Rumi's rooz ō shab

Hello and welcome to the final part of our study of Rumi’s poem, rooz ō shab. In this lesson, we’re going to go over the last two lines of the poem. As always, let’s listen to my aunt Farnaz recite the entire poem:

dar havāyat bee gharār-am rooz ō shab

sar zé kooyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab

rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam

rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab

jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān

jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab

So, hopefully you understood the majority of that, since we’ve learned the first four lines already. Also, hopefully you’ve memorized that portion. And this last part will be a piece of cake. So, as we said before, the concept of rooz ō shab is a zekr in this poem, meaning it’s a mantra. Through repetition, you get lost in these words. Repeating them is like the whirling of the dervishes. They spin in a circle, and the earth spins as well- the spinning causes day and night, rooz ō shab. So that’s what this is supposed to evoke, that same spinning, the concept of becoming lost, of becoming majnoon. And it all comes down to loss of the ego, of joining the world and the creator in spinning, becoming part of the whole. And now, let’s listen to my aunt Farnaz reciting the last two lines of the poem:

jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān

jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab

So in these lines, we hear rooz ō shab at the very end, but before that, he changes to a different mantra, and that is the mantra of jān ō del. So jān is the word for soul. jān

(jān)

And del is the word for heart. del

(del)

So back to jān- this is a concept that comes up a lot in Persian culture. In fact, when you’re talking to someone, you can follow their name with jān- so for instance, you can refer to me as Leyla jān.

(Leyla jān)

And this means Leyla dear. Iranians refer to their loved ones in this way, and also just their dear friends. jān can also become joon in conversation. joon

(joon)

So instead of leyla jān, it becomes Leyla joon. Leyla joon

(Leyla joon)

So you can practice this with your Iranian friends and family. Say you have a friend named Sarah, pronounced Sara in Persian. You can call your friend Sara $1

(Sara $1)

or Sara $1

(Sara $1)

And this, again, is very common among friends. And not just friends of opposite genders, or romantic partners- men can call men joon, as can women. So again, this word for soul or life is jān

(jān)

And del again is the word for heart. del

(del)

So heart and soul, jān ō del

(jān ō del)

Also in this sentence is the word āsheghān. āsheghān

(āsheghān)

This word might be a bit trickier to pronounce because it has the sound gh in it, which is one of two Persian sounds not contained in the English language. So gh

(gh)

āsheghān

(āsheghān)

And this means lovers. In English when you say lovers, it usually means people that are in love with other people. In Persian it can mean a whole lot more- āsheghān can mean a person the ones that are in love, the crazy ones, lovers of life. So more than just meaning someone in love, it is a type of person- a person lost in love. āsheghān

(āsheghān)

And I think that this is an important concept in Persian culture- think about the concept of joie de vivre- of the love of sensual pleasures, like sex, and food and sensuality. All these things that make us human- there’s no higher human concept of being a lover- āsheghān. Ok so let’s hear this sentence again:

jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān

So now the word meekhāstand. First let’s repeat it- meekhāstand

(meekhāstand)

And this simply says ‘they wanted’ or they requested or asked for. meekhāstand

(meekhāstand)

jān ō del-rā meekhāstand means soul and heart they wanted. We have rā in there which we learned in the last lesson doesn’t have a direct translation but is a direct object marker. So it’s letting us know that the thing that is wanted is referring to soul and heart. jān ō del-rā meekhāstand

(jān ō del-rā meekhāstand)

and az āsheghān means from the lovers. az is the word for from. az

(az)

jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān

(jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān)

So altogether, this means soul and heart they requested from the lovers. So they requested for us to give our souls and heart. jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān

(jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān)

And I love this concept because its not clear who’s requesting it. Who’s asking for the heart and souls of lovers? It sounds to me as if they’re saying- ok, you want to call yourself a lover, you’re in love? Then give up your heart and soul- that’s the price that you pay. Which again, is another way of saying, give up your ego, become lost, become majnoon. So again, jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān

(jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān)

Ok, now let’s hear the next line

jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab

And in this little section, this line just gives me the chills. It’s such a beautiful ending to the selection we’re learning. meesepāram is the word for to give up or surrender. meesepāram

(meesepāram)

So jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab- hopefully you can piece together what this means. jān ō del-rā meesepāram

(jān ō del-rā meesepāram)

which means ‘I surrender up my heart and soul’. jān ō del-rā meesepāram

(jān ō del-rā meesepāram)

And he ends it by saying jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab- so I surrender my heart and soul day and night. jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab

(jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab)

So basically- if this is the price to be a lover, I unequivocally give up my heart and soul- so he is gone, surrendering all for love. And that is truly the price of love- to give up oneself in the pursuit of love, whether that, again, be for earthly love, or for the mystical, spiritual kind of love of the creator, of God or the universe of whatever you want to call celestial love.

So now let’s listen to the whole selection of the poem as read by my aunt.

Absolutely beautiful, and it’s been so wonderful peeling back the layers of meaning of this selection with you all. Again, hopefully you’ve been memorizing it as we go along- and we would LOVE to see the videos of your recitations sent to info@chaiandconversation.com , with chai spelled chai.

On today’s lesson we’ve linked Shahram Nazeri’s version of this poem as well, which is more popular than Lotfi’s, and also a gorgeous interpretation. Hopefully listening to that will give you the understanding of this poem as a mantra as well.

And that brings us to the end of our study of Rumi’s rooz ō shab. We’ll be back soon with another poem- and until then, thank you for listening, and bé omeedé deedār!