M1:403 — فالق الاِصباح اسرافیل‌وار / جمله را در صورت آرد زان دیار

Translation: The Splitter of the Dawn, like Israfil, Brings all into form from that realm. Meaning: God, who initiates every dawn, similar to the angel Israfil who resurrects the dead, brings souls back into their bodies from the formless realm, drawing them into the world of tangible forms and existence each morning.

This verse offers a profound image of the relationship between the soul and the body, and the cycle of life and death, which is fundamental to Rumi's worldview. Rumi refers to God as “Fāliq al-iṣbāḥ,” the One who splits the dawn and brings forth light. This itself points to the ever-present, creative power of the Divine. Just as Israfil will blow the trumpet on the Day of Resurrection, bringing the dead back to life, God every morning calls souls back from the formless realm of sleep (which is the “brother of death”) into the world of forms—that is, into bodies—making them “pregnant with spirit.”

This metaphor is remarkably precise. The soul, in Rumi's view, does not merely reside in the body; rather, it carries the body. The body is like a saddle, and the soul is the horse of life. Every night, the saddle is removed from the horse, and the soul is momentarily freed from the constraints of the physical. But each morning, the saddle is replaced, and the cycle of life resumes. This continuous oscillation between the formless realm (the world of meaning) and the realm of forms (the sensory world) shapes our existence.

Crucial here is the phrase “zan diyār” (from that realm); this realm is where souls find repose before entering the body. It is the formless world, where spirits are free from the limitations of time and space. From there, God summons these souls back to this limited, corporeal world. This evokes the soul's alienation in the world of forms, echoing the “neyestān” (reed-bed) from which the soul has been severed and now yearns to return to its origin. Rumi clearly distinguishes between judāʾī (separation) and tanhāʾī (loneliness); this daily return and summoning attests that the soul is not alone, but has come from a known origin and is moving towards a known destination.

Following this very discussion, Rumi expresses a wish that this soul, like the Companions of the Cave, might have remained in that eternal sleep and found liberation from the “storm of wakefulness and consciousness” of this world. This reflects the mystic's deep sense of alienation in this world and his profound yearning to return to his origin. However, this wish stands in tension with God's daily act of returning souls to the world of forms, and this very tension between the pull towards formlessness and the imperative to live in form resonates throughout the Masnavi.

Key takeaways

• God, the Creator of every dawn, continually brings souls back from the formless realm into bodies each morning, an act akin to Israfil's trumpet call for resurrection.
• Sleep, metaphorically the brother of death, is a state where the soul is momentarily freed from the body's constraints, only to be divinely recalled to it each morning.
• In Rumi's ontology, the soul is the carrier of the body; the body is a mere saddle, while the soul is the horse of life, mounted anew each day.
• “That realm” (zan diyār) refers to the formless, spiritual world of meaning, the origin from which souls emanate and are daily summoned back to the world of forms.
• This daily return signifies that the soul's separation from its origin is temporary, implying that the soul is never truly alone but is remembered and returned by a loving Source.
• Rumi's yearning for his soul to remain eternally in that formless realm, free from the “storm of wakefulness,” expresses the mystic's profound desire for ultimate and permanent union.