The internet went into meltdown last week when global music power-couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z released the first photo of their newborn twins, named Rumi and Sir Carter.
In that same week, Coldplay released the EP Kaleidoscope, whose title is inspired by the Rumi poem The Guest House.
All this is confirmation of something we already know and have known for years – Rumi is a big deal in the West.
Ironically, the 13th-century Islamic poet is arguably today’s biggest cultural export from the Muslim world, spanning various facets from literature to music.
He is presently the most-read poet in the United States, with millions of copies of his books sold, and his work is a hallmark of greeting cards, for everything from births to condolences.
Rumi remains a popular figure in social media too – there are up to a million Instagram hashtags mentioning his work, while a Rumi Quotes Facebook page has almost 700,000 likes.
Born in 1207 as Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi in Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan, Rumi followed his father’s academic leanings and grew to become a famed teacher and theologian.
The turning point came when he met the wandering dervish Shamsuddin of Tabriz in the Turkish city of Konya. They made an odd pairing and the close friendship between the refined Rumi and the uncouth yet wise Shamsuddin elicited jealousy from Rumi’s students. They schemed and eventually killed Shamsuddin almost a decade later.
The dye was cast, however. The life-changing bond he shared with Shamsuddin inspired Rumi to work on his Sufi masterpiece, Masnavi until his death in 1273.
With 26,000 couplets of didactic verses that aim to spiritually counsel and instruct, the six-volume Masnavi is viewed as one of the longest single authored poems ever published.
This is besides in excess of 3,000 poems Rumi wrote, which act as odes to God, the Prophet Mohammed and love.
The Mevlevi Sufi Order (renowned for their whirling dervish form of worship) was established after his death to preserve his teachings. The order has been run under the Rumi family since – the 22nd generation descendant, Faruk Hemdem Celebi, is presently the Makam Chalabi, or chief master.
Rumi’s imprint on the English-speaking world took hold relatively recently, and the chief reason was the dearth of accessible translations.
The desire to shift Rumi’s work away from the scholarly arena moved poet Robert Bly to seek the services of fellow American translator Coleman Barks in 1976. Bly gave him a copy of Rumi’s poetry, translated in a suffocatingly-dense style by esteemed British scholar Arthur Arberry, and famously said: “These poems need to be released from their cages.”
With Barks unable to speak Arabic or Farsi, the now-80-year-old poet worked purely from English scholarly translations of Rumi's poetry – particularly the works by American academic John Moyne and English orientalist Reynold Nicholson – and transformed the stiff prose into free verse. The results were immediate; Barks published more than 20 volumes in 30 years, including the 1995 bestseller The Essential Rumi.
Barks puts Rumi’s appeal down to his unifying message resonating in a time where societies are ravaged by religious conflict.
“I feel there is a strong global movement, an impulse that wants to dissolve the boundaries that religions have put up and end the sectarian violence,” he was quoted as saying in an interview in 2014. “It is said that people of all religions came to Rumi’s funeral in 1273. Because, they said, he deepens our faith wherever we are. This is a powerful element in his appeal now.”
Rumi proved to be an equally beguiling character in the fictional world. With the bestselling 2009 novel The Forty Rules of Love, Turkish author Elif Shafak juxtaposes the relationship between Rumi and Shamsuddin with the life of a rich suburban housewife to create a powerful novel about finding meaning in a material world.
Rumi has also been embraced by an eclectic array of musicians, from classical music composers to stadium rockers.
His poetry was the inspiration behind the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's acclaimed Symphony No.3 (1914-1916). In 2009, to celebrate Rumi's 800th anniversary, the Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed a series of shows with his Silk Road Ensemble (who came to the capital in March as part of the Abu Dhabi Festival), featuring his work.
When it comes to pop music, Rumi is the subject of one of Tod Rundgren's most mind-bending albums, A Cappella (1985), on which every sound is in fact his voice. In Miracle in the Bazaar, Rundgren sounds like he is stuck in an echo chamber as he sings: "As Jalaluddin Rumi has prophesied / This day, this day / Allah, Allah will make his presence known to you."
Regarding The Guest House as an inspiration for Kaleidoscope, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said the poem helped him to heal after his 2014 divorce from actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
"It kind of changed my life," he told Rolling Stone magazine. "It says that everything that happens to you is OK. The idea is to accept what happens to you and not run away from anything - and trust that things will blossom and become colourful."
Which brings us to the pop world's latest possible Rumi adherent, Jay-Z. The rapper mentions Rumi in his new album 4:44, in the soulful MaNyfaCedGod when he states: "Be grateful for whatever comes / Because each has been sent from a guy from beyond / That's what Rumi say."
While the book and album sales may point to his global appeal, to truly witness a “Rumi Effect” would be to see more positive change in the world. If Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s naming of their daughter Rumi helps to steer the conversation further towards his teachings, it can be viewed as nothing other than a positive step.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
Du Plessis plans his retirement
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis said on Friday the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia in two years' time will be his last.
Du Plessis, 34, who has led his country in two World T20 campaigns, in 2014 and 2016, is keen to play a third but will then step aside.
"The T20 World Cup in 2020 is something I'm really looking forward to. I think right now that will probably be the last tournament for me," he said in Brisbane ahead of a one-off T20 against Australia on Saturday.
Safety 'top priority' for rival hyperloop company
The chief operating officer of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Andres de Leon, said his company's hyperloop technology is “ready” and safe.
He said the company prioritised safety throughout its development and, last year, Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, announced it was ready to insure their technology.
“Our levitation, propulsion, and vacuum technology have all been developed [...] over several decades and have been deployed and tested at full scale,” he said in a statement to The National.
“Only once the system has been certified and approved will it move people,” he said.
HyperloopTT has begun designing and engineering processes for its Abu Dhabi projects and hopes to break ground soon.
With no delivery date yet announced, Mr de Leon said timelines had to be considered carefully, as government approval, permits, and regulations could create necessary delays.
Brief scores:
Toss: Kerala Knights, opted to fielf
Pakhtoons 109-5 (10 ov)
Fletcher 32; Lamichhane 3-17
Kerala Knights 110-2 (7.5 ov)
Morgan 46 not out, Stirling 40
MATCH INFO
FA Cup fifth round
Chelsea v Manchester United, Monday, 11.30pm (UAE), BeIN Sports
More from our Neighbourhood series:
The five stages of early child’s play
From Dubai-based clinical psychologist Daniella Salazar:
1. Solitary Play: This is where Infants and toddlers start to play on their own without seeming to notice the people around them. This is the beginning of play.
2. Onlooker play: This occurs where the toddler enjoys watching other people play. There doesn’t necessarily need to be any effort to begin play. They are learning how to imitate behaviours from others. This type of play may also appear in children who are more shy and introverted.
3. Parallel Play: This generally starts when children begin playing side-by-side without any interaction. Even though they aren’t physically interacting they are paying attention to each other. This is the beginning of the desire to be with other children.
4. Associative Play: At around age four or five, children become more interested in each other than in toys and begin to interact more. In this stage children start asking questions and talking about the different activities they are engaging in. They realise they have similar goals in play such as building a tower or playing with cars.
5. Social Play: In this stage children are starting to socialise more. They begin to share ideas and follow certain rules in a game. They slowly learn the definition of teamwork. They get to engage in basic social skills and interests begin to lead social interactions.
Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Stuart Kells, Counterpoint Press
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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