The Sufi and the Transcendentalist: An Encounter of Dialogue, Love and Sublimity

ABSTRACT Since time immemorial, Sufi saints in the Islamic tradition, and American transcendentalists of the Christian orthodoxy, have embraced love in their writings and prolific literary productions. They struggled so valiantly to ward off tension and conflict and bypass duality and binarism from their philosophies of life. Either folk believed in the potential of love to transform the very essence of individuals, for love per se is regarded – at least by them – as a fire and an emerald; it is the cause of creation and the source of all inspiration. By juxtaposing love with humaneness and by placing the two at the front of all religiosity, Sufis and the American transcendentalists sought to build for themselves an avenue for dialogue that accepts and never rejects different cultures and belief systems. This article, which is grounded in comparative literature, is an excavation for the numerous similitudes between Islamic Sufism and American transcendentalism. Rumi and Emerson, the two legendary poets, so popularized in the West and the East, are put forth in this enquiry to unpack their pivotal contribution to and leadership in the spirituality of love and unity.


Introduction
In his essay "Essential Principles of Religion," the American poet and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803Emerson ( -1882 expresses his esteem and admiration for other religious traditions. "Can any one doubt," he writes, "that of the noblest saint among the Buddhists, the noblest Mahometan, the highest Stoic of Athens, the purest and wisest Christian, Menu in India, Confucius in China, Spinoza in Holland, could somewhere meet and converse together, they would all find themselves of one religion" (Buell 187). In a similar vein, the Muslim theologian and Sufi, Mawlana Djalāl ad-Din Rumi, famous as Rumi (1207Rumi ( -1273, recounts a tale in his Masnavi about three men who looked for a fruit and did not realise they were all looking for the same thing -the Arab wanted 'anab, the Persian angūr, and the Turk uzūm, but eventually they realized that behind the veil of the three different languages the one "grape" was hidden (Bolle 89).
The rationale behind these two narratives is to pin down the great concern that Muslim Sufi sages and American literary gurus of ancient times had for dialogue and cross cultural friendship and amity. They have appreciated the differences embedded in the universe and incentivized people to believe in the creed of love and diversity in order to co-exist peacefully and harmoniously. Historically, the cultural differences have sporadically aroused misunderstanding and led to tension; they have many times sparked rage and resentment amongst adherents of world religions. In the words of Ashok Gulla, this diversity in mankind has produced several barriers and widened fissures in terms of relations and social interactions. As he notes, "People keep on fighting on issues of culture, religion, caste and nationality. The environment has become more challenging due to increasing drift on account of various disparities. We have forgotten to tolerate others, thereby creating turmoil and harm to our self" (Gulla 96).
Regardless of their religious convictions and cultural affiliations, human beings belong to the same race of humankind. They populate the same earth and "make up one family of God" (O'Collins 11). As Wang (188) argues, "although they differ in kind, colour, form, and shape, they are nourished by the rays of one sun and refreshed by waters of one spring. Unity in diversity is achieved as different colours and shapes add beauty to the entire garden." Drawing on Comparative Literature, this article is an excavation for the numerous similitudes between Islamic Sufism and American Transcendentalism; more precisely, it unravels the affinities between two celebrated mystical icons: Rumi and Emerson, who have -proposed, each from his proper standpoint, a cosmic culture based on love and unity.
Comparative Literature can be defined as the scholarship that probes into the question of literature across linguistic, historical and disciplinary boundaries. This literature, often hailed literature without borders as apparent in "Goethe's Weltliteratur" (Dominguez et al.; xv), does not restrict itself to a certain tradition or cultural context because it transcends the borderlines of nationalism finding intersections between cultures and literary artifacts. Moreover, it engages intricate issues about comparison, translation and transmission accentuating values and ideas that writers do embrace. To use Haun Saussy's phraseology, Comparative Literature seems "tapped to become an art of the in-between, a diplomacy of disciplines, a clearinghouse for cultural specificities" (Saussy 20). Put differently, this literature unchains itself from the manacheanism of Us and Them/We and They, since there are certain universal ideals that are not subject to division and partitioning because they exist almost in every culture and religion. Take for example love and tolerance, friendship and peace, or even kindness and munificence. These universal ideals are doubtlessly the procreators of harmony and welfare. Two questions direct this comparative study between the Sufi and the Transcendentalist, or say between Rumi and Emerson: (1) What beliefs did Rumi and Emerson advocate for in their approach to the spirituality of love and oneness? (2) How did each one of them envisage the Other who does not partake of their culture and religious ethos?

