These Branching Moments: Forty Odes by Rumi

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi, Coleman Barks (Translator), John Moyne (Translator)

Poetry. Translated from the Persian by John Moyne and Coleman Barks. These are the first English translations in nearly a hundred years of the great 13th-century Sufi poet's finest odes. At once clear and mysterious, passionate and idealistic, witty and profound, they are filled with down-to-earth images of time transcended. For Rumi, life is not a pointless series of discrete events but a tree of "branching moments." The way to discover this truth, his poems reveal, is to follow the mystical via affirmative, whereby true happiness is found not by rejecting the world but by plunging into it and, instead of getting lost in its many splendors, finally rejoicing in - and joining forces with - its underlying oneness. Rumi's vision of the ultimate unity of all things, especially of Islamic, Judeo-Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist thought, speaks to our own fragmented age, and these spirited versions render his search for peace as exhilarating as it is enlightening.

Genres: Poetry

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Sufism inspired writings of Persian poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi; these writings express the longing of the soul for union with the divine.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, "our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, "my master") and more popularly simply as Rumi - was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic who lived in Konya, a city of Ottoman Empire (Today's Turkey). His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.

His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto, and Bengali.

Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorāṣān, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by his father, Bahā ud-Dīn Wālad or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards, eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya, where he lived most of his life, composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature, and profoundly affected the culture of the area.

When his father died, Rumi, aged 25, inherited his position as the head of an Islamic school. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there.

It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic.

On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus.

Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next 12 years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.

In December 1273, Rumi fell ill and died on the 17th of December in Konya.

Reviews

[Mackenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good tidbits in this book. Rumi is a must-read, for whatever he can offer to you.

[Yordanos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always a treat to read Rumi. This collection has lovely poems that venerate, eulogize, ground, uplift, empathize, and most of all, connect deeply to what makes us human in our fears, insecurities, hopes, griefs, loves, and desires. Such a thrilling and generous offering 🌱

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love the fact that I relate to Rumi's poems really well and it's a coincidence that I was just browsing at my uni's library and stumbled upon this very slim book. Read it in one sitting and was the best decision I ever did.
I tried to think of some way
to let my face become his.

"Could I whispered in your ear
a dream I've had? You're the only one
I've told this to."

He tilts his head, laughing,
as if, "I know the trick you're hatching,
but go ahead."

I am an image he stitches with gold thread
on a tapestry, the least figure,
a playful addition.

But nothing he works on is dull
I am part of the beauty.