The Masnavi (Mesnevi)

if one wishes to let others participate in what they have personally experienced, then one must have a method, a path, upon which others can reach the same goal. The need of individual enlightened souls to make the perceived blessings of salvation accessible to their fellow human beings led to the emergence of sects in Christianity, the establishment of countless "directions" in Muhammadanism original: "Muhammedanismus"; a historical Western term for Islam., and finally to the founding of the various dervish orders. And these, in turn, branched out and ramified further, depending on the views of the individual Pirs original: "Pire"; spiritual elders or masters. or spiritual leaders who knew how to give weight to their method (tariqat original: "tariqät"; the spiritual path or system of a Sufi order.). In Persia, however, all these directions—which are summarized under the name of Sufism—nonetheless have something in common. They adopted the form of poetry and, from the tenth century onward, increasingly filled the entire body of poetic literature; so much so that one can say without exaggeration that every poet was henceforth a mystic, and almost every poetic work appears or can be interpreted as more or less mystically colored.

In this literature, Sufism has bestowed upon the world a precious and inexhaustible treasure of first-rate artworks. On the soil of no other country has mysticism produced such beautiful and rich blossoms as on that of Persia. From this source, since the time of Goethe, German literature has drawn extensively and enriched itself with new ideas and art forms, however deficient and often misleading the translations of Persian poetic works were at first, and however imperfect our initial knowledge of Oriental philosophy might have been. Rarely has a poet possessed—as was the case with Rückert Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), a German poet and translator famous for his linguistic genius and translations of Eastern literature.—a thorough, scientific-Oriental knowledge of both language and subject matter. In many cases, poetic talent has [leaped] over the depth of the world of thought...

Sufism, Mysticism, Persia, Goethe, Rückert, Dervish Order, Pirs, tariqat, Muhammadanism, Poetry