The convergence of the Twain
The most common theme that Islamic Sufism and American Transcendentalism share is universal love. In either doctrine, universal love is presented as a mantra -one culture that unifies people no matter what their religion, colour of skin, or racial background is. This universal love is firmly grounded in the theory of identity and sameness, which holds that all human beings are viewed as God's creatures and there is no distinction between them; they are made of the same blood, bone and flesh and they have a wish to be esteemed and loved. The feeling of love then bolsters the sense of belonging and reinforces peace and contentment. It is a force that emerges from the Universal Soul of mankind scouting good values and virtues in other human beings; so when everybody experiences universal love, the world turns into a better place as people enlarge their vision of humanity to englobe the Other who do not talk or look like them. How does universal love manifest itself in Rumi and Emerson is a query that presupposes dismantling the poetry and symmetry of both. They are comparable at the level of thoughts and ideas in as much as they are the poets that have enthralled readers in the East and West alike. They speak in poetry and rhythmical prose to showcase the true essence of Man and the prospective ways to establish a good connection with humanity and God. Rumi is an Islamic scholar, theologian, poet and Sufi mystic and his influence has exceeded geographic and ethnic borders. His poems have been rendered into world languages and were chanted at different houses of worship. He has been delineated as the most widely read and "the best selling poet in the United States" (Moavni n. pag.). Of his mystical works, the Dīwān-e Kabīr (also called Dīwān-e Shams-e Tabrīzī), Fihi Ma Fihi (In It What's In It), Majāles-e Sab'a (The Seven Sessions), Makatib (The Letters), and the Masnavi, are regarded as his magnum opus. The huge treatise is a spiritual text consisting of a series of six books of poetry that comprise almost 25,000 verses. It instructs Sufis how to approach the divine and be truly in love with God. Translators of Rumi abound such as Coleman Barks, Ryenold A. Nicholson, John Arthur Arberry; Helminski and Helminski, Alan Williams, Jawid Mojaddedi, Ibrahim Gamard, Edward Henry Whinfield, Nader Khalil, among others. Though some translations were criticized in terms of their semantic and pragmatic inaccuracies and were reported to have erased Islam from Rumi's thorough reflections and poetic introspections (Ali n. pag.), they have somewhat disambiguated some enigmatic facets of his universal and cosmopolitan persona.
As for Ralph Waldo Emerson, he is a prominent American philosopher, essayist and poet. He inaugurated and inspired enormously the transcendentalist movement in the mid-19 century. Famed for his piercing rhetoric and eloquent public lectures, Emerson moved from being a Unitarian clergyman into being an idealist and a transcendentalist, announcing his personal doctrine of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Authors such as Saadi, Hafez, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, Jeremy Tylor, Ralph Cudworth, and Robert Leighton have exerted tremendous impact on his spiritual and intellectual growth. Among his works one can cite Nature, Poems, The Conduct of Life, Society and Solitude, along with individual essays such as "Self-Reliance," "The Over-Soul," "Experience," "Saadi," "New England Reformers," etc. He is also wellrecognized by poems like "Concord Hymn," "The Rhodora," and "Brahma." Like a Sufi, Emerson believed that God could be found by looking inward -deeper in one's soul and one's heart. This visit to the realm of the inside brings forth an enlightened self-awareness that is more likely to engender good qualities such as love, harmony and kindness. Therefore, the individual ought to have confidence in that inner force that directs and sustains everything in the universe. In Islamic Sufism, that inner force is called the heart, the qalb, which transcends all limits to perceive the hidden truths and mysteries of humans. Compared to the 'aql (the intellect), the qalb is deemed to be the locus of hubb (love) and rahma (compassion). Once purified, it becomes a mirror that reflects the light of God and His sublime qualities.
