Location: Sweelinckzaal (room 0.05), Drift 21, Utrecht University<\/p>\n
The year 2023 marks the 750th<\/sup> anniversary of Jal\u0101l al-D\u012bn R\u016bm\u012b\u2019s death (1207-1273), one of the mostly read authors in the Islamic world, and a best-selling poet in the United States, praised for his aesthetics, his wisdom, practical advice, and passionate love. Why is R\u016bm\u012b so appealing to people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds? What is his timeless message that attracts both Muslims and non-Muslims alike? Is his modern appreciation merely to do with his non-conformist and transgressive ideas? How are his transgressive ideas used as a counter to the violent ideas of Islamist ideology, emphasizing a different Islam? R\u016bm\u012b composed an impressive amount of works, his poetry consists of about 120.000 lines. His magnum opus<\/em>, the Spiritual Poem<\/em> (Masnav\u012b-yi ma\u2018nav\u012b<\/em>) is called the Koran in the Persian language as he comments on the Koran in an attractive fashion, adorning his message with metaphors and illustrative anecdotes. His opening lines about the complaint of a reed cut from the reedbed is a metaphor for the separated human soul, longing to return to the original home.<\/p>\n This conference brings together scholars who have worked or are working on various aspects of R\u016bm\u012b as a mystic, a religious scholar, and a poet. We would like to invite scholars who are working on R\u016bm\u012b to present a paper on any aspects of this medieval sage who has become a source of inspiration for many people around the world today. The conference is organized to encourage discussion on understudied aspects of R\u016bm\u012b\u2019s poetry, personality, legacy and his reception history. His oeuvre is unmatched. In Professor William\u2019s words, \u201cIt is perhaps the single most influential piece of mystical writing ever conceived.\u201d Therefore, we would like to analyse new aspects of R\u016bm\u012b\u2019s mystical philosophy.<\/p>\n