Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 224 pages
- Published by: Shambhala
- Edition: 1st Edition May 22, 2001
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0877736111
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0877736110
-
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
- Weighs: 11.2 ounces
Product Review
"Annemarie Schimmel has been immersed in Rumi for over forty years. Her scholarship and devotion are awesome. She has a deep understanding of the poems, the mystical puns, the music, and the dancy inner meanings of Rumi's work."—Coleman Barks, author of
The Essential Rumi.
Product Description
This book (previously published as
I Am Wind, You Are Fire ) celebrates the extraordinary career of Persia's great mystical poet, Rumi (1207–1273), through the story of his life, along with an enlightening examination of his ecstatic verse. Rumi lived the quiet life of a religious teacher in Anatolia until the age of thirty-seven, when he came under the influence of a whirling dervish, Shams Tabriz, and was moved to a state of mystical ecstasy. One of the results of this ecstasy was a prodigious output of poems about the search for the lost Divine Beloved, whom Rumi identified with Shams. To symbolize this search, Rumi also invented the famous whirling dance of the Melevi dervishes, which are performed accompanied by the chanting of Rumi's poems. Professor Schimmel illuminates the symbolism and significance of Rumi's vast output and offers her own translations of some of his most famous poems.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: I Am Wind You Are Fire: The Life and Work of Rumi (Paperback)
There are a number of writers on Islamic topics that are excellent from differing perspectives. There are only two Western authors, however, that I have any respect for when it comes to the subject of Islamic spirituality. One of them was Frithjof Schuon, and the other is Annemarie Schimmel. With all of the fuss about Rumi and the whole New Age Sufi thing, it is all too easy to forget that Rumi was a Muslim (sometimes I suspect that too many people would like to forget it). Rumi was the sort of person that he was because he was a Muslim, and not in spite of that fact. Professor Schimmel places Rumi squarely in the Islamic perspective, which is where he belongs. This book provides the best short introduction to his life and thought within that context that I have run across, and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in his life and work.
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