M6:3791 — وای آن دل کش چنین سودا فتاد / هیچ کس را این چنین سودا مباد

Translation: Woe to that heart on which such a soudā (passion/melancholy) fell; May no one experience such a soudā (transaction/deal). Meaning: This verse expresses a strong warning against the profound, often dangerous, spiritual passion or 'deal' that can consume the heart, wishing that no one should ever fall into such a state of intense, possibly ruinous, love or spiritual undertaking.

This couplet, in my definitive view, contains one of Rumi’s most precise yet cautionary teachings. The word soudā here is employed with two pivotal meanings, both alluding to the profound and often perilous journey of spiritual endeavor.

Firstly, soudā refers to melancholy, madness, or passionate infatuation. In ancient medicine, soudā, or "black bile," was a humor whose excess in the brain led to melancholia, chronic sadness, and ultimately, psychosis. Rumi uses it to signify the soudā of love, which figures like Ibn Sina and many physicians of that era regarded as a type of mental illness. This is a love that wrenches the heart from its ordinary state, pushing it towards frenzy, rendering it alien to reason and self-management. As Rumi himself notes, "physicians do not recognize this illness, nor can they cure it." This is the intense captivation and utter enthrallment that arises from the beauty of the Beloved or the divine prophets, distancing the individual from the world of argumentation and intellect, casting them into the realm of self-forgetting ecstasy. This love is the fount of faith—a faith not born of argument, but of heart-rapture and attraction. Rumi himself states that his book is a book of love, not philosophy or argument; its purpose is to ignite a spark in hearts and to captivate them. So, "Woe to that heart on which such a soudā fell" means woe to the heart that becomes entangled in such a love, which drives it to madness, alienates it from its own reason and self-governance, and plunges it into the ocean of self-abandonment and rapture.

The second meaning of soudā, which immediately follows, refers to the Turkish roots of the word, denoting "transaction" or "commerce." "May no one experience such a soudā" thus implies: may no one enter into such a disadvantageous bargain. Rumi clarifies this in the subsequent verses: "This is the recompense for one who sowed the seed of ignorance, / And held counsel in contempt and made light of it; / He trusted in his own contrivance, / Believing he could advance his affair with intellect." This "disadvantageous bargain" is, in essence, an allusion to relying on one's own self-sufficient intellect (ʿaql) and personal stratagems (tadbir-i khwīsh). Throughout the Masnavi, Rumi insists that in the path of spiritual quest, reliance on partial intellect and individual planning leads only to ruin. This is vividly illustrated by the tale of the grammarian and the boatman in Book One: the grammarian, puffed up by his knowledge, was helpless in the whirlpool, unable to swim, while the unlettered boatman mocked him, saying, "You need mahw (effacement), not nahw (grammar), here, know this!" Nahw symbolizes discursive reason and acquired knowledge, while mahw symbolizes annihilation in the ocean of being, the letting go of all stratagems and plans. Thus, this soudā—this transaction where a human, instead of seeking annihilation and trust, relies on his own intellect and self-importance—is a calamitous deal from which Rumi warns us.

Ultimately, Rumi teaches the lesson of "dying." This dying is not suicide, but rather "abandoning stratagem, abandoning intellect," and seeing oneself as nothing. In the story of the lover complaining of his sufferings and sacrifices to the Beloved, the Beloved responds: "You have done all this, but you have not died, you are still alive; / Die this death if you are a truly sacrificing lover." This death means letting go of the ego and its machinations, which is essential for the seeker. Therefore, "Woe to that heart on which such a soudā fell" signifies falling into the madness of divine love, which mesmerizes the heart and takes away its self-awareness. And "May no one experience such a soudā" expresses the wish that no one should mistakenly rely on their own intellect and plans, thereby entering into a ruinous transaction that diverts them from the path of truth. In effect, Rumi cautions against both aspects of soudā: one due to its intensity, the other due to its erroneous path.

Key takeaways

• The word soudā in this couplet carries a dual meaning: soudā as madness/melancholy (the frenzy of divine love), and soudā as a transaction/deal (implying a potentially ruinous bargain).
• Divine love, for Rumi, is a form of soudā or madness that bypasses human intellect and cunning; this love is the foundation of faith, not rational argument.
• Reliance on self-sufficient intellect and personal stratagems in the spiritual path constitutes a damaging 'soudā' or transaction, from which Rumi warns us.
• The concept of 'dying' (murdan) in mysticism signifies abandoning cunning, setting aside partial intellect, and achieving annihilation (fanā) in the divine will, which is essential for the seeker.
• Heart-captivation (maftūniyyat) and spiritual attraction are the initial prerequisites for the spiritual journey, transcending rational argumentation.
• Nahw (outward knowledge/grammar) stands opposed to Mahw (inner effacement/annihilation); in the ocean of existence, true swimming (mahw) is required, not grammatical knowledge.