One of the reasons why the heart has been likened to a mirror in Sufism is "that one's whole being is reflected in it" (Angha 64). With Emerson, the qalb disguises as the "Over-Soul" and it is immensely colossal, extremely beautiful and immortal. This goes in utter congruency with the Prophetic Tradition that goes, "I was a Hidden Treasure, so I wanted to be known. Therefore, I created the world that I might be known" (qtd. in Chittick 47). Though this saying has been interpreted in different ways, Sufis believed that creation operated as "mirror wherein God, the Truth, sought to know Himself" (Campo 327). Consequently, the "Over-Soul" can be considered a metonym for the heart, as it is a place of wholeness and haleness, peace, love and lovingness. It is the center of life, a moving energy within the body capable of weaving all individual souls and identities together. As Emerson writes: [T]hat Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart, [. . .] which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power and beauty. We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. (qtd. in Atkinson 262) For him, the "Over-Soul" is not a physical entity, but it revamps and revitalizes all other physical entities; it is not the mind or the will, but the master of them of all. Presumably, the "Over-Soul" is akin to a global spirit uniting people and it manifests itself clearly in society (Tubach n. pag.); in the mean time, it paves the ground for a universal friendship, a global communication and interactive harmony between people. The return to the divine source is Emerson's return to the "Over-Soul" . The spirit of friendship, what is called in Sufism Suhba (lit. companionship), along with Tafakur (lit. meditation) cannot be overlooked from Emerson's pivotal pre-occupations and the concerns of the Transcendentalist movement in general.
By creating The Transcendentalist Club, Emerson and his colleagues endeavoured to preserve their theosophic expertise and impart it to a large audience. People of all walks of life have admired their ideas and beliefs; as a result, the Transcendentalists forged a space of dialogue and debate for themselves acting out like preachers and evangelists. They addressed people's emotions and morals, particularly their sense of the sublime. The sublime is here nothing but an experience of overwhelming awe, such as viewing a towering mountain, or a cascading waterfall (Leibman n. pag.). It is something "unknowable and uncanny" (Wang 192) that challenges cognition or imagination, fostering ecstasies of union followed by agonies of separation. In Sufism, the sublime connotes the vertical spiritual journey, the embracement of delight and beauty -"the ability to bypass all the hypnotic fascinations of the world" (Muhaiyaddeen 17). It is a quality of immense magnitude and as Kant notes, "absolute greatness," which never halts to inspire both beauty and love.
The experimentation of the sublime is feasible only with the heart, whose role in Sufism reportedly far exceeds that of the mind. When it is infected with rancour and anger, the heart's vision is blurred and unable to perceive the beauty in the world. Rumi projects the heart as the Sea of Light, while the world is a sheer wahm (illusion). It is also the place of God's vision, where individuals can practise qualities like love and compassion for themselves and for others; where they can model their behaviour after God; and where they can also discover that they are intertwined with other human beings and with the Divine. It is no surprise that Rumi likens the sweetness of the heart to the delightfulness of milk and honey. Like the "Over-Soul," the heart is the provenance of every sweet thing: The deliciousness of milk and honey is the reflection of the pure heart from that heart the sweetness of every sweet thing is derived. (Rumi III, 2265-9) Across several religious traditions, the heart gained much significance, for it is envisioned as the dwelling place for God. In his letter to the Romans 5:5, Paul writes, "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (qtd. in Bartlett 50). In so far as Paintner (20) is concerned, the term "heart" is referred to as lev in the Hebrew Scriptures, [A]nd it is not only the seat of the emotions but also the center of thought. In one sense the heart is the mind, encompassing all thoughts, including emotions. For Hindus, the Sanskrit word for heart, hridaya, also means the center of the world, while Muslims describe the heart as the throne of the All-Merciful.
Apart from their prime focus on the realm of the inside and invisible -be it at the level of the heart or the Over-Soul, Rumi and Emerson delight in the use of poetry to lay bare their spiritual longings and tastings, their état d'âme, to their followers. Both poets resort to poetry because poetry involves a mystery that surpasses the abilities of the human intellect; it is charged with emotion and wisdom and it encapsulates the transcendental experiences of individuals. This allows them to flout the norms and conventional rules of grammar and cross the confines of prose, letting the poetic resonance of words and the metaphoricity of ideas to create the desired image of eminence and transcendence. No wonder then that Rumi deploys allusions and intertextuality in his poetic compositions, for he capitalizes on the usage of religious icons and historical characters, from the Seen and the Unseen worlds, to convey lessons and envelope his mystical thoughts and inner perceptions to the Other outside his circle. Saladin, Sanai, Jesus, Muhammad, Imra'u'l-Qays, Dervish, Hallaj, Omar, Moses, Solomon, Shams, Sheba, Sheikh Kharraqani, Daquqi, are all characters that occur and reoccur in his prose and poetry.
