Rumi, Shams of Tabriz and Elif Shafak’s Love Letter to Poetry

The other day I was hanging out with my friend Indira, who mentioned she had fallen out of love with reading and needed a recommendation. Fortunately, asking for a book recommendation is the greatest gift one can give me and I excitedly rushed her over to the bookstore next door.

Finding her a book to help re-ignite her passion for reading as my primary focus, we landed on “Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Just like I can’t leave my maternal grandmother, or Nani’s, house without feeling like I’ve been fed for a month, I can’t leave a bookstore without getting myself a good book, and I decided to grab two this time. While one was “The Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak, the other is about Aligarh Muslim University and was for my mother, because forcing people like her to read books that intrigue me is a core personality trait of mine.

Despite my love for reading, however, I haven’t yet developed a discernible algorithm for selecting books. Instead, a book just has to speak to me for me to buy or lend it. I rarely read the description or reviews before I start to read. What’s the point? When I finish the book, I’ll know what it was about so I just aim to finish the book.

However, my mind seems to think it is Sherlock Holmes and tries to glean the book’s plot, purely based off the title and cover. For instance, the cover of “The Forty Rules of Love is aesthetically pleasing, with an Islamic city in the background and a heterosexual couple in the foreground.

As such, my mind considered the book to be a light read, an easy romantic comedy about a woman who learns forty lessons about love via forty dates, but little did I know how wrong I would be.

This book is too beautiful and too perfect to the point that I worry if I can do it justice by articulating its qualities, a fear that leaves me dumbfounded. However, if I don’t at least attempt to express its beauty we might be depriving others of knowing about the magnificent so I persevere.

“Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life of
Love, living is a burden – as you have seen.” ~Rumi

I was introduced to Rumi at a young age as my maternal family can read and write Urdu. Around our home you will always find books on Rumi’s poetry, and WhatsApp family group chats filled with forwards of Rumi’s poetry.

Rumi’s poetry was my first known introduction into spirituality and I’ve always found a great sense of comfort in his words, so I was delighted to find out “Forty Rules of Love” was also about Rumi.

“Forty Rules of Love” focuses on a woman named Ella who is reading a book about the divine love between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz. Aah, what a recursive scenario, a blog about a review of a book which is a review of another book. I wonder what the base case for this recursion is. Or will we be stuck in an infinite loop?

Shafak’s book is a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom, and a reminder of why love for all is true devotion. I love how in India we have so much love and respect culturally not only for the living but also for the non-living. The moment we drop a book, and then seek forgiveness particularly resonates with me

Once I finished “Forty Rules” I simply sat silently as I was shaken to my core and needed a few minutes to center myself. I’d gotten so sucked into Shafak’s writing, forgoing work to stay up until 3 am as I couldn’t wait to soak in all the wisdom it had to provide.

I’m a sucker for a good romantic comedy with a happy ending, and this book had neither. But it filled me with excitement about love more than any romance book ever could, because it’s not about love for your significant other, instead for every sentient being.

The book weaves in Ella’s experiences along with those of Shams of Tabriz and Rumi. Just as Ella is handed life lessons from Shams Tabriz and Rumi, I learnt a lot too, and loved how Shafak brought a somewhat forgotten historical character into the limelight.

Having read a great deal of literature about Rumi and his poetry, I was surprised to find out about Shams of Tabriz as it’s not a character created by Shafak. Instead he is believed to have been a real person, credited with creating and mentoring Rumi into the poet he is now. All of Rumi’s poetry is believed to be written about his heartbreak over Shams’ passing and references to his lifelong mentor can be found in terms like “God” and “Sun”.

The book is a gold mine of quotable phrases so I’m going to end this by sharing some of my favorites in the hope that it interests you to check out the book for yourself:

“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.”

“The real filth is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure waters, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart.”

“We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same, He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme.”

“If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.”

PS:
1. I struggled to finish this review, I feel I can’t truly elucidate the beauty of the book so would highly recommend reading it.

2. If you know any great works by Indian authors please send them my way! Even if you have’t read them yourself but have heard positively about their writing :).