Rumi: The Fire of Love [Paperback]

This is such a beautiful and inspiring read. I was completely transported. If you are trying to find the perfect book to take you away from the holiday stress, you can stop searching now.

I'm nearly halfway so haven't finished reading it yet, but what I have read so far provides me with an ample amount of information to comment on this story written by what I believe to be a sincere writer who knows next to nothing about Mawlana Muhammad Jelaluddin Rumi.

The book continually dwells on Shams who is inaccurately portrayed as an utterly eccentric being given to a certain set of unexpected reactions to everything happening around him, and as a man who is very capricious and persnickety. Such external expressions of the carnal soul which mirror the hidden vices in an "untamed" person don't exist even in a newly-initiated disciple! A real sufi makes continuous efforts to refrain from being a burden on others. This wrongfully distorted Shams figure keeps harrassing those around him with his unending stupid wishes and is shown to be the only person who helped Rumi to transform into a zealous lover of the divine (whatever it means) after renouncing his "former bigotry" allegedly stemming from the "rigidity" and "intolerance" of the Islamic Law. I don't have enough time or space to criticize the description of Rumi by the writer. I need to suffice it to say that Rumi had 7 important people in his life, just like the 7 colors of the rainbow. And Shams was only one of the colors in that rainbow, although a very bright one that stood out more as centuries went by. When Rumi met him, he was already a mature spiritual teacher, and needless to say, a very devoted follower of the prayerful daily life exemplified by the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of God be upon him and all other prophets.

Those who deem it very difficult to restrain their carnal desires and find it impossible to learn the core of Islam, which is nothing but Sufism, and reshape their lives and behavior accordingly, have been trying to draw an inaccurate and completely distorted picture of Rumi particularly in the recent years after such people were most profoundly inspired by the "versionized" translations of Coleman Barks who naturally appealed to a great number of non-Muslim westerners as well as unpracticing Muslims with his "counterfeit" Rumi.

Even though Mrs. Tajadod claims to have based her story on the facts that she found in Manaqib'u-l Arifin - a kind of biographical work written by Aflaki, a dervish of Rumi's grandson Ulu Arif Chelebi - she apparently interspersed her story with innumerous false pieces of information that is highly likely to mislead the ordinary reader.

For those who want to extract genuine pearls of wisdom from the bottomless ocean of Rumi, I advice first learning about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, on whose path Rumi is -as he himself says - nothing but "mere dust," and then reading Rumi in the works of real Sufis such as Seyyed Hosein Nasr, Ibrahim Gamard and William Chittick who not only know Persian but also Islamic sciences in depth.

I'm definitely not against the writing of stories about such sublime personages, but I'm certainly against the conveying of such inaccurate information to people who are already very confused as to who to trust.
Not everybody who knows Persian has the right to write on Rumi, just like not everybody with a superb command of Arabic can read and understand the Holy Quran.

Unless one is acquainted with the real taste of the divine, one cannot possibly appreciate the value of such holy people. Real freedom is not having the right to do or write anything one likes, but it is not asking anything of anyone first and then renouncing your relative being by being continuously vigilant in practicing the divine commands as taught by the Prophet.

So, those who have read this book SHOULD NOT conclude that they have acquired some accurate information about Islam, Sufism or Rumi.

"I'm a slave of the Quran as long as I'm alive
I'm dust on the path of Muhammad, the chosen one,
And whoever relates from me anything other than this
I deplore him and his words"

Rumi