Sultan Walad

One of the students of Rumi, Salah al-Din Zarkub who had a close spiritual relationship with Sultan Walad is also mentioned.

A French translation appeared in 1988 through the efforts of Djamchid Mortazavi and Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch as ‘’La Parole secrete: l’enseignement du maitre Soufi Rumi’’.

A critical edition was prepared by Ali Soltani Gordfaramazi in 1980 and published in Montreal as a collaborative effort between McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies and the University of Tehran under the title: ‘’Rabāb-nāma az Sultan Walad, Farzand-e Mowlana Jalal al-Din Mowlavi’’.

Sultan Walad beings this work in an imitation of the song of the reed flute (Persian: Nay) at the beginning of the Mathnawi, but instead has the Rabāb start the opening tale: “Hear in the cry and wail of the Rabāb A hundred chapters on the depth of love” At one point Sultan Walad references his fathers work as being “sent-down”, suggesting he regarded Rumi’s writing as quasi-divinely inspired.

[4] It is a Persian prose work in a style approaching the spoken language and containing accounts of Sulṭān Walad's thoughts and words.

Sultan Walad punctuated his discourses with lines of verse from Persian poets such as Sana’i, Attar and his own father, Rumi.

The Ma’arif has been pubhsed under the title "Ma’aref-e Baha al-Din Muhammad b. Jlal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, Manshur beh Sultan Walad, edited by Najib Mayer Haravi (Tehran, Mowla, 1988) Besides approximately 38,000 lines of Persian poetry in Sultan Walad’s work, in the Rababb Nama there are 22 lines in Greek and 157 in Turkish.

[7] For example, in his Ebteda-Nama, Sultan Walad admits twice in Persian after some of the lines in Greek/Turkish:[8] بگذر از گفت ترکی و رومی که از این اصطلاح محرومی گوی از پارسی و تازی که در این دو همی خوش تازی Translation: Let go of the languages of Greek (Rumi) and Turkish (Turki) Because you lack knowledge in these two, Thus speak in Persian and Arabic, Since in these two, you recite very well.

Also according to Mehmed Fuad Koprulu: Sultan Walad’s motivation in writing Turkish poetry, just as it was with composing and reciting Persian poetry, was to raise the religious consciousness of the people of Anatolia, to guide them and instill in them a sense of the greatness of Mawlana and The fact he occasionally resorted to Turkish derives from his fear that a large majority who did not undesrand Persian, would be deprived of these teaching.

Sultan Walad was instrumental in laying down the Mawlawiya order and expanding the teaching of his father throughout Anatolia and the rest of the Muslim world.

Sultan Walad must have had a very strong personality to be able to carry out his duties and, toward the end of his life, to integrate his experience into the formation of the Mevlevi order.