From Publishers Weekly
This fictionalized biography of 13-century Turkish Sufi mystic Djalal al-din Mohammad Balkhi, known as Rumi, lingers over the creative relationships that gave rise to his mystical writings and leaves the mystery that surrounds them in place. Rumi’s student, scribe and early biographer Hesam, who narrates, begins his tale with the most infamous of these relationships: the friendship between the serene Rumi and Mohammed Malekdad, aka Shams of Tabriz. The first meeting of Rumi and Shams is explosive: the two immediately retire to a locked room for 40 days. Upon emerging, Rumi rejects bookish religion and initiates the sama, the spiritual dance that lends his sect their nickname of whirling dervishes. More conventional Muslims are appalled: they drive Shams away from Konya, but the pining Rumi eventually tracks Shams down in Damascus and has him brought back. The anti-Shams faction conspires to murder him—or does he simply, miraculously, disappear? Rumi later transfers his spiritual affections to Hesam, and together they create Rumi’s poetic magnum opus, the Masnavi-yi Ma’navi. An émigré from Tehran to Paris, Tajadod includes a plethora of parables, miracles, cryptic sayings and mystic poetry throughout. She sensitively illustrates Rumi’s spiritualism and circles carefully around the male relationships at the core of Rumi’s life. (Aug.) “”
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From Booklist
Rumi’s poems of rapturous love are cherished the world over, but the full story of his metamorphosis from religious scholar to mystic and Sufi founder who “flaunted all of Islam’s prohibitions” has been sanitized. Tajadod, a translator of the thirteenth-century Persian’s poet work, uses fiction as a vessel for truth, vividly imagining Rumi’s sexual and spiritual awakenings and the controversies ignited by his radical faith while insightfully mapping the nexus between creativity and divinity. Handsome young Hesam, a loyal disciple and skilled eavesdropper and scribe, chronicles all the “strange and unpredictable” events set in motion by the love of Rumi’s life, Shams of Tabriz, the tall, thin, and irascible sage who draws Rumi away from his books and marriage and into the sama, the sacred dance of the whirling dervishes. Hesam witnesses the suffering and power struggles in Mongol-occupied Konya and within Rumi’s circle as wives struggle to accept their husbands’ bisexuality and ecstatic spirituality. And all is exalted by Rumi’s fiery poetry, in which eroticism is holy, and pain and longing are transmuted into prayer and joy. –Donna Seaman
Product details
- Publisher : The Overlook Press; First American Edition (September 4, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1590200802
- ISBN-13 : 978-1590200803
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.28 x 1.06 x 9.2 inches
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