Shams Tabrizi and Psychology Encoded in His Forty Rules of Love

Behaviors and psychology of the human mind have been studied in every era with the fact that it was named differently in different eras. It may have begun from Greek or Muslim philosophers. Well, I personally think Philosophers laid the basis of psychology through their philosophies about the human mind, its situational roles and the ways a human mind works, and most importantly its relation to the soul. The meaning of humanity and much more that critics and various other researchers kept on studying and researching were already encoded in philosophies. Much of their belief, writing, and philosophies were proved to be true after prolonged research and experimentation for years. Here in this article, I will be discussing a very prominent personality in the history of Muslim philosophers who is “Al-Tabrizi” and the concepts of psychology from the current era explained in his world-famous forty rules of love written years ago.

The work of Sufi scholars is being studied under the domain of Sufi psychology. What is Sufi psychology? Sufi psychology has its main focus on understanding of self. According to it, our societal roles, our past experiences, and the expectations we have from others is all that sum up to make up our own identity. Maulana Shams Al Tabrizi was also a Sufi philosopher who gave many philosophies on self.

Who was AL-TABRIZI?

Shams al-Din Muhammad was born in 1185 in Tabriz, Iran. He had a great spiritual and Sufistic soul since childhood and got his teaching from his ustaad Hazrat Sheikh Abu Bakr Sallebaf. Shams is best known as the spiritual mentor of Maulana Jalal-ud-din Rumi. He had inspired Rumi a lot and brought him to the light of Sufism and spiritualism.

He related every action of humans to their souls. According to him, a person is carried through his life according to his soul. Body and soul are two different things body is nothing but the one who fulfills the commands given by soul. A person’s soul decided what is going to be the action of body. If seen closely it is actually an old form of psychology that Sufis and philosophers used to believe in.

Shams’s Forty Rules of Love in Light of Psychology

Let us decode theforty rules of love in which Shams had a pure belief and see how many of these rules are closely related to today’s psychology. I’ll be discussing the ones only related to human mind and behavior.

Rule 1

His first rule if being discussed in terms of psychology says what we have inside us will be the things we will see outside. If we have fear inside, we will see fear outside; same is the case with love.

Rule 2

In his second rule, he a-parted mind from heart as he believes it is heart that tells us the right thing and mind is overwhelmed by ID.

Rule 4

His fourth rule was a major one as it describes one’s intellect as a rational thing that avoids risks and advises on morals and reality principles like superego but heart is the one that takes risks to get what it wants such as ID does.

Rule 5

His fifth rule describes that one’s psyche cannot be judged on the basis of what he speaks and his mistakes. That means everyone speaks and interprets differently in a unique way according to their own psyche. Which means every person’s psyche is unique.

Rule 7,8

His seventh and eighth rule describe that he believes that hope is what is driving people’s life.

Rule 9

His ninth rule describes the development of personality; it is how we groom ourselves that gives us insight of ourselves.

Rule 10

His tenth rule states that the grooming of personality is through pain and hardships which tells us the phenomena of trial and error or learning by experiences.

Rule 13

Humans should not resist change instead changes are better for us than a steady journey.

Rule 14, 15

Humans are always in a race of seeking perfection which means human mind is set to keep moving towards perfectionism.

Rule 17

We see the world as we are from within. If we have good in ourselves we see good in the world, which means our mindset makes our lives easy or difficult.

Rule 19

Motivation drives our life.

Rule 20, 21

Everyone is different from each other in a unique way so their mind, thinking, behavior, personality, and actions are also different. Two different people will react differently in same situations due to different psyche.

Rule 23

It truly depends on us how we discover and polish ourselves.

Rule 25

Each one understands anything depending upon the depth of their understanding abilities.

Rule 26

In this world everything is interconnected. We learn by others’ experiences and others by ours – our minds and thoughts are interlinked. One’s happiness makes us happy and one’s sorrow makes us sad.

Rule 27

No one should be judged in little time. Instead, at least spend forty days and nights with a person and at the end, you will have completely different thoughts. Human psyche requires time to understand and interpret.

Rule 29

Human being can achieve anything by playing its part and we ourselves determine our fate based on the amount of hard work we do.

Rule 31

People learn differently from any experience. Some may become polite after experiencing something bad and some may become harsh.

Rule 33

Humans keep on striving to achieve and it is not that what we aspire to achieve is keeping us alive but the consciousness of nothingness keeps us going.

Rule 35

In this world, it is not similarities or regularities that take us a step forward, but blunt opposites. No one is complete and the same in different situations, rather, one may be calm or faithful in one situation and aggressive or disbeliever in another. Both good and evil are part of one’s personality.

Rule 38

It is never late for a human being to change which means he believes changing and mind development occurs at every age and personality keeps changing.

Rule 39

Nothing can be altered as a whole, yet, its parts are changed. We develop little by little.

Rule 40

One can find happiness and love in anything depending upon his interests and thinking.

As Sham Al Tabrizi was a Muslim philosopher and Sufi, he gave his beliefs according to Sufism and divided the human personality into three parts qalb, nafs and ruhh and said that our body is made to work on their command. It is a competition between them and the results are what make our personality. He truly described human nature on the basis of Sufism and spiritualism.

The Concept of Nafs by Shams Tabrizi:

According to Shams, there is a misleading ego in us which he called as “Nafs”. He called nafs the actual enemy of ours and the real cause of our innate worldly desires and the pain we face when we are unable to fulfill those desires.

The Concept of Qalb by Shams Tabrizi:

In his forty rules, he mentioned qalb as the heart which according to him is ready to take risk and do what he loves. It can be taken as id – the irrational part of personality.

The Concept of Ruhh by Shams Tabrizi:

As it is said, “When all that we know evaporates, we are left with the essence”. He described ruhh as something which is not known to us but is the driving force, the one which knows all the rules, a kind of superego.

Here I will conclude with advice to readers of this article to keep searching for things in things. Keep decoding the encoded messages moving around us and not given attention to. Do take notes from this short form of forty rules of love, and apply them in your life. Remember! Small steps lead you to bigger achievements.