Rumi’s Elemental Imagination: Elemental Ecocritical Interactions and Agency in Rumi’s The Masnavi

Year 2025, Issue: 24, 23 - 45, 10.03.2025

Dilek Bulut Sarıkaya

https://doi.org/10.46250/kulturder.1584189

Abstract

The elements are the most essential components of the universe in which the interminable process of vitality is ensured through the incitement of the magnetic attraction and interaction between the elements. Overbearing impact of the elements is observed not only in the outside physical world but also deeply felt in the inner world of human imagination, feelings, and emotions. The medieval poet Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi’s (1207-1273) The Masnavi gives a wide coverage to the elements, directing human life as well as cosmic natural events. Each element, in this respect, is embedded with a spiritual energy, called by Rumi as love, stemming from God and circulating in the universe, sparkling life and vibrancy among human and nonhuman beings. Rumi’s notion of vitally alive universe with intentionally active elements in it strongly resonates with the theoretical views of elemental ecocriticism which insistently advocates the agency and intentionality of the elements that matter significantly both in human life and the external material world. The aim of this study, accordingly, is to examine the elements in Rumi’s The Masnavi under the critical lens of elemental ecocriticism only to disclose Rumi as an abiding philosopher, much ahead of his own time, with his modern, biological conceptualization of the elements as living entities and efficiently articulate forces that play actively dominant roles in the ongoing materialization of the universe.

Keywords

Rumi, The Masnavi, nature, elements, elemental ecocriticism

Rumi’nin Elementsel Düşünce Sistemi: Rumi’nin Mesnevi’sinde Element Ekoeleştirel İlişkiler ve Eyleyicilik

Abstract

Elementler, evrenin son derece önemli bir parçası olup, elementler arasındaki magnetik çekim ve etkileşim bu evrendeki sürekli canlılığın devam etmesinin sağlayan en önemli unsurdur. Elementlerin baskın etkisi sadece dış dünyada değil, aynı zamanda insanın iç dünyasında, hayallerinde, duygu ve düşüncelerinde de derin bir şekilde hissedilmektedir. Ortaçağ şairi Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (1207-1273), Mesnevi eserinde, insan hayatına ve kozmik doğa olaylarına yön veren elementlere genişçe yer vermiştir. Her bir element, Rumi’nin ilahi aşk olarak tanımladığı, sipiritüel bir enerjiyle doludur ve bu enerji Allah’tan kaynaklanarak bütün evrene dağılır ve insan ve insan dışı canlılara yaşam ve hayat enerjisi sağlar. Rumi’nin son derece canlı evren ve içindeki aktif ve bilinçli elementler kavramı, elemental ekoeleştirinin elementlere aktif, bilinçli ve eyleyici kavram olarak yaklaşımıyla örtüşmektedir. Bu nedenle, bu çalışmanın amacı, Rumi’nin Mesnevi’sini elemental ekoeleştirinin teorik bakış açısıyla inceleyerek, Rumi’yi kendi zamanının çok daha ötesine taşıyarak, zamansız ve ölümsüz bir düşünür olarak öne çıkaran, elementleri canlı unsurlar olarak ele alan, modern biyolojik element anlayışı ortaya çıkarmaktır.

Keywords

Rumi, Mesnevi, doğa, elementler, elemental ekoeleştiri

References

• Acim, Rachid (2022). “The Sufi and the Transcendentalist: An Encounter of Dialogue, Love and Sublimity”. Comparative Literature: East & West, 6(2): 117-129.
• Alaimo, Stacy (2008). “Transcorporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature”. Material Feminisms. Eds. Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman. Indiana University Press, 237-264.
• Alaimo, Stacy (2015). “Elemental Love in the Anthropocene”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 298-309.
• Arberrry, A. J. (2008). Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam. Routledge.
• Barad, Karen (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press.
• Bennett, Jane (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press.
• Bennett, Jane (2013). “The Elements”. Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, 4(1): 105-111.
• Bulut Sarıkaya, Dilek (2023a). The Human-Animal Relationship in Pre-Modern Turkish Literature: A Study of the Book of Dede Korkut and The Masnavi, Book I, II. Lexington Books.
• Bulut Sarıkaya, Dilek (2023b). “An Exploration of Riders to the Sea from the Perspective of Elemental Ecocriticism”. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews, 36(1): 73-79.
• Chittick, William (1989). The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination. State University of New York Press.
• Chittick, William (2005). The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi: Illustrated Edition. World Wisdom.
• Clarke, Lynda (2003). “The Universe Alive: Nature in the Masnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi”. Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust. Eds. Foltz, Richard C. et al. Harvard University Press, 39-65.
• Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome (2014). “Elemental Relations”. O-Zone: A Journal of Object-Oriented Studies, 1: 53-61.
• Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome (2015). “The Sea Above”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 105-133.
• Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome and Lowell Duckert (2015). “Introduction, Eleven Principles of the Elements”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 1-26.
• Duckert, Lowell (2015). “Earth’s Prospects”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 237-267.
• Empedocles (1981). Empedocles: The Extant Fragments. Ed. M.R. Wright. Yale University Press.
• Harris, Anne (2015). “Pyromena: Fire’s Doing”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 27-54.
• Macauley, David (2010). Elemental Philosophy: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water as Environmental Ideas. State University of New York Press.
• Mentz, Steve (2015). “Phlogiston”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 55–76.
• Morton, Timothy (2015). “Elementality”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 271–83.
• Mowlana Jalaloddin Rumi (2004). The Masnavi, Book I. Trans. Jawid Mojaddedi. Oxford University Press.
• Neale, Timothy et al. (2019). “Introduction: An Elemental Anthropocene”. Cultural Studies Review, 25(2): 109-114.
• Oppermann, Serpil and Serenella Iovino (2015). “Coda: Wandering Elements and Natures to Come”. Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. University of Minnesota Press, 310–317.
• Rigby, Kate (2014). “Spirits That Matter”. Material Ecocriticism. Eds. S. Iovino and S. Oppermann. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Safavi, Seyed Ghahreman, and Simon Weightman (2009). Rūmī’s Mystical Design: Reading the Mathnawī, Book One. State University of New York Press.
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1980). The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi. East-West Publications.
• Thackston, Wheeler M. (1999). “Introduction”. Signs of the Unseen: The Discourse of Jalaluddin Rumi. Trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, Jr. Shambhala, vii-xxvi.