بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
مَثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ حُمِّلُوا۟ ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةَ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَحْمِلُوهَا
كَمَثَلِ ٱلْحِمَارِ يَحْمِلُ أَسْفَارًۢا
Mathalu alladhīna ḥummilū at-Tawrāta thumma lam yaḥmilūhā
kamathali al-ḥimāri yaḥmilu asfārā.
“The example of those who were entrusted with the Torah, then did not bear it,
is like the donkey carrying books.”
Sūrat al-Jumuʿah 62:5
There are books that enter the hand. And there are books that enter the heart. There are books that increase the shelf. And there are books that increase the servanthood. There are books that become a burden. And there are books that become a bridge.
The Qurʾān gives us an image that should alert every student, every teacher, every preacher, every writer, every person who has ever loved knowledge.
A donkey carrying books.
The books may be noble. The words may be sacred. The weight may be impressive. But the animal remains untouched by the meaning. It carries the texts. It does not carry the guidance.
This is one of the great dangers of religious life.
Not ignorance only. But knowledge that does not become transformation. Not lack of books only. But books that never become adab. Not absence of words only. But words that never become light.
One of the famous stories told about Mawlānā Rūmī and Shams of Tabrīz begins with books.
There are a few versions.
In one telling, Rūmī is near water with his books. In another, the scene is placed by a pool. In popular retellings, it becomes a river, sometimes with a donkey laden with books.
The details move. The meaning remains.
Rūmī is the great scholar. The teacher. The jurist. The man of discourse. The man of students. The man of books.
Then Shams appears.
He asks: “What are these?”
Rūmī, perhaps with the confidence of the learned, says something like: “These are discussions. These are debates. These are matters you would not understand.”
It is a dangerous moment when knowledge makes the tongue quick and the heart slow. It is a dangerous moment when a person knows the name of a thing but not its secret. It is a dangerous moment when the scholar thinks the stranger has nothing to teach him.
Then Shams takes the books and throws them into the water.
Imagine the shock.
These were not cheap papers. These were not casual notes. These were precious books. Rare books. The labour of years. The companionship of the scholar.
Rūmī is distressed. The books are ruined. Or so he thinks.
Then Shams retrieves them from the water.
One by one. Dry. Untouched. No damage. No stain.
Rūmī asks: “What secret is this?”
And Shams answers in the language of state, not explanation. This is not something reached by argument alone. This is not something held by the hand only. This belongs to ḥāl. To inward condition. To the knowledge that has crossed from the page into the soul.
But we must be careful.
This story should not be read as an insult to books. Islam is not a religion of anti-knowledge. The first command was Read. The Qurʾān speaks of the pen. The Prophet ﷺ taught. The Companions learned. The scholars preserved. The jurists reasoned. The reciters transmitted. The people of knowledge carried the trust of the ummah through centuries.
So the problem is not the book.
The problem is the donkey.
There is a kind of knowledge that makes the servant softer. And there is a kind of knowledge that makes the ego sharper.
There is knowledge that teaches a person to say: I do not know.
And there is knowledge that teaches the ego to say: No one knows like me.
The donkey carrying books is not only someone else. It may be me. It may be you. It may be the student memorising without changing. The parent advising without modelling. The teacher explaining without embodying. The believer quoting without obeying. The preacher speaking without repenting. The seeker collecting spiritual language while the nafs remains untouched.
This is why the river story is so piercing. The books entered the water and came out dry. But the heart of Rūmī did not remain dry.
Perhaps the real miracle was not that the books did not get wet. Perhaps the real miracle was that the scholar did.
Shams did not come to make Rūmī less learned. He came to ask whether the books had destroyed the ego. Information can sit on a donkey. Wisdom must enter a servant.
And then there is the other meeting. The more weighty meeting. In the famous account, Shams meets Rūmī and asks a question about Bayazid Bistami and the Prophet ﷺ. Bayazid is remembered in Sufi tradition for the ecstatic utterance:
سُبْحَانِي، مَا أَعْظَمَ شَأْنِي
Subḥānī, mā aʿẓama shaʾnī.
“Glory be to me, how great is my station.”
The Prophet ﷺ, in the Sufi telling, is remembered with words of utter humility:
سُبْحَانَكَ، مَا عَرَفْنَاكَ حَقَّ مَعْرِفَتِكَ
Subḥānaka, mā ʿarafnāka ḥaqqa maʿrifatika.
