M6:1536 — آن گروهی کز فقیری بی‌سرند / صد جهت زان مردگان فانی‌تراند

Translation: Those groups who are headless in poverty (faqiri), / Are a hundred times more perished than those (physically) dead. Meaning: Rumi posits that Sufis, who through spiritual poverty (faqirī) transcend their ego, experience a far more profound and multifaceted annihilation than ordinary physical death.

This verse follows the judge's ruling that the law applies to the living, not the dead. Rumi, with his characteristic literary expansiveness, shifts from discussing physical death to the mystical, Sufi death. He equates faqirī (poverty) with Sufism and spiritual indigence: embarking on the ascetic path and relinquishing the self. Sufis become 'headless' (bī-sar) by severing the head of their ego and transcending their individual self.

Rumi asserts that Sufis are a hundred times 'more dead' than ordinary mortals. While a physically dead person perishes in only one aspect (the loss of bodily life), Sufis undergo annihilation in 'a hundred ways.' He articulates this further in the next verse (M6:1537): 'The dead perish in one aspect by harm / Sufis have perished in a hundred ways.' Rumi has previously used this analogy in Book Three of the Mathnawi, in the story of the Lover of Bukhara and Sadr-e Jahan, where he says: 'He has two hundred souls from the light of God / And sacrifices those two hundred every moment.' Rumi himself declared: 'I have tested it: my death is in my life / When I am freed from this life, there is permanence.' Thus, we distinguish between two types of death: one that arises from the weakness of nature and physiological failure, and another that occurs within life itself; a death by choice, wherein the seeker repeatedly sacrifices the self to attain eternal life.

This chosen death is the killing of the nafs (ego), which Rumi refers to in Book Five, in the tale of the Ghazi (warrior) and his ego. The ego tells the Ghazi: 'Here in this hermitage, in this cave, you kill me a hundred times a day. Go kill me once and be done with it.' This is precisely what it means to 'perish in a hundred ways'; it is the three hundred thousand deaths in the path of love that Rumi mentions in the following verse (M6:1538): 'Death is one killing, but this is three hundred thousand / Each one with countless blood-money.'

This is a reward also promised in the Quran: 'Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties in exchange for that they will have Paradise.' God buys the souls and wealth of believers, granting them Paradise in return. Similarly, it is said about Prophet George (Jorjīs) that he was killed and resurrected many times: 'Like George, each one in concealment / Is killed and brought to life sixty times.' The true lover embraces death after death for the Beloved, viewing the Beloved's wounds as balm, yearning: 'Strike another wound!' As Shaykh Bahāʾī put it: 'You struck a wound, and the heart's wound found peace from it, O physician of broken hearts, another balm!'

The true lover embraces both the grace and wrath of the Beloved; they love both opposites and are not saddened by ruin, for 'Beneath ruin is a king's treasure.' They are their own enemy and a friend to the One who kills them, because 'It is love and passion themselves that kill the lovers of love.' These successive deaths are not annihilation, but the reception of a hundred lives in exchange for one sacrificed; a life a hundredfold richer and deeper in the realm of love.

Key takeaways

• A true Sufi, by transcending the 'self' and the 'head of the ego,' experiences a deeper annihilation than physical death.
• Faqirī (poverty) in mysticism signifies detachment from egoic attachments, not merely material destitution.
• Mystical death is not a singular event but a continuous sacrifice of 'many souls' on the path of spiritual journeying.
• This annihilation is not destruction but the attainment of a richer, more enduring life in the realm of love.
• From Rumi's perspective, the pain and suffering of the mystical path are themselves divine balm and reward.
• The true lover perceives no distinction between the Beloved's grace and wrath, embracing both with love.