By the same token, Emerson dwells on several symbols from the Eastern and Western cultures to underscore his advocacy for reconciliation, human rights, justice, and best of all, a spirituality of love and humaneness. Plato, Merlin, Ellen, Saadi, Hafiz, Firdousi, Persian Lilla, Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Gibbon, Columbus, Socrates, Pindar, Phocion, Dervish, Fakir, Wise Ali, Ibn Haukal, Houris, are all outstanding figures that feature strongly in Emerson's poems and essays. The expressive allusion and articulate focalization of such characters accord with, Emerson's text and impart some weight and credibility.
In "Saadi," Emerson found a mystical saint who expresses so wisely and easily moral thoughts and social concerns. He is the paragon of joy and humaneness, the epitome of transcendence and spiritual accomplishment. Likewise, he is a poet of love, friendship and self-devotion -a man of real genius and perfect ethics. Not only is he a teacher and a poet, but he is also "the joy-giver and the enjoyer" (Aminrazavi 82). That is, Emerson might have seen in Saadi a spiritual guru that inspires and guides him towards virtue, joy and beauty. This accounts for the strong prominence Saadi had in Emerson's poetry. Various appellations and terminologies are thus employed exclusively for Saadi: "Wise Saadi"; "the man of truth"; "gentle Saadi"; "thou joy-giver and enjoyer"; "Barefooted Dervish"; "the perfect Mind." These terms are not arbitrary as they evoke the idea that Emerson was fascinated to a large extent by Saadi's Sufi might and insight.
Rumi, on the other hand, cannot proceed without referring back to his friends and masters that have burnished his Sufi prowess. Sanai (1080-1131), who is acclaimed for The Hadiqat al Haqiqa (lit. The Walled Garden of Truth), a mystical epic of Sufism, takes center stage in Rumi's poetry. Along with Shams ed-Din Tabrizi, Attar, Sanai was of paramount inspiration to Rumi. Sanai was for Rumi as was Saadi for Emerson. He immortalizes him and commemorates his spiritual wanderings and reverberations about love and life, proclaiming directly or indirectly that Sufi poets are in fact one. They dissociate the physical world and associate themselves with the eternal world, where true beauty and triumph reside, sculpturing ideal ethics of sisterhood and brotherhood to abrogate discordance and dissension. In Islamic Sufism, it is variety that gives meaning to life and it is viewed as the pinnacle of harmony. This is why the Sufi folk have described Sufism as "the path within Islam that leads from the particular to the Universal and from multiplicity to Unity" (Nasr 32). Emerson himself agrees with this view as he states: "Nothing is quite beautiful alone; nothing but beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace" (qtd. in . When people recognize wholeness, they build supportive relationships with each other and become more conscious of God's presence in their lives.

The alchemy of love
In Rumi and Emerson, love is emphasized and it embellishes their writings and poetry. Poems such as "Celestial Love," "Give All To Love," "Ode I: Initial Love," and "Love" are an articulation of the transformative power of love and the numerous benefits it has for people. In "Give All To Love," Emerson invites human beings to succumb entirely to the power of love because love is the source of inner joy, peace of mind and perpetual serenity. The poem holds a sense of kindness and altruism that might be lacking in today's world. While contrasting individuals with their social environments, Emerson does not hesitate to side with love because love engages and does not separate people. This expansiveness of the Emersonian thinking to reach out to the "Other" who does not partake of his culture and faith could be explored further by observing how natural elements like the sun, earth, and sea interlink to create unison in the universe -and wholeness in Emerson's terms. Human beings are not disengaged from this beautiful fabric because they can themselves be unified as one race under the culture of love and union.
