ETHICS VALUES AND TECHNOLOGY 28/04/2019

TERM PROJECT FINAL REPORT

TITLE: MAULANA JALAL UDDIN RUMI AND

ETHICS

Danish Hussain
Electrical Engineering student, IT University, Lahore
Muhammad Awais
Electrical Engineering student, IT University, Lahore

Abstract
This research brings out the significant features of the ethical
philosophy of Rumi. His Masnavi carries out a search of the Sufism and
its numerous aspects like love and reason, freewill, belief and destiny,
commination with God, Obedience and the difficulty with evil. Rumi
considers that everything is not good in universe and he refuses the
attitude of quietness on these matters, he also considers that evil a way
for us to struggle for a correct path. Rumi says that love has the cure for
all the diseases, it can be the only path to know about the God and the
absolute truth that is knowing self.

Introduction
Maulana Rumi was the greatest Persian poet and Sufi. Now to
understand why Rumi was a great Sufi we must first know about what
Sufism is, Sufism is the quest for the higher realities, it is the search for
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The knowledge that is divine, it is the effort to find a personal

connection with God and understand the God and his message. From the
time man started to think, he is always wondered about where he came
from, where he will go, what is the purpose of his existence, what is God
and what are the ultimate realities of life. Maulana Rumi did a lot of
work and he spent a great time on the very subject. Maulana‘s work in
the form of the six volumes of the Masnavi was to find how can man
find the ultimate realities, and how can we experience God to the
greatest level.
The spiritual side of Sufism is Islam. Islam guides us ways to get to the
God and can we understand the guidance of God. Sufism on the other
side is to lose our self for the love of the God and get absorbed in the

God so that you cannot understand anything other than God. The process
of spiritual excellence involves doing of the following things
 Ita’at (Obedience)
He obeys all the hukm of God and forbade
attitudes and emotions like anger, pride, pain, hatred for the will of
the God, in a way he only does what pleases God

 Sharia(Law)
He performs all the principles of Islam like offering
prayers, doing fast and doing ibadat of God

 Tariqah (path)
He follows the path of taqwa (piety) and does
purification of his soul (Tazkia-e-nafs) and spends all of our
money in the name of God.

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 Marifah (higher knowledge)

He performs practices for the
refinement of the soul and does meditation and ‘sama’.

 Haqeqat(truth)
He just completely changes himself and does
everything for the will of God and loses self and shapes himself
according to the will of the God.
Now when someone passes through all the stages he gets experiences
like the feeling of his self, knowing about himself, his thought process
goes to the next level, he completely knows why he is send to the Earth
ad what is the purpose of his life and the things like ‘I am not’ anything
but God is everything comes to him.

Rumi’s Masnavi
Maulana Rumi’s Masnavi teaches us numerous features
of the Sufism such as the ideas of love with God, reason and knowledge,
nafs, Sama, freewill, our destiny, communication with God and how to
refuse our physical identify to seek the love of the God. Maulana’s first
two books are mainly dealing with the nafs, self-refusal
And bad inclinations, his third and fourth volume mainly concerns with
reason and knowledge while his last two volumes tell us he how to
understand the existence of God with refusal of physical self.
Role of Flute
Music has a great role in Sufism, Maulana Rumi has used
flute in many verses of Masnavi and has thought of flute as the vital
thing in understanding the process of Sufism, his Masnavi starts with

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Flute which he describes as the entirety of thinking of Sufism and

compares it with Surah-e-Fatiha which he says is the core of the whole
Quran. According to Rumi a particular type of music can lift the soul of
man to an entirely different world that is divine and it provides the
nutrition for the soul. Rumi gives us an example of flute to describe his
importance, he says that it is not just the air in the flue that is making
sound but the flame of love that is producing melodious sounds in it.
What our words cannot express can be communicated by the tiny holes
of flute.
Existence of sin
Maulana Rumi argues that everting is not good in the
world, he denies the approach of quietness and denial but urges us to
fight against all the evil forces that are present in us, he believes that we
Have the ability to overcoming the evils, as Quran tells us that

Maulana says that the presence of evil has a good contribution in

developing a personality of an individual because it allows home to do
struggle in order to do good things and please his God, Angels are no

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Judged because they do not know how to do evil but humans are because
they know wha the evil is. Maulana gives us an example of bird, he says
that in order for bird to fly it requires resistance of air, and no flying is
possible in vacuum.
Maulana claims all things are not good or bad as a whole but what the
purpose it is done for can change its meaning and for one individual it
can be good for some condition 1 and bad for the other individual for
condition 2, even knowledge he says can be good or evil depending on
the use, if it used for self only it can be very evil and can cause
greediness and evil attitude while if it is used for the betterment of
society it good.

