Depiction of Rumi in the Works of Iqbal

See also Chapter 3, 'Who Is Rumi?' in The Republic of Rumi: a Novel of Reality

Not surprisingly, the works of Iqbal offer the most extensive characterization of Rumi in modern literature. As a character in the poems of Iqbal, Rumi holds conversations with Goethe in Paradise, criticizes Hegel and offers timely advice on the pressing issues of the twentieth century (and perhaps also the twenty-first).

In some of these appearances, the master also becomes a catalyst for “resurrection”, not unlike Prospero, who says in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest:

Graves at my command
Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art.

Hence, the intervention of Rumi often causes the “world” of Iqbal’s imagination to “die” and be “reborn”:

• A new world is born in the imagination of Iqbal with the appearance of Rumi at the very beginning of the first book Secrets and Mysteries (1915-18).
• In the second last poem of the third book, The Call of the Marching Bell (1924), a character from the Quran delivers a message from Rumi. The old world “dies” and a new, somewhat abstract, world is “reborn” in the very next poem.
• In the prologue of fifth book, Javid Nama (1932), the spirit of Rumi appears in person and reveals the secret of immortality. The previously introduced abstract world disappears and the Poet is “reborn” in a new realm.
• The sixth book, Gabriel’s Wing (1935), presents yet another world, combining all genres from the previous volumes. A detailed "interview" with Rumi towards the end of the book is followed by a series of poems rejecting the contemporary world order and climaxing in “a declaration of war against the present age” in the sub-title of the next book, The Rod of Moses (1936).
• In the prologue of the eighth book, What Should Now Be Done? (1937), Rumi tells Iqbal to reveal the secrets of government as well as religion. The intellectual “war” against the prevalent world order acquires a new urgency to be sustained till the end of Iqbal’s work.