Transformation of Self and Encounter with the Non-Human Other in the Mathnawi of Rumi

In his Mathnawī-i ma‘nāwī, Rūmī offers a view of the apparently inanimate—such as minerals, stones, and mountains—as rather being alive, in love, and in prayer. Far from being a sentimental projection onto the natural world, Rūmī offers a robust epistemology in which spiritual realization deepens intellectual perception. Those who know God are also those who truly know the world, thereby witnessing, for example, a tree’s prayers, a stone’s invocation, and the love of all cosmic beings for their Beloved. In other words, those who are spiritually realized are more capable to perceive nature in her true state, dispelling the illusion of inanimateness and unveiling an animate spiritual life of the “inanimate.” The condition for encountering nature as “thou” rather than “it” is the encounter with the Divine “Thou,” which necessitates a transformation of self for seeing the world as it really is.