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Pithy quatrains, ecstatic odes, and long rambles through the Mathnawi (including animal fables, jokes, and stories of human orneriness and innocence), all saturated with Rumi's deep teachings and images of his spiritual surrender.
64 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1990
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About the author
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
1,171 books15.7k followersSufism 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 3, 2024
It's interesting to click “Done!” on a collection of Rumi's poems.
“Done?”
You'll never be done with Rumi's work (or any mystic poet's work). You could read each poem 50 times and still learn something new.
Life keeps leading to more Life.
I'd like to take a moment here, in this review, to express gratitude to Coleman Barks for being a tireless “translator” who receives no-where-near-enough acknowledgement for his faithful devotion to Rumi's work. I know he doesn't do what he does for praise, but he has brought so much light and love and humor to my own world, how can I not thank him? (I just looked up his bio and I see that he's 86 now and that he once attended school in my current hometown).
Mr. Barks writes two things in his “Foreword” to this edition that I really wanted to share. First, that Rumi's spiritual teacher, “Shams of Tabriz,” when ambushed by authorities for his “outlandish” worship of God, is known as shouting out to his ambushers, “THERE IS NO REALITY BUT GOD!” and then disappearing.
Kind of badass, no?
Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.
Describing this small, particular collection of Rumi's work, Mr. Barks also shares:
There is a powerful stage of spiritual growth where longing for the Friend, the Beloved, is a consuming passion, a burning. And there is another place where that longing for God gets pushed over into a vast Silence. These poems come from both places. Or is it one place, the verge of fire and wordlessness?
Meaning: the works here were specifically chosen for representing that dualistic quality, of singing/praising the Holy Spirit from the rafters, AND. . . finding the balance of worshipping, also, in the silence.
I find it interesting that all, not one or two, but ALL of the Holy Texts we have here on earth promote the same three things as part of a balanced worship practice:
Prayer
Meditation
Fasting
I also love what it is that ALL mystic poets, from ALL parts of our world do: make the celebration of the Highest a pursuit that supersedes any and all attachment to words, cultures, ethnicities, and/or particular prophets.
I will ride up over my own commotion.
The Friend, the Beloved, the Shepherd, the Guest, the Lover, the Ocean, the Rose. . . are all One.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.
Help someone's soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Stay in the spiritual fire.
Let it cook you.
Be a well-baked loaf
and lord of the table.
Come and be served
to your brothers.
You have been a source of pain.
Now you'll be the delight.
You have been an unsafe house.
Now you'll be the one
who sees the Invisible.
“Done?”
Ha! More like: “you've only just begun.”
“Done?”
You'll never be done with Rumi's work (or any mystic poet's work). You could read each poem 50 times and still learn something new.
Life keeps leading to more Life.
I'd like to take a moment here, in this review, to express gratitude to Coleman Barks for being a tireless “translator” who receives no-where-near-enough acknowledgement for his faithful devotion to Rumi's work. I know he doesn't do what he does for praise, but he has brought so much light and love and humor to my own world, how can I not thank him? (I just looked up his bio and I see that he's 86 now and that he once attended school in my current hometown).
Mr. Barks writes two things in his “Foreword” to this edition that I really wanted to share. First, that Rumi's spiritual teacher, “Shams of Tabriz,” when ambushed by authorities for his “outlandish” worship of God, is known as shouting out to his ambushers, “THERE IS NO REALITY BUT GOD!” and then disappearing.
Kind of badass, no?
Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.
Describing this small, particular collection of Rumi's work, Mr. Barks also shares:
There is a powerful stage of spiritual growth where longing for the Friend, the Beloved, is a consuming passion, a burning. And there is another place where that longing for God gets pushed over into a vast Silence. These poems come from both places. Or is it one place, the verge of fire and wordlessness?
Meaning: the works here were specifically chosen for representing that dualistic quality, of singing/praising the Holy Spirit from the rafters, AND. . . finding the balance of worshipping, also, in the silence.
I find it interesting that all, not one or two, but ALL of the Holy Texts we have here on earth promote the same three things as part of a balanced worship practice:
Prayer
Meditation
Fasting
I also love what it is that ALL mystic poets, from ALL parts of our world do: make the celebration of the Highest a pursuit that supersedes any and all attachment to words, cultures, ethnicities, and/or particular prophets.
I will ride up over my own commotion.
The Friend, the Beloved, the Shepherd, the Guest, the Lover, the Ocean, the Rose. . . are all One.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.
Help someone's soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Stay in the spiritual fire.
Let it cook you.
Be a well-baked loaf
and lord of the table.
Come and be served
to your brothers.
You have been a source of pain.
Now you'll be the delight.
You have been an unsafe house.
Now you'll be the one
who sees the Invisible.
“Done?”
Ha! More like: “you've only just begun.”
July 8, 2013
its one of my favorites!!! i Like Like This.
May 14, 2009
Does anyone else have a problem with a kind of annoying white dude translating Rumi!? "Like This" is one of my all-time favorite poems, but Barks' translation leaves me wanting. Check out Fatemeh Keshavarz's translations instead.
February 1, 2008
Beautiful love poems from a mystic
October 25, 2013
Again, spending more time with this after reading it this semester. There is a plan for imitation poems...
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update - 25 October 2013
I have read this several times. Seven or eight times.
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update - 25 October 2013
I have read this several times. Seven or eight times.
July 4, 2023
Love this audio. Barks first caught my attention in the Bill Moyers series The Language of Life. That was my introduction to a mystic poet whom I found a deep fondness for. The music in this can sometimes be overwhelming, but overall I had a good time.
July 17, 2025
5 stars for Rumi, 3 stars for the "translation" from the Persian. (It's a poetic paraphrase by one author of the literal translation of another.) Still better than Ezra Pound's "translations" of Classical Chinese or Athanasius Kircher's "translations" of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
October 30, 2017
can't get him, may be need to become more mature.
Read
September 29, 2024I spent an afternoon sitting in the park, reading this. I felt myself melt into the words, into the pages, into the earth.
January 3, 2020
Based on this, I don't think I'm a big Rumi fan. Not bad, just didn't capture my interest nor imagination.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews