Neither Christian nor Jew

My Place Is the Placeless

What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognise myself.I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heavens.I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsīn;I am not of the kingdom of ‘Irāqain, nor of the country of Khorāsān.I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell;I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Riẓwān.My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless;’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;I know none other except ‘Yā Hū’ and ‘Yā man Hū.’I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken;I have no business save carouse and revelry.If once in my life I spent a moment without thee,From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.If once in this world I win a moment with thee,I will trample on both worlds, I will dance in triumph for ever.O Shamsi Tabrīz, I am so drunken in this world,That except of drunkenness and revelry I have no tale to tell.
Dīvān-e Shams, ode XXXI · tr. R. A. Nicholson, 1898

First attested: 1441The oldest witness Nicholson lists for this ode is the manuscript he followed, V, in the Hofbibliothek at Vienna, dated 4th Muḥarram 845 A.H. (May 1441). The Tabriz edition of 1280 A.H. prints only couplets 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 12. Nicholson's introduction names this ode, with XII and XVII, among three of the finest in his selection that occur in a single manuscript. Ibrahim Gamard reports it absent from the earliest manuscripts of the Dīvān and from Furūzānfar's critical edition built on them.

Nicholson followed one manuscript for this ode, the Vienna copy dated 845 A.H.; the sentence of his note that Ibrahim Gamard quotes as an admission of no source concerns a “counterpart” poem, not this ode. Gamard reports this ode absent from the earliest manuscripts and from Furūzānfar's critical edition, and not by Rūmī.

Nicholson, Selected Poems (1898): siglum V and “TV” on p. 124, the list of MSS on p. xlix, “occur in a single manuscript” on p. l, the note on pp. 281–282; Gamard, “Three Fake Rumi Verses” (dar-al-masnavi.org, 2019), and “About the Odes/Ghazals” (dar-al-masnavi.org)

Twelve couplets that deny the speaker every creed, element, homeland and heaven, then find only the One.

Ode XXXI of Nicholson's forty-eight, printed here whole. Its first six couplets are negations: not Christian, Jew, Gabr (a Magian, Nicholson's note says) or Moslem; not of East or West, of the four elements, of India, China, Bulghār, Saqsīn, the two ʿIrāqs or Khorāsān; not of this world or the next, of Adam or Eve; “My place is the Placeless”. The last six affirm: the two worlds are one, “One I seek, One I know”, and a drunken speaker names Shamsi Tabrīz in the closing couplet. Nicholson followed a single manuscript at Vienna (V) for the Persian, and the Tabriz edition carries seven of the twelve couplets. He named it among three of the finest poems in his selection, called it “one of the most splendid and sublime productions” of Rūmī's genius, and put its first six couplets into rhymed English in Appendix II: “I adore not the Cross nor the Crescent”.

Light

It gives the way of negation a map: creed, compass point, element, nation and afterlife are crossed off one by one, and what remains is not emptiness but a relation — “I belong to the soul of the Beloved” — and a dance “in triumph for ever”.

Shadow

Ibrahim Gamard counts its opening among three prominent fake Rūmī verses which purport to show that Rūmī cared little about differences between religions, and reports the ode missing from the earliest manuscripts. The poem itself keeps closer to Islam than its fame: it opens on ‘O Moslems’, and its eighth couplet recasts Qurʾān 57:3, which Nicholson sets in italics, and ends on ‘Yā Hū’, in his note one of the most familiar darvish-cries.

