A gorgeously jacketed hardcover collection that draws on a wide variety of translations of Rumi’s deeply moving, sensually vibrant poetry.
The poetry of the medieval Persian sage Rumi combines lyrical beauty with spiritual profundity, a sense of rapture, and acute awareness of human suffering in ways that speak directly to contemporary audiences.
Trained in Sufism—a mystic tradition within Islam—Rumi founded the Sufi order known to us as the Whirling Dervishes, who use dance and music as part of their spiritual devotion. Many of Rumi’s poems speak of a yearning for ecstatic union with the divine Beloved. But his images bring the sacred and the earthy together in startling ways, describing divine love in vividly human terms.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Jalal al-Din, known as Rumi (i.e., from Rum) or Mawlana (Master), was born in 1207 at Balkh in northern Afganistan. He worked as a preacher, succeeding his father, and founded the Sufi order known to us as the Whirling Dervishes, who use dance and music as part of their spiritual devotion. He died in 1273 and his burial place in Konya remains a shrine to this day.