It is crystal clear that love, from Emerson's vantage point, is amenable to co-habitation and togetherness; it is the route to success and progress -the acceptance of otherness and alterity, which signifies the espousal of variety and the commemoration of difference, the caring for the Other, and the firm belief that the latter is as important as the Self. After all, this belief in Otherness and its inclusion under the umbrella of humanity is the purpose from being and the overall existence on earth. In "Nature," Emerson reminds us "God is the all-fair. Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All (qtd. in Atkinson 14). The fairness, which God embodies, is to be emulated and inscribed in the actions and behaviour of individuals whilst dealing with their peers. This implies that "each human being is an image of God; the human task is imitatio Dei, imitating divinity" (Klenicki and Wigoder 112).
By placing love at the center, Emerson wants to stress that it constitutes an essential part of humanity and that qualities such as care, kindness and empathy, compassion and mercy, to mention but these five, automatically follow suit when love is at play. But what kind of love does he bother himself with? The answer comes directly from Emerson himself: Celestial love, or simply love. Probably what he is proclaiming is that love helps people feel safe and intact; it disbands duality and changes heterogeneity into homogeneity. It transforms alterity into sameness and identity. Love is thus not an emotion, but is, in the purest sense, a commitment and wise decision (Landon 110). It is a spiritual choice -an attar that was inhumed in all human beings with no exception.
All creations are the same in Emerson's view and people ought to work harder in order to plant love in the world; so sameness can prevail over otherness, love over hate, peace over war, and so on and so forth. This broadminded character and tolerant spirit as seen in Emerson's doctrine correlate with the beliefs of the Roman Catholic nun and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa , who dedicated her life to caring for the poor and destitute. The kindness towards the impoverished and the needy, the sick and homeless, etc., is what characterizes the mission of great saints and thinkers in the Sufi sect and Transcendentalist movement. Their love is unconditional; it is not carved by favouritism or partisanship. Instead, it is nurtured by self-abnegation and altruism.
Undeniably, Rumi and Emerson might be holding divergent perspectives; however, when one infiltrates into their thinking, one deduces that they are the emblem of love and humaneness par excellence., Emerson argues that all human beings are driven by the force of love, which elevates them from barbarity to civility and from the cradle of vice to virtue. For love to thrive in society, it needs maturity and esteem, and more precisely, it needs education, persistence and constant work. By this, Emerson is the promoter of a positive view about love in the sense that he indexes time to it so that it can be more sincere and veracious. As he declares: All mankind love a lover. The earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness are nature's most winning pictures. It is the dawn of civility and grace in the coarse and rustic. The rude village boy teases the girls about the school-house door; but to-day he comes running into the entry and meets one fair child disposing her satchel; he holds her books to help her, and instantly it seems to him as if she removed herself from him infinitely, and was a sacred precinct. Among the throng of girls he runs rudely enough, but one alone distances him; and these two little neighbours, that were so close just now, have learned to respect each other's personality (qtd. in; Atkinson 212).
When scrutinizing the works of Rumi, the reader gets lost owing to the enormous references to love. Poems such as "Love is the Water of Life," "Lovers," "This is Love," "Love is Reckless," "The Springtime of Lovers Has Come," "Who is At My Door?" underline that Rumi places love above anything else. Love for him is "like an emerald [that] repels the dragon" (Harshater 258). It brings about self-actualization, resulting in the melting with the Beloved, who could be God, the Prophet or a holy saint that illuminates Rumi and opens up the eyes of his heart to the Ultimate Truth. At certain times, love comes as friendship with humankind and, at other times, it comes as a special relationship with special people and divinity. The communion with either addressee's of love conduces Rumi to see beauty around and to close his eyes over others' flaws and deficiencies. In "We Are All the Same," with which he opens the Masnavi, he presents a holistic conception of what unity and wholeness mean. Though its lines eclipse the mystery of love, they all reveal that human beings are experiencing the same story in the world. They cherish the same concerns; they face the same challenges and troubles; they march toward the same destiny. When they are apart, they suffer a lot and lament like the reeds. They are all the same, trying to find their way back to their original home where there was neither conflict nor any agony.
