The Limits of Discourse: Rethinking Rūmī’s Epistemology in Fīhi Mā Fīhi—Does Language Truly Mirror Reality?

Fadhlur Rahman

doi:10.47766/tharwah.v5i1.2334

Authors

Fadhlur Rahman Universitas Islam Negeri Sultanah Nahrasiyah Lhokseumawe https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0118-3166

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47766/tharwah.v5i1.2334

Keywords:

linguistic representationalism, philosophy of language, hermeneutics, Sufism, Rumi, Fihi ma fihi

Abstract

This article offers a fresh reconstruction of the theory of knowledge embedded within Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s prose collection Fihi Ma Fihi or "It Is What It Is" (in English), focusing specifically on how the text treats language, meaning, and truth. Popular and academic attention to Rūmī has concentrated overwhelmingly on his poetic achievement and his standing as a towering figure of Sufi devotion, however, this paper argues that his recorded discourses contain a coherent, if never formally systematized. An objection to what may be called linguistic representationalism: the widely held philosophical assumption that language is capable of mirroring reality accurately. The study examines passages from Fihi Ma Fihi in which Rūmī by using a hermeneutic method of close reading, takes up questions about the nature of words, the boundaries of meaning, and the preconditions for spiritual insight. The analysis shows that Rūmī treats language consistently as a symbolic device rather than as a direct canal to truth: words operate as signs that point the seeker toward reality while remaining structurally unable to deliver the immediacy of lived, embodied, and spiritual experience. Rūmī views truth is not something linguistic representation can exhaust; rather, it is realized through existential engagement and direct experiential knowing (inner knowledge), which the Islamic mystical tradition terms ma’rifah. The article contends that Rūmī’s view foreshadowed modern Western philosophy of language, linking his thought within ongoing discourses on religious epistemology and the philosophy of mysticism.

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