1st Edition
Revival: Rumi, Poet and Mystic, 1207-1273 (1950) Selections from his Writings, Translated from the Persian with Introduction and Notes
To the English reader the mysticism of Rumi opens a new world of spiritual and poetical experience. "God is One but religions are many" runs the Sufi teaching; and the English reader can here enlarge his experience by apprehending the mystic intuition of a great Persian poet. The late Professor Nicholson’s beautiful and faithful translations are illuminated by Notes on Sufi doctrine and experience. Professor Nicholson did not finish the Introduction, but it has been completed by his old pupil and friend, Professor A. J. Arberry, who has seen the book through the press.
Biography
Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, the greatest mystical poet of Persia, was born in Khorasan in 1207. When he was twelve years old his family had to flee before the advancing Mongol hordes, and settled in Turkey. After his marriage and the death of his father, said to be an eminent theologian, and a great teacher and preacher, he took to the mystical life, to which the remainder of his days were devoted. He died in 1273. His literary output was large, some 2,500 mystical odes forming the collection known as Diwan-I Shasm-I Tabriz, in addition to the Mathnawi in about 25,000 rhyming couplets and the Ruba’iyat of about 1,600 quatrains.