Hence, when human beings realize their oneness, they become capable of overcoming potential hazards that threaten their existence. Climate change and global warming, poverty, pollution, terrorism, shortage of water and the infectious pandemics like coronavirus -covid 19. These are impediments that currently pose a serious threat to humankind. On fixing people's attention around hospitality -the cornerstone of Islamic Sufism and the lifeblood of American Transcendentalism, Rumi and Emerson endeavour to show the good nature of humanity and its incessant leanings towards love and kindness. The quality to be kind vis-à-vis strangers and the disposition to treat and receive them warmly are thus evoked to harmonize the Self and the Other and fraternize them. In "Heroism," Emerson talks about how generosity forged the Arab character and adorned their manners; so he is not hesitant to revisit Ibn Haukal, the Arabian explorer and geographer to provide another lesson about what hospitality and generosity look like: When I was in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour and in whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country. (qtd. in Atkinson 254) Rumi is also in favour of hospitality because it is an important ingredient in the spirituality of love and unity; he communicates this quality to all people and does not seek anything in return. Nevertheless, the hospitality that arises in Rumi's works is allusive to the sacredness and uniqueness of the human being, who is pigeonholed as a guesthouse welcoming and entertaining everybody. Sorrow and joy, depression and jubilation are all the same for this human being, for they are sent as a messenger from God to guide Rumi and straighten his wordly conduct. Hence, the hospitality that he talks about is somewhat of an abstraction and not a concrete thing as it points to his willingness to accept visitors of all kinds -to be gentle and loving them all. It implies valuing the numerous misfortunes and gifts, which are sent everyday because they trigger spiritual progression and metamorphosis in people. What is implied is that they ought to be continuously in a state of surrender to God, accepting the workings of destiny and never complaining since complaints are markers of discontentment and exasperation.
There is no doubt that hospitality is the outcome of love. It springs up from serving others and sacrificing everything for their sake. It should not be for show, but rather driven by godly motives. The influence of love is thus immeasurable in as much as it ensures the continuity of life and fortifies emotional and spiritual bonds between people. With the presence of love, everything acquires a new meaning. Bitterness becomes sweetness, "copper turns into gold; the sediment becomes clear; torments get removed; the dead is made to live. This love is also the fruit of knowledge" (qtd. in Hanif 393). To approximate the ramifications of love and how it transforms the very essence of humans, Rumi offers the example of the rose, whose efflorescence testifies not only to her beauty but also to her maturity and inner growth. By this logic, love gives rise to beauty, which could be no more than a robe of light and honour bestowed upon Rumi's and his ilk.
The underlying message of the lines above is that God dresses Rumi "in a light from His light, a beauty from His beauty, a splendor from His splendor, a generosity from His generosity, a forbearance from His forbearance, a kindness from His kindness, a munificence from His munificence" (Wattles 201). This is applicable to mystic saints of all times as they undertook the journey toward God, surrendering entirely to His will and conforming themselves to the demands of love. They cleansed their souls from lust, anger, jealousy and pride and merged in the ocean of love. Rumi says: Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear. (qtd. in Freeman 560) Clearly, the best expression remains love because it connects a person with others. In "Only Breath," he unmasks his universal creed, which involves a constellation of beliefsnot restricting himself in the confines of a particular faith or geography to lay the foundations for intercultural dialogue and pluralism. Rumi's emphasis on the same breath that shapes the core of humanity denotes that he was interested in likenesses and affinities rather than disparities and mismatches between world religions.
Following the same line of thought, Emerson believes in friendship. If the first is a friend to the Christian, the Jew and the Buddhist, Emerson positions himself as a friend to them all. Albeit the addressees in his poems are sometimes obscured, his friendship appears not tainted by any cultural or religious determinant. He unveils himself as a reformist, rejecting dogmatism and dissociating himself from rigid thinking, for it obstructs his inner and outer evolution. This good positioning on the ladder of friendship somehow permits Emerson to develop a wide range of admirable qualities such as joyfulness and innocence. As he admits here below, he is not preaching or instructing; but rather he is opening vistas for dialogue and mutual understanding. His poem "Threnody" is in fact but an illustration of his tendency to divorce people's daily verbiage and untangle themselves from belief with the intention to be at one with the mysteries of Nature's heart that holds harmony and unity deep inside.
The endorsement of the spirit of fellowship and dialogue represent the good personality traits that Emerson and Rumi possessed in their life times. These traits, which incarnated a divine tinge, have made their teachings both timeless and imperishable.

