Rumi’s sword

This is an excellent and very precise question, because it touches textual rhetoric, historical transmission, and the social mechanics of spiritual authority in Rūmī’s world.

I’ll address it in two parts:

1. Did Rūmī mean a literal worldwide circulation in Masnavī VI? Was it prophecy?

2. Who exactly was Ḥusām al-Dīn Çelebi, and how did he make the Masnavī possible and “circulate”?

1. “This book will circulate throughout the world” — prophecy or rhetoric?

a. What Rūmī is actually doing in Masnavī VI

When Rūmī says (paraphrasing the famous passage near the end of Book VI):

“This book will circulate throughout the world”

he is not making a naïve logistical prediction in the modern sense (printing, translation, global literacy, etc.).

Instead, he is doing three things at once, all of which were fully intelligible in the 13th century.

b. First layer: a conventional

duʿāʾ-formula

(blessing-speech)

In Islamic literary culture, especially Sufi works, authors often use future-oriented blessing language, for example:

• “May this book be read…”

• “This speech will reach hearts…”

• “Its scent will spread…”

This is performative speech, not journalism.

To say “it will circulate” is to invoke divine permission for circulation.

Think of it as closer to:

“May God cause this to spread.”

c. Second layer: “the world” does NOT mean the modern globe

In 13th-century Persian usage, ʿālam / jahān (“the world”) typically means:

• the Persian–Islamic ecumene

  
  

  (Anatolia, Iran, Central Asia, Iraq, Syria, India)

Within Rūmī’s lifetime:

• the Masnavī was already circulating in Konya, Persia, Syria

• oral transmission meant verses spread faster than manuscripts

So even historically, the statement was not absurd by medieval standards.

d. Third layer (the most important): mystical time, not chronological time

For Rūmī, the Masnavī is not bound to clock-time.

He repeatedly insists:

“This speech is not from me; it comes from elsewhere.”

From that perspective, the book’s circulation is:

• not a human achievement,

• but a property of Truth itself.

In Sufi terms:

ḥaqq spreads because it is ḥaqq.

So yes — it is prophetic, but not in the sense of predicting Amazon Kindle editions.

It is prophecy in the sense of confidence in divine diffusion.

e. Did it actually come true?

Remarkably, yes — and unusually so.

The Masnavī:

• became authoritative across the Ottoman, Persian, and Indo-Muslim worlds,

• was commented on more than almost any other Sufi text,

• is now read globally, across religions.

That degree of fulfillment is exceptional — which is why the line still attracts attention.

2. Who was Ḥusām al-Dīn, and why is he indispensable?

a. Identity: not a poet, not a scholar, but a

listener

Ḥusām al-Dīn Çelebi (d. 1284) was:

• a close disciple of Rūmī after Shams,

• a man of deep spiritual sensitivity, not literary ambition,

• someone Rūmī trusted completely.

Crucially:

Ḥusām al-Dīn was the one who asked for the Masnavī.

Rūmī did not sit down and decide to “write a book.”

b. The decisive moment

According to early sources (including Aflākī):

Ḥusām al-Dīn said, in effect:

“People need a book like Sanāʾī’s Ḥadīqa or ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-Ṭayr — but from you.”

Rūmī immediately began dictating.

This matters enormously.

c. Ḥusām al-Dīn’s actual role

He was:

1. The catalyst — without him, no Masnavī

2. The scribe — he wrote down the verses as Rūmī spoke

3. The editor — he organized, preserved, and safeguarded the text

4. The guarantor — Rūmī explicitly says the Masnavī exists through him

Rūmī says (paraphrase):

“If it were not for Ḥusām al-Dīn, these words would not have been bound into a book.”

And even more strikingly, Rūmī names the Masnavī after him implicitly:

• Ḥusām = sword

• The Masnavī is repeatedly called a spiritual sword

This is not accidental.

d. Why Ḥusām al-Dīn could “promote” it

Ḥusām al-Dīn did not promote the Masnavī like a publisher.

He:

• ensured faithful transmission,

• trained students who memorized and taught it,

• oversaw copying and circulation in Mevlevi circles.

Because the Mevlevi order became:

• institutional,

• geographically expansive,

• musically and ritually attractive,

the Masnavī traveled with it.

The book circulated because the order circulated.

3. Why Rūmī trusted Ḥusām al-Dīn so deeply

After Shams’s disappearance, Rūmī was extremely vulnerable.

Ḥusām al-Dīn:

• did not rival him,

• did not interpret over him,

• did not claim independent authority.

He was, in Sufi terms, a perfect mirror.

That is why Rūmī could speak endlessly in his presence.

4. Bottom line

• Rūmī’s statement about worldwide circulation is:

  
  

  • rhetorically conventional,

  • mystically confident,

  • and historically astonishingly fulfilled.

• 
  

• It is not naïve prophecy, but certainty grounded in spiritual ontology.

• Ḥusām al-Dīn is:

  
  

  • the midwife of the Masnavī,

  • the reason it exists as a coherent book,

  • the reason it could circulate at all.

• 
  

In short:

Shams ignited Rūmī.

Ḥusām al-Dīn gave that fire a lamp.

If you’d like next, we could look closely at:

• the exact Masnavī VI passage line by line, or

• how Rūmī distinguishes Shams (annihilation) from Ḥusām (transmission), or

• why the Masnavī ends the way it does — abruptly, unfinished, yet complete.

Just tell me.