M6:3908 — آنچ پنجه سال بافیدی به هوش / زان نسیج خود بغلتانی بپوش

Translation: What you have woven for fifty years with keen awareness, / From that very fabric, tailor for yourself a voluminous cloak and wear it. Meaning: This verse admonishes scholars and mystics who spend their lives constructing elaborate theories and systems, yet fail to apply this accumulated wisdom to their own spiritual self-realization.

This verse is Rumi's sharp rebuke to scholars without action and preachers who do not take their own counsel; those whose tongues are eloquent in advising others, but who, when facing themselves, seemingly 'turn away' and fall silent. Rumi goes further, extending this point to philosophers and mystics who have spent their lives in intellectual 'weaving' (bāfandegi) of theories and conceptual systems, yet have not fashioned a single garment from these elaborate fabrics for their own souls.

I have often heard from my late mentor and dear father figure, Dr. Seyyed Ja'far Shahidi, how skeptically he viewed the achievements of certain philosophers and mystics — specifically concerning some ideas of Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi — remarking: 'These are mere weave-crafts (bāfandegi).' It is a profoundly precise and telling description. Rumi here employs the very same term, 'bāfandegi,' to address the philosopher and jurist: 'For fifty years you have woven with awareness and precision, you have designed patterns, constructed arguments, created systems. But now, from all this 'nasīj' — this woven fabric of yours — make for yourself a 'baghaltāq,' a wide and voluminous garment, and wear it!' Wear it, so that we may see the fruit of all this weaving manifest in your own being. This is akin to the common proverb: 'You grazed so much, where is your fat?' What has been its outcome for you?

Just as we read in Sa'di's ghazals how he likens a scholar without action to a barren tree, Rumi too asks: 'You who were a cure for the pains of others, when pain became your guest, did you turn away?' You who offered 'sugar-sweet counsel' to others, 'now that it is your turn, what has become of your clamor?' This is an existential question that every thoughtful human must ask themselves: Has what we created for others also served us? Has our voice, which charmed the ears of others, also resonated within our own ears?

Rumi explicitly declares: 'Never let yourself be a tail when you have been a head / Do not lose your hands, your beard, your mustache.' That is, you have always been in a position of authority and reference; now, be your own master. Do not lose yourself in the clamor of preaching and boasting to others. The essence of all knowledge is 'to know who I am on the Day of Judgment.' Self-knowledge is the core and marrow of all sciences. If you know the whole world but do not know yourself, you have suffered a loss. If you advise everyone but lose your own way, this is precisely self-inflicted damage. This is the very point Rumi makes elsewhere: 'May my 'I' become more 'I'.' That is, my own self must, through this knowledge, become more complete, richer, and more truly itself. This call to self-examination and self-sufficiency in wisdom and gnosis is the central message of this verse.

Key takeaways

• Knowledge and thought must lead to self-realization and inner transformation, not merely theoretical accumulation.
• Rumi sharply criticizes scholars without action and preachers who do not practice what they preach.
• The metaphor of 'weaving' symbolizes the construction of intellectual and theoretical systems, which are futile if not applied to oneself.
• The product of a lifetime of seeking knowledge should become a garment of action and virtue for the knower himself.
• The ultimate goal of all knowledge is self-knowledge and the realization of 'Who am I?'
• Individuals must transition from teaching others to guiding and teaching themselves, without losing sight of their own path.