Intercultural dialogue and friendship
The poetry of Rumi and his Western counterpart Emerson is remarkably filled with answers to so many questions that disturb world politicians and proponents of dialogue and peace nowadays. Their mystical ideas about universal love, tolerance, fellowship and unity are capable of slackening the huge hiatus between the culture of the East and West. These two poets have screened all religious groups as equal before God. What mattered first and foremost to them is love and dialogue -the personal experience individuals had in their connection with God. Their writings showcase that people of all races and faiths have the same chances to accomplish their spiritual ends. Rumi, in several of his poems, paid tribute to Jesus and expressed his respect for the Christian and Jewish teachings. As for Emerson, he "shared a similar belief with Rumi in that all religions have great value and are thus more similar to one another than they are dissimilar" (Considine n. pag.).
In fact, the similarities between Rumi and Emerson's lives are obviously stunning. They have grown up as trained theologians and concentrated on the religious laws forming the basic parts of their traditions, but later they pursued divergent paths to put the spirituality of love and humaneness into practice. In spite of the nuances in terms of their cultural backgrounds and the socio-political milieu where they were raised, they did not discriminate against people outside their religious houses. Rumi has de-orientalized himself and Emerson has likewise globalized his worldview to be in conformity with other beliefs. Such inclusiveness of the other faiths and veneration for their spiritual practices accorded Rumi and Emerson a universal prerogative to be admired and studied by several scholars. George Anastaplo, for instance, described Emerson as an "early student of Eastern texts and perhaps the first prominent American author of 'interfaith dialogue'" (348). He undertook serious endeavours at making his writing "the platform for an interreligious dialogue between Western and non-Western traditions in which both sides genuinely interact and react to each other" (Tharaud 215). It is this flexible mindset and openness to other cultures and faiths that make Emerson a poet of dialogue par excellence.
With respect to Rumi, there is one scene that shows his tolerant spirit and cosmopolitanism. The scene appeared in his funeral, which was attended by people from other nations and communities: Christians, Jews, Greeks, Arabs, and Turks. According to Shams al-Din Ahmad Aflaki, a Mevlevi dervish who compiled his biographical account, these people "raised their holy books and they read verses from the Psalms, the Pentateuch, and the Gospels in accordance with their own customs" (Lewisohn 89). Despite their differences in religion, they saw in Rumi the prophets who appeared in their own scriptures. Such cosmic and expanded vision that Rumi represented in his prolific writings and poetry allowed him to earn the hearts of several people outside his mystical circle.
How can students of world literature read Rumi and Emerson? Given the inaccuracies in the renditions of either poet, it is recommended that students of world and comparative literature familiarize themselves with the properties of Islamic Sufism and American Transcendentalism and avoid literalist and superficial readings since they can result in miscomprehension and misinterpretation. Instead, they have to adopt a creative reading and thus read the luminous works of these poets with a bird's eye view and untangle themselves from prejudgement; they ought to leave aside common speculations so as to savour the beauty of their poetry and the finesse of their sublime ideas. It has been argued that "reading is like a conversation" (Robb 7), and as René Descartes (1596-1650) points out: "[It] is a conversation with the finest men of the past centuries" (qtd. in Sommer 100). When students read Rumi and Emerson, they not only enter a new world of dialogue, love and sublimity, but they also find their own.

Conclusion
To crown it all, today's world is in a pressing need of Islamic Sufism and American Transcendentalism because they are the two doctrines that can homogenize people and lead nations to pursue paths of peace and friendship. The world, in other words, lacks the likes of Rumi and Emerson, the two religious icons that have been emblematic of intercultural dialogue and apologetics of difference and humaneness. These mystical thinkers have provided ample epistemologies about love and peace and they have called for the uprooting of violence and conflict through the promotion of pluralism and cohabitation. They saw God in everything and everyone, and they developed malleable approaches to co-existence and well being on earth. By revisiting their literary rich heritage, human beings can learn how to build robust links between themselves and evade divisions and fragmentations in their cultures. The rhetoric of the clash of civilizations then proves fallacious when Rumi and Emerson are on the screen since they have considerably restored friendly relations through the prism of amity and love which they have enhanced in their beliefs and literary productions.