The First Day of the Feast Has Come

Ramadan feast

Spiritual Sunday

Here’s a poem by the sublime Rumi to celebrate tomorrow’s end of Ramadan. According to Wikipedia, Sufis read the story of Zulaikha’s lust for Joseph as the soul’s longing for God. (Jews and Christians know Zulaikha as Potiphar’s wife.) The Ramadan fast has sharpened this longing for the divine, which Rumi also expresses through (if I read the poem correctly) Mary’s assumption into heaven and Jacob joining with Rachel after 14 years of waiting. The poem explodes with images of freedom:

Do not despair, my soul, for hope has manifested itself;
the hope of every soul has arrived from the unseen.

Do not despair, though Mary has gone from your hands,
for that light which drew Jesus to heaven has come.

Do not despair, my soul, in the darkness of this prison,
for that king who redeemed Joseph from prison has come.

Jacob has come forth from the veil of occlusion,
Joseph who rent Zulaikha’s veil has come.

You who all through night to dawn have been crying “O Lord,”
mercy has heard that “O Lord” and has come.

O pain which has grown old, rejoice, for the cure has come;
O fastened lock, open, for the key has come.

You who have abstained fasting from the Table on high,
break your fast with joy, for the first day of the feast has come.

Keep silence, keep silence, for by virtue of the command “Be!”
that silence of bewilderment has augmented beyond all speech.

From the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi,
translated by A.J. Arberry, Mystical Poems of Rumi, 1968