Term: Winter/Spring 2018
Semester Dates: January 16, 2018 – May 9, 2018
Course Number: 01:840:456:01 (Rutgers) | lANG 3651 (Minnesota) | REL 494, CWL 496 (Illinois)
Times: Wednesday 1:10-4:00 PM (EST) | 12:10-3:00 PM (CST)
Professor: Jawid Mojaddedi, jawid@rutgers.edu
Rumi is today the most well-known Sufi across the world. His legacy suggests that this is not undeserved, for he not only composed thousands of verses of poetry that have become revered internationally, but his disciples formed, on the basis of his teachings, a Sufi order that became highly influential for many centuries in three different continents. Moreover, he has come to be considered in much of the world as one of the greatest ever mystics to have lived.
This seminar will focus on Rumi and his writings, in order to acquire an in-depth understanding of Sufi spirituality and literature. The method will be to contextualize Rumi historically and then analyze his poetry and discourses, with an emphasis on his didactic poetry. At every stage, the analysis of texts in translation will be emphasized, both as a means to acquire a more in-depth and nuanced understanding, and also to develop skills in textual analysis that are indispensable for advanced undergraduate and graduate study. Original sources can be provided for anyone who reads Persian.
About the Instructor: Dr Jawid Mojaddedi is Professor of Religion at Rutgers University. His area of research is early and medieval Sufism. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and raised from the age of five in Great Britain, he completed his studies under the supervision of the late Norman Calder at the University of Manchester, receiving his PhD in 1998. He served for two years as Assistant Editor for Encyclopaedia Iranica, before taking up his current position at Rutgers, where he teaches courses in the general field of Islamic Studies.
Since the publication of his verse translation, The Masnavi: Book One, which was awarded the 2004 Lois Roth Prize, he has been working towards completing the six books of Jalal al-Din Rumi’s magnum opus. He has already published in the same Oxford World’s Classics Series a translation of the second and third books, in 2007 and 2013, respectively, and Book Four is due to be published in Fall 2017. In addition to his translations of Rumi’s poetry, he has also published the monograph Beyond Dogma: Rumi’s Teachings on Friendship with God and Early Sufi Theories (Oxford University Press, 2012). Previous books include The Biographical Tradition in Sufism:the Tabaqat Genre from al-Sulami to Jami (RoutledgeCurzon, 2001), and, as co-editor and co-translator with Norman Calder and Andrew Rippin, Classical Islam: A Sourcebook of Religious Literature (Routledge, 2003; expanded second edition, 2012).
Hosting University: Rutgers University
Participating Universities: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Minnesota
Academic Calendar: Unless specified by the course instructor, the course will follow the host campus’ academic calendar.