Abdul Rahman Jami

Abdul Rahman Jami

Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami (Persian: نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی) (August 18, 1414 – November 19, 1492) was one of the greatest Persian poets in the 15th century and one of the last great Sufi poets.

Biography

Jami was born in a village near Jam, then Khorasan, now located in Ghor Province of Afghanistan, but a few years after his birth, his family migrated to the cultural city of Herat where he was able to study Peripateticism, mathematics, Arabic literature, natural sciences, and Islamic philosophy at the Nizamiyyah University of Herat.

Because his father was from Dasht, Jami’s early pen name was Dashti but later, he chose to use Jami because of the two reasons which he mentioned in a poem:

مولدم جام و رشحهء قلمم

جرعهء جام شیخ الاسلامی است

لاجرم در جریدهء اشعار

به دو معنی تخلصم جامی است

My birthplace is Jam, and my pen

Has drunk from (knowledge of) Sheikh-ul-Islam (Ahmad) Jam

Hence in the books of poetry

My pen name is Jami for these two reasons.

Afterwards he went to Samarkand, the most important center of scientific studies in the Muslim world and completed his studies there. He was a famous Sufi, and a follower of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order. At the end of his life he was living in Herat. His epitaph reads “When your face is hidden from me, like the moon hidden on a dark night, I shed stars of tears and yet my night remains dark in spite of all those shining stars.

Jami had a brother called Molana Mohammad, who was, apparently a learned man and a master in music, and Jami has a poem lamenting his death. Jami fathered four sons, but three of them died before reaching their first year. The surviving son was called Zia-ol-din Yusef and Jami wrote his Baharestan for this son.

Youth seeking his father’s advice on love

From the Haft Awrang of Jami, in the story “A Father Advises his Son About Love”. See Nazar ill’al-murd Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Teachings

In his role as Sufi shaykh, Jami expounded a number of teachings regarding following the Sufi path. In his view, love for the Prophet Mohammad was the fundamental stepping stone for starting on the spiritual journey. To a student who asked to be his pupil and claimed never to have loved anyone, he said, “Go and love first, then come to me and I will show you the way.

Works

Jami wrote approximately eighty-seven books and letters, some of which have been translated into English. His works range from prose to poetry, and from the mundane to the religious. He has also written works of history. His poetry has been inspired by the ghazals of Hafez, and his Haft Awrang is, by his own admission, influenced by the works of Nezami.