr) that the Quran speaks of: 'Indeed, mankind is in loss.' The Sufi, using this argument rooted in divine power, effectively desires a perfect, flawless, and eternal world, without comprehending the profound reason behind the existence of suffering and hardships in the path of the human soul's evolution. Rumi subsequently addresses these questions, offering a deeper perspective on the purpose of creation and the role of suffering.

Key takeaways

• The verse represents the Sufi's challenge to divine wisdom concerning worldly suffering, not Rumi's direct statement.
• The 'āzādī' of the cypress signifies its noble stature, tallness, and indifference to worldly woes, not social or political freedom.
• The Sufi, relying on God's absolute power, questions the rationale behind the existence of sorrow and suffering in the world.
• This query symbolizes humanity's yearning for a world devoid of pain, death, illness, and strenuous effort—a world akin to the angelic realm.