Does he have intellect?

Yes. This is a very interesting passage, and the distinction is sharper in Persian than in the English translation. Rumi is constructing a hierarchy of hiddenness:

body → spirit/life → intellect → spirit of revelation

And he is saying that what is deepest is progressively less directly perceptible. The key lines are Masnavi II, 3253–3258 in the numbering shown in your book. The Persian text is independently attested in editions of the Masnavi.

1. The body: جسم

jism

جسم ظاهر، روح مخفی آمدست

jism-e ẓāher, rūḥ-e makhfī āmadast

Literally:

“The body is manifest; the spirit is hidden.”

• جسم (jism) = body, physical body

• ظاهر (ẓāher) = apparent, manifest, outward, visible

• روح (rūḥ) = spirit, soul, life-spirit

• مخفی (makhfī) = hidden, concealed

• آمدست (āmadast) = “has come/is” in an older literary construction, essentially “has become/appeared as”

Then the wonderful image:

جسم همچون آستین، جان همچو دست

jism hamchūn āstīn, jān hamchū dast

“The body is like a sleeve; the jān is like the hand.”

Here Rumi switches from روح (rūḥ) to جان (jān).

That is significant. Jān is literally “life,” “living soul,” “life-force,” and also “soul/spirit” in Persian poetry. The metaphor is very concrete: you see the sleeve, but what makes the sleeve take shape and move is the hand inside it.

So:

جسم jism = the visible garment

جان jān / روح rūḥ = the living presence inside it

2. Then comes the intellect: عقل

ʿaql

This is the line you noticed:

باز عقل از روح مخفی‌تر بود

bāz ʿaql az rūḥ makhfī-tar būd

Literally:

“Again, the ʿaql is more hidden than the rūḥ.”

The important word is -تر (-tar), the Persian comparative suffix:

• مخفی = hidden

• مخفی‌تر = more hidden

And عقل (ʿaql) is not merely “intelligence” in the modern IQ sense. It means something more like:

intellect, rational faculty, understanding, discernment, intelligence, the capacity to apprehend and distinguish.

Rumi’s point is remarkably empirical:

حس سوی روح زوتر ره برد

ḥess sū-ye rūḥ zūtar rah barad

Literally:

“The sense finds a way to the spirit sooner.”

حس (ḥess) = sense/perception

سوی (sū-ye) = toward

زودتر (zūtar) = sooner/more quickly

ره بردن (rah bordan) = to find one’s way to, gain access to

So he isn’t saying, “The intellect is mysteriously hidden.” He’s explaining why:

You can observe someone’s body moving and immediately infer:

“He is alive.”

But you cannot immediately see:

“He possesses intellect.”

Hence:

جنبشی بینی، بدانی زنده است

jonbešī bīnī, bedānī zende ast

“You see a movement; you know he is alive.”

But:

این ندانی که ز عقل آگنده است

īn nadānī ke ze ʿaql āganda-ast

“You do not know from that that he is filled with intellect.”

The distinction is beautiful:

Movement reveals life.

Intelligent action reveals intellect.

Rumi then says that when the person’s actions become موزون (mowzūn), “measured, proportioned, orderly,” and skillful, you begin to infer the presence of intellect.

3. So what exactly is Rumi’s three-level model?

I would lay it out this way:

Level

Persian

What we perceive

What is hidden

1

جسم jism

body, movement

—

2

روح rūḥ / جان jān

life

spirit/life itself

3

عقل ʿaql

intelligent, ordered action

intellect itself

And Rumi gives us a kind of epistemology:

I see the body directly.

↓

I infer life/spirit from movement.

↓

I infer intellect from intelligent, proportionate action.

Thus the more inward the reality, the less directly observable it is.

That is what عقل از روح مخفی‌تر means.

4. But then Rumi goes one step further

And this is where the passage becomes much more mystical.

He says:

روح وحی از عقل پنهان‌تر بود

rūḥ-e vaḥy az ʿaql penhān-tar būd

“The spirit of revelation is more hidden than the intellect.”

Notice that he now uses پنهان‌تر (penhān-tar), another comparative: more concealed.

And explains:

زانک او غیبیست، او زان سر بود

z-ān-ke ū ghaybīst, ū z-ān sar būd

Approximately:

“Because it belongs to the unseen; it is from that other side.”

غیب (ghayb) is crucial. It means the unseen, invisible, hidden realm—not merely something you haven’t happened to observe.

So the hierarchy becomes:

جسم — جسم

the visible body

روح / جان — روح / جان

the hidden life/spirit

عقل — عقل

even more hidden intellect

روح وحی — روحِ وحی

the still more hidden spirit of revelation

The latter is not simply “more intelligent.” It belongs to an entirely different epistemological order: the غیب, the unseen.

Rumi then uses Muhammad as his example: everyone could recognize عقل احمد, Ahmad/Muhammad’s extraordinary intellect, but:

روح وحیش مدرک هر جان نشد

rūḥ-e vaḥyaš modrak-e har jān našod

“His spirit of revelation was not apprehended by every soul.”

The word مدرک (modrak) means something like apprehended, perceived, comprehended. So Rumi is making a distinction between recognizing intelligence and apprehending revelation.

And this makes the whole passage much more profound

Rumi is not simply saying:

body < spirit < intellect

as though these were three physical things stacked inside one another.

He’s describing degrees of invisibility and ways of knowing:

body is known by sight → life is inferred from movement → intellect is inferred from meaningful action → revelation is accessible only through a deeper spiritual participation.

That last point is developed immediately afterward, where Rumi says that even Moses’ ordinary ʿaql could not understand Khidr’s actions because Moses had not entered Khidr’s state of being. The Masnavi text continues explicitly into the Moses–Khidr example.

So your observation is exactly right: Rumi really does say that عقل is “more hidden” than روح. But he is not necessarily ranking “intelligence” as a bigger substance than spirit. He is saying that intellect is a more inward, less directly perceptible reality than life itself—and then he makes revelatory spirit still more inward than intellect.

And the sleeve/hand metaphor is the key to understanding the whole thing: what we see is the sleeve; what animates it is the hand; what intelligently directs the hand is still deeper.