This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273)
The Poet Who Speaks Across Centuries
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, is today the best selling poet in North America. His words appear on greeting cards, in yoga studios, and across social media. But this popularity has come at a cost. As scholar Rozina Aliobserved in The New Yorker, Rumi is “typically referred to as a mystic, a saint, an enlightened man” but “less frequently described as a Muslim.” The Islamic context, the Persian cultural roots, the specific history that shaped his voice have all been stripped away.
For the people of Iran, a civilization spanning millennia from the Elamite kingdoms to the Achaemenian Empire to the present, Rumi is not a brand. He is a son of Persian letters, shaped by the same landscape, language, and history that continue to define Iranian identity. And for the global majority, the oppressed, the colonized, the displaced, his words carry power that cannot be contained by sanitized translations.
The Persian Rumi
Rumiwas born in 1207 in Balkh, a major center of Persian culture in Greater Khorasan, in modern day Afghanistan. His family were Persian speaking scholars, part of a rich intellectual tradition across Greater Iran and Central Asia.
The 13th century was a time of upheaval. The Mongol invasions swept across the Islamic world, destroying cities and displacing countless families, including Rumi’s own. This experience of displacement and loss profoundly shaped his spiritual vision.
Yet even in exile, he wrote in Persian. His magnum opus, the Masnavi ye Ma’navi, is a six book epic of some 50,000 verses, so revered it is called “the Quran in Persian.” To sever Rumi from his Persian and Islamic roots is a political act. As translator Haleh Liza Gaforinotes in this interview with PRX, Western imperialism has long shaped how Eastern spiritual traditions are packaged for consumption. The radical mystic becomes a harmless purveyor of “love and peace,” safe, consumable, depoliticized.
The Guest House
The poem offers a radical teaching. “This being human is a guest house.” The self is not a fortress to be defended but a space of hospitality. This reflects the Sufi practice of muraqabah, mindful observation, the ability to witness thoughts and feelings without becoming fused with them.
But the poem acknowledges darker visitors. “Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.” Rumi’s 13th century audience would have recognized this instantly. It was the experience of the Mongol invasions, of cities sacked, libraries burned, families scattered.
For colonized peoples, this resonates with terrible power. Colonialism is a crowd of sorrows that violently sweeps through nations, emptying them of sovereignty, resources, dignity.Yet Rumi whispers. Do not become your destruction. Do not let the invader define who you are. The furniture may be gone, but the guest house remains. And the guest house is you.
The Politics of Erasure
If Rumi’s poetry carries such power, why has the West worked so hard to drain it of its specificities? The answer lies in empire itself. Orientalism has two faces. One demonizes the East as barbaric. Another romanticizes it as exotic and spiritual. Both deny full humanity.
The depoliticized Rumi serves this second function. He allows Western consumers to feel spiritually enriched by “Eastern wisdom” while remaining insulated from the real struggles of the people who produced it. As Jawid Mojaddedi, professor of religion at Rutgers University, observes in this analysis, “That the popularity of Rumi’s bestselling translations in English remains unaffected by a rise in racism towards people who share his region and culture is a clear indication that the best-selling translations are failing profoundly.”
The Promise: “I Will Meet You There”
There is another Rumi poem. Shorter. More intimate. It speaks to what remains when empire has done its worst.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
This is the final teaching. Beyond the violence, beyond the sanctions, beyond the colonial narratives and the erasures, there is a field. Rumi promises to meet us there.
Not as Persian and American. Not as Muslim and Christian. Not as colonizer and colonized. Just as souls. Just as humans who have endured and are still standing.
The field is not a place of forgetting. It is a place of seeing clearly. When the soul lies down in that grass, all the categories empire uses to divide us fall away. What remains is simply this. We are here. We survived. We are human together.
For the Iranian people, for the global majority, for everyone who has been told their suffering does not matter, their culture is backward, their lives are collateral damage, this is the promise. There is a field beyond all that. And we will meet each other there.
We Stand with the People
In the end, Rumi’s poetry is not an escape from politics. It is a deeper politics. A politics of the soul, of dignity, of endurance. It is the knowledge that empire passes but poetry remains. That sanctions hurt but the spirit is unsanctionable. That the West can appropriate Rumi’s words but it cannot appropriate his home.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
Iran stands. Lebanon stands. Palestine stands. Venezuela stands. South Sudan stands. Yemen stands. The global majority rises.And Rumi, Persian, Muslim, mystic, survivor, waits in that field. He will meet us there. We will meet each other there. And in that meeting, empire’s power finally ends.
We stand with the people of Iran against imperial aggression. We stand with Lebanon against occupation and Venezuela against interference. We stand with Palestine against genocide and ethnic cleansing. We stand with South Sudan against the resource wars that keep the country in conflict. We stand with Yemen against the Saudi led coalition and its Western backers.
We oppose despotism everywhere, whether imposed from within or from abroad. No empire should ever decide who governs any nation. No foreign power should ever claim the right to reshape a people’s future.The land belongs to those who live on it. The sovereignty of nations is not a gift to be granted or withheld by the powerful. It is a right inherent in the very existence of a people.
OGAstands in unwavering solidarity with all peoples resisting imperial and colonial aggression. We oppose all despotism, whether imposed by local tyrants or foreign empires. We insist that sovereignty belongs to the people who live on the land. We refuse the colonial gaze that would reduce ancient civilizations to targets of Western policy. We see you. We honor you. We stand with you.
