Rumi and His Friends

Camille Helminski, Susan Blaylock 

Paperback

9781887752886

Stories of the Lovers of God Excerpts from the Manaqib Al-'arifin

Selected and Translated by Camille Adams Helminski With Susan Blaylock

Unlike many books about Sufi poet Rumi, Rumi and His Friends, Stories of the Lovers of God, offers the reader a fresh and intimate view into his life, as though one is just nearby when the friends were gathering, delighting in the teachings and atmosphere of the beloved saint. This sparkling selection of stories from the classic Persian text of Aflaki includes anecdotes of intimate moments with Rumi's family, gatherings of the circle of friends who surrounded him, teachings of his beloved friend and mentor, Shams of Tabriz, and stories of his descendants, with bits of his poetry interspersed.

So many people now know of Rumi, but few have a sense of what life was like with him. This volume provides an in depth and intimate view into Rumi's life and practice. It becomes apparent that Rumi was not calling people to his side to join a spiritual club, but rather calling them into the experience of the Divine Abundance and Beauty such that the rough edges of selfhood might soften and the luminous inner Spirit of each being might shine, illuminating for everyone the enveloping Oneness of Reality. His life was as he said of his masterwork, the Mathnawi, "a shop of Oneness"; anything you find within it is just in service to the elucidation of that Supreme Oneness by which we are held and through which we breathe. Welcome to Rumi's universe!