“Glory be to You; we have not known You as You deserve to be known.”
and
سُبْحَانَكَ، مَا عَبَدْنَاكَ حَقَّ عِبَادَتِكَ
Subḥānaka, mā ʿabadnāka ḥaqqa ʿibādatika.
“Glory be to You; we have not worshipped You as You deserve to be worshipped.”
Shams asks Rūmī: How can this be? How can Bayazid say, “Glory be to me,” while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ speaks with such humility? Who is greater?
Rūmī was speechless. All his knowledge could not answer it. But then with the teachers wisdom, he answers with the clarity of a heart that knows the rank of the Prophet ﷺ.
Bayazid reached a station and was overwhelmed. He saw something of grandeur and could not contain himself.
But the Prophet ﷺ did not stop at one station. He was always being taken further. Every nearness opened into greater nearness. Every unveiling opened into a deeper sense of Allah’s greatness.
The saint may have a state. But the Messenger ﷺ gives the path.
The saint may be overcome. But the Messenger ﷺ is the measure.
The saint may utter a word in spiritual intoxication. But the ummah cannot build its life on intoxication.
The ummah builds its life on the Qurʾān and the Sunnah.
This was the greatness of Shams’s question.
He was not asking for information. Rūmī already had information.
He was asking for orientation. Where does your heart face?
Does it face the dazzling utterance? Or does it face the humble Messenger ﷺ?
The question was not : Who is greater?
The question was: What kind of greatness do you understand?
This is why the Prophet ﷺ remains the teacher of all true love. He was not less because he was humble. He was humble because he knew most.
He did not say “we have not known You” because he was distant. He said it because he was near enough to know that Allah is beyond all knowing.
This is real maʿrifah.
The first story warns the scholar: Do not become a donkey carrying books.
The second story warns the seeker: Do not become drunk on your own state.
The first story says: Knowledge must become life.
The second story says: Love must become following.
The first story asks: Have your books entered your heart?
The second story asks: Has your heart entered the Prophetic path?
Together, they give us one of the most needed lessons of our time.
We are surrounded by information.
A phone may carry more books than a medieval library. But the soul holding it may still be restless, vain, cruel, impatient, and untrained.
The question is not only: What have we read?
The question is: What has our reading done to our character?
Has it made us more truthful?
Has it made us more tender?
Has it made us more responsible?
Has it made us more careful with the weak?
Has it made us more ashamed of our sins?
Has it made us quicker to apologise?
Has it made us slower to humiliate?
Has it made us more obedient to Allah?
Has it made us more loving toward the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?
Has it made us people of service?
Or have we only become loaded?
A donkey carrying books.
A mind carrying quotations.
A tongue carrying sacred words.
A public image carrying piety.
But the heart still not bearing the trust.
Rūmī’s meeting with Shams matters because it is not only about Rūmī.
It is about every person who has become too comfortable with what they already know.
So we ask Allah:
Do not make our knowledge a load upon our backs.
Make it a light within our hearts.
Do not make our books witnesses against us.
Make them means of guidance.
Do not let us speak of humility while secretly worshipping recognition.
Do not let us speak of love while refusing to follow.
Do not let us admire the saints while neglecting the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
Do not let us mistake intensity for sincerity.
Or information for wisdom.
Or vocabulary for state.
Or state for obedience.
O Allah, make us people of knowledge that bows.
People of love that follows.
People of books that become character.
People of dhikr that becomes mercy.
People of longing that becomes service.
People of the Qurʾān who are carried by the Qurʾān, not merely people who carry it.
May our books not be burdens.
May our learning not become pride.
May our states not become display.
May our hearts be washed without our trust being drowned.
May we be taken from the donkey carrying books to the servant carrying light.
May Allah make us true followers of His Beloved ﷺ.
Āmīn.
Source note: The Bayazid question is the stronger early Rumi–Shams meeting tradition, appearing through Shams’s Maqālāt and later accounts such as Sepahsalar and Aflaki; the books-in-water story is a later teaching tale, with versions in Jami, Amin Ahmad Razi, and Azar, while the donkey detail appears in a related but separate retelling. Franklin Lewis discusses these layers and cautions that the water/books story is mythical in character rather than firm biography. (Internet Archive) The Qurʾānic anchors used above are Sūrat al-Jumuʿah 62:5, Sūrat al-Isrāʾ 17:1, and Sūrat Āl ʿImrān 3:31. (Quran.com)
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