The great walî Celâleddîn Rûmî (quddisa sirruh), who was full of love for Allâhu ta’âlâ, never played reeds or any other instrument. He did not listen to music, nor did he ever dance (raqs). Commentaries have been written in every country in many languages to his Mathnawî (Mesnevî), which has more than forty-seven thousand couplets that have been spreading nûr (light) to the world. The most valuable and tasteful of these commentaries is the one by Mawlânâ Jâmî which has also been commentated on by many others. And, of these, 56 pages, which covered only four couplets, of the commentary by Suleymân Nesh’et Efendi was published during the time of Sultân ’Abd al-Majîd Khân by the Matba’a-i Âmira in 1263 A. H.

In this book, Mawlânâ Jâmî (quddisa sirruh) wrote, “The word ‘ney’ in the first couplet of the Mathnawî [Listen to the reed. . . ] means a perfect and exalted human being brought up in Islam. Such people have forgotten themselves and everything else. Their minds are always busy seeking Allâhu ta’âlâ’s ridâ (approval, love). In the Persian language, ‘ney’ means ‘non-existent. ’ Such people have become non-existent from their own existence.

The musical instrument called ‘ney’ is a plain pipe and the sound from the ney is completely from the player. As those exalted men are emptied of their existence, the manifestation of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Akhlâq, Sifât and Kamâlât (moral qualities, attributes of perfection) are observed in them. The third meaning of the word ‘ney’ is reed-pen, which again means, or points to, an insân-i kâmil (perfect human). Movements and writtings of a pen are not from itself, nor are the actions and words of a perfect human; they are all inspired to him by Allâhu ta’âlâ. ” ’Abidîn Pasha ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’, the governor of Ankara during the time of Sultan ’Abd al-Hamîd Khân the Second, gave nine proofs in his Mesnevî Şerhi to show that ‘ney’ meant insân-i kâmil.

Today, November 22^nd. The Sun enters in Sagittarius (Kavs) and third month of fall begins. The Sun will be in this constellation for 29 days and will be in Capricorn on 21^st December.