M6:3695 — آنکه انکار حقایق می‌کند / جملگی او بر خیالی می‌تند

Translation: He who denies realities, / his entire being is built upon a fancy. Meaning: This verse critiques sophists, asserting that anyone who denies all objective realities is, in fact, basing their denial on a baseless fancy, thus failing to escape the grasp of reality itself.

This verse, in my view, presents a direct and incisive critique of the Greek Sophists and similar intellectual currents throughout history. Rumi clearly addresses those who believe that no truth exists in the world, or that truth is merely a construct of our minds or human conventions. This idea, which today resurfaces in various philosophical forms—such as certain postmodern readings or “truth-making” theories—is, for Rumi, built on a fragile foundation.

I have often stated that Rumi is not a poet who engages in historical disputes or purely theoretical debates. Yet here, he directly assails a fundamental fallacy in human thought. The Sophists, relying on the power of language and rhetoric, imagined they could prove or refute anything, thereby concluding that no fixed truth exists independently of the human mind. Rumi responds that this very “denial of realities” is itself a “fancy” (khiyāl). In other words, someone who declares, “There is no truth; everything is an illusion,” is himself engaged in “fancying” that realities do not exist. This is an internal contradiction, a philosophical dead-end.

Just as Descartes, much later, arrived at the truth that “I doubt that I am doubting,” therefore his act of doubting is real, Rumi similarly alludes to this logic. “Rub your eye” (Chashmi bemāl)—meaning, open your eyes and see that you cannot escape acknowledging the existence of at least one fundamental reality, which is the very act of your denial or fancying. This world, with all its uncertainties and all the vicissitudes that lead us to infer the existence of a hidden “rider” (a khalfī-kār, or a dominant will), is not a world whose every component can be dismissed as a mere product of imagination or lacking in reality. A blanket denial of reality is itself a projection stemming from heedlessness or distorted perception, not a profound philosophical discovery.

Key takeaways

• The absolute denial of reality is itself founded on a baseless fancy.
• Sophists, by denying truth, fall into an internal contradiction.
• Even the act of denial demonstrates the real existence of the denier and their act.
• This verse is Rumi's direct critique of relativist or truth-evading viewpoints.
• The world, despite its uncertainties, is not entirely a mental construct.