Listen to this delightful story told by the great Persian poet, Quranic commentator, and troubadour of love, Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273). With gentle humour and profound insight, Rumi reminds us that many disagreements arise from words rather than reality. The king’s minister travels across the whole of India searching for a mysterious tree, only to discover it was always within reach, right at home. Rumi’s timeless lesson is simple: Move beyond names, contemplate the qualities, and they will lead you to the essence.
A learned man once told the following story: In India there is a tree; whoever eats its fruit will not grow old nor die. When the king heard this, he fell in love with the tree and its fruit and sent one of his ministers with a party of strong men to search for it. For many years, his minister travelled about India in this quest. From city to city, village to village, he went searching for this mysterious tree. He left no island, mountain, or desert unvisited. Wherever he went, he asked and was ridiculed. Who would search for such a thing except a madman? Many poked fun at him, ‘Prosperous fellow, how should the enquiry of so clever and brilliant a man as you prove fruitless or in vain?’ He was mocked and jeered. The king’s envoy became tired of hearing these ridicules and asking people for this elusive tree.
He travelled for many years, and all the while the king kept sending him money. He became tired and weary in this foreign land till at last he became incapable of searching. Eventually, he came to a place where he heard there was a noble man, a Qutb, a wise scholar. He went to him, ‘hopeless as I am, I will go,’ he said to himself, and ‘I hope that from this door I will find something.’ His eyes brimming with tears, he went before the shaykh. The tears poured like rain from a cloud. Shaykh, show compassion. ‘Declare the reason for your despair,’ the Shaykh said. ‘What are you looking for?’ ‘The emperor’, said the minister, ‘tasked me to search for a certain well-branched tree, a unique tree in all the world whose fruit is the substance of the water of life.
I have searched for it for many years, but have not found it anywhere, and I have been ridiculed. ‘Simpleton,’ the Shaykh laughed, ‘this tree is the tree of knowledge in the learned man, very high, very wide-spreading, water of life from the ocean divine. You have gone after the form only and have gone astray. Sometimes it is named tree, sometimes sun, sometimes sea, sometimes cloud. Though it is single, it has a thousand effects. The Shaykh’s answer is almost humorous yet quietly devastating. The minister had travelled across India looking for something that had never been a physical tree at all.
At its heart, the story is gently dismantling a human habit: mistaking labels for reality. The king hears ‘tree’ and imagines a literal object. The minister spends years wondering because he is loyal to the word, but not yet aware of the meaning. The more intelligent and sincere he is, the more tragic it becomes; he is not foolish, just misdirected. Then comes the turning point: the Shaykh reframes everything. Only then does the minister realise that he had spent years searching for wood and leaves when the real tree had always been living in enlightened hearts.
Rumi then zooms out and invites us to see reality from a higher vantage point. The same unseen reality is glimpsed through countless forms: each has a different name because each performs a different function, yet all are signs of a single source. The One Creator. Rumi invites us to move beyond the names to their meaning. Every sign is a pointer beyond itself to its cause; every gift to its Giver; every design to its Designer.
The Majestic Quran calls Allah by His beautiful names because each opens a window onto the same infinite reality. He is the Creator when life is made, the Sustainer when creatures are nourished, the Fashioner when beauty and proportion appear, the Provider when needs are met, the Forgiver when sins are erased, the Loving when care embraces His servants. The attributes are many because our experiences are many; the One they reveal is forever One, Ahad.
In this sense, the ‘Tree of Life’ is the Divine knowledge leading to Allah. “He’s the Originator of the Heavens and the Earth… He created everything, and He knows everything”. “That is Allah, your Lord; there is no god but Him, the Creator of everything, so worship Him. He governs everything. Our eyes cannot see Him, but He sees what our eyes see. He is the Subtle, the Aware.” Say, “Visible signs have come to you from your Lord; anyone who looks at them, it is for his own benefit, and whoever remains blind to them, on his head be it. I am not sent to watch over you. This is how We explain the signs” (Al-Anam:101-105).
In this blog, I try to show that Islam is not a collection of beliefs or rituals but a beautiful way of life. It transforms the individual, strengthens families, builds compassionate communities, and enables believers to become a force for good in society. The Quran is the living guide, and your faith, character and service must represent these values.