So, his teachings tell us that values exist by the presence of resistance
and negation that we have to overcome.

Concept of Love
Love is very important according to Rumi, it is a way of
finding about self and knowing undiscovered things that are present in
us. Maulana claims that a person in love forgets what he is and tries to
be like his love and does everything that his mahboob does.

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According to Maulana it is the love that gives meaning to life and it

because of it that we are able to go towards our original, love can only
be understood by experience, it cannot get it by using logic, and it is
beyond our reasoning and theory. Love has the power to make
something good bad and something that is bad good. Maulana further
gives us the example of true love that it does not demand any proof and
it trusts his love in spite of the appearance telling against him. Faith
according to him is generated through love there is no other way to
create it.
Freewill
Freewill has been an important question for ages, most of the
ethical philosophers think that humans cannot be accounted for in the
absence of free will and we cannot check human responsibility and their
morality in its absence. Maulana agrees that it is important for judging of
human morality. Maulana tells us that only humans have the freedom to
choose whatever they want, there is neither any reward nor any penalty
for the animals and the angels that do not have the freedom of will but
humans will be judged because they have freewill to do anything. Quran
also tells us the same

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According to Maulana fate is true as far as the rulings of God is

concerned but individual choice is not predestined he has the free will to
do anything, no heavenly or earthly influence can determine that action
will be taken by man, the concept of praise, blame is waste if there is not
freedom to do things. Maulana also claims that freedom for the sake of
liberty is not the goal of man’s divine development.

Ita’at or obedience
It is the most important step in reaching towards
God. Greed is a disease that takes man to grave, it is condemned because
it can cause difficulty in a spiritual life. Maulana gives us an example to
explain greed, he says that a jug can only fill water to its top excess
water will overflow similarly a drop of dew is needed for a shell to
produce a pearl the excess dew drops are only waste, he says that people

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should learn from it and be conscious in their life, most of things like air,
water are free for men but they have to buy clothes, house they should

be careful not to spend too much on it. Quran teaches us to obey Allah
and his Prophet

Maulana relates mirror to the heart, the whole world reflects the heart, it
is clean God will be reflected in it. He says that there are two types of
truth, absolute and relative, science and philosophy are the relative truths
but the absolute truth is the knowing of the God which is developed
through intuitions and can only be felt. Maulana gives us an example of
a King who invites two great painters, one Chinese and other Roman,
the two are separated by a wall that has a curtain in the middle, the
Chinese makes a great masterpiece while the Roman makes the wall as
shinny as possible to create a mirror, when the curtain is removes the
same painting can be seen reflecting on the mirror of the Roman painter,
so by stating this Maulana says that when someone gets too much
absorbed in the love of the God he gets the appearance of the God, not
that he claims to be God.

Conclusion
In the conclusion it turns out that Persian poet Maulana Jalal-ud-din
Rumi is one of the best 13th century spiritual genius of history.

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His extraordinary creativity and poetry is still known and acknowledged

by people globally. Love is basically inexpressible and unanalysable,
through it be can purify our souls and it is the greatest virtue his
philosophy and Sufism is known from the love which he considers as the
ultimate source of knowledge for the mankind. According to him, only

Humans have the freewill, and the blessings of God are n those who
obey his order and follow him. His theme of love in knowing about God
became a popular theme for the coming Sufis. Rumi’s global
acknowledgement has been increasing in the west in 20th century,
various societies, foundations are still working on Rumi across the
globe. The United Nations Educational, Social and cultural Organization
(UNESCO) celebrated the 8th hundred Rumi anniversary during 2007.

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References

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STUDY OF.
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