Sources and verification6 sources · 5 links

Primary source

E. H. Whinfield, Masnavi i Ma'navi: The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad i Rúmí, translated and abridged, 1887, pp. 284–285, Book VI, the summary before the story of the Turkish Amir and the MinstrelThe sentence Nicholson quotes in his note on this ode, that the purpose of negation of self is to clear the way for the apprehension that there is no existence but the One, and the sentence before it comparing the creed's “There is no God” and “but God”.
The end and object of all negation is to attain to subsequent affirmation
Reynold A. Nicholson, Selected Poems from the Dīvāni Shamsi Tabrīz, notes to ode XXXI, 1898, p. 281The sentence closes a parenthesis about a different poem. The note reads: to this poem, “one of the most splendid and sublime productions of his genius, Jalāl’uddīn has written a counterpart”, whose burden Emerson echoes; the parenthesis then gives a version of that counterpart in English (Dabistān, Vol. I. p. clxvi) and in German (Von Hammer, p. 191) before this sentence. The Persian of ode XXXI itself faces the English on pp. 124 and 126.
The original text does not occur in any of the editions or MSS. used by me.
Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (attributed); ed. and trans. Reynold A. Nicholson, Selected Poems from the Dīvāni Shamsi Tabrīz, 1898, Ode XXXI: English pp. 125 and 127, Persian pp. 124 and 126; Introduction pp. xlix–l; notes pp. 281–282; Appendix II (c), p. 344The verse text, all twelve couplets, read against the page images of this scan and the OCR of the two other scans. On p. 124 the capital V stands opposite the first line (the manuscript followed), the foot reads “TV” and “T contains only the following beyts: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12.” On p. xlix V is “A MS. in the Hofbibliothek at Vienna, dated 4th Muharram, 845 A.H.”; on p. l, “Three of the finest poems in this selection (XII. XVII. and XXXI.) occur in a single manuscript.” The note glosses ‘Gabr’ as a Magian, corrects ‘Bulgaria’ to ‘Bulghār’, and sends couplet 3 to the note on VIII. 4. Appendix II (c) renders couplets 1–6 in rhymed verse.
What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognise myself.

The tradition itself

The Qurʾān, Sūrat al-Ḥadīd 57:3The verse recast in the eighth couplet, which Nicholson prints in italics: He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. The Persian repeats “He” before each name (Huwa ’l-awwal, huwa ’l-ākhir, huwa ’l-ẓāhir, huwa ’l-bāṭin), where the verse joins them with “and”.

Where this claim originates

Ibrahim Gamard, About the Odes/Ghazals (Dar al-Masnavi), dar-al-masnavi.org/about_odes.html, the paragraph on Nicholson's selection; consulted September 2026Gamard's list of the seven: Nicholson's IV, VIII, XII, XVII, XXXI, XXXIII and XLIV. He adds that they are still authentic Sufi poems, whatever their true authors.
no longer considered authentic Rumi poems, and are not in the earliest manuscripts
Ibrahim Gamard, Three Fake Rumi Verses, 2019, item (1): Nicholson's translation (1a), the Persian (1b) and the commentsThat the verses are not found in the earliest Persian manuscripts of the Dīvān, such as Furūzānfar's critical edition in ten volumes; that A. J. Arberry left the poem out when he re-translated the poems of Nicholson's selection; and that Gamard reads Nicholson's p. 281 sentence as an admission about this poem, quoting it as “does not appear” where Nicholson printed “does not occur”. A translator's reference site, not peer-reviewed scholarship.
These verses are not by Rumi

Linked entries

Part ofThe Dīvān-e Shams-e TabrīzīDisputed
Ode XXXI of Nicholson's forty-eight selections, with seven of its twelve couplets in the Tabriz edition of the Dīvān; Gamard reports it missing from the text Furūzānfar built from the earliest manuscripts.
Derives fromReynold A. NicholsonAttested
Every English line here is Nicholson's 1898 prose; he also put the first six couplets into rhymed verse in Appendix II, beginning “Lo, for I to myself am unknown”.
Attributed toRūmīDisputed
Printed as Rūmī's by Nicholson from a single manuscript (V, Vienna, 845 A.H.); Ibrahim Gamard reports it absent from the earliest manuscripts and from Furūzānfar's critical edition, and not by Rūmī.
Set againstThe Man of GodAttested
The man of God “is not of air and earth”; in ode XXXI the speaker is not of earth, water, air or fire, and Nicholson's note on XXXI. 3 points back to this ode (cf. VIII. 4); both are among the seven odes Gamard lists as no longer considered authentic.
Set againstWhen the Names Were NotA modern connection
Both go through the religions and places of the world: in ode XXXI the speaker is none of them, here God is found in none of them.

Neither Christian nor Jew

My Place Is the Placeless

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