The philosophy of ecstasy
Subtitle: Rumi and the Sufi tradition
By: edited by Leonard Lewisohn
Series: The library of perennial philosophy; Spiritual masters : East & West series; Library of perennial philosophy
Publisher: Tradeselect Limited; World Wisdom; Tradeselect
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 319
ISBN-13: 9781936597420
Subjects: Sufism; Persian Sufi poetry; History and criticism; Criticism and interpretation; Mevleviyeh; History
Description: Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-73), founder of the Mevlevi Sufi order of "Whirling Dervishes," is the best-selling poet in America today. The wide-ranging appeal of his work is such that UNESCO declared 2007 to be "International Rumi Year." However, his writings represent much more than love poetry. Rumi was one of the preeminent thinkers of Sufism, the esoteric form of Islam. In this groundbreaking collection of 13 essays on Rumi, many of the world's leading authorities in the field of Islamic Studies and Persian Literature discuss the major religious themes in his poetry and teachings. In addition to discussing the ideas of love, ecstasy, and music in Rumi's Sufi poetry, the essays offer new historical and theological perspectives on his work. The immortality of the soul, freewill, the nature of punishment and reward, and the relationship of Islam to Christianity are all covered, in order to bring Rumi's poetry properly into the context of the Sufi tradition to which he belonged.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (page 285-306) and index.
Table of contents: title: Etudes in ecstasy: leitmotifs of Rūmī's poetics : the symphony of Rūmī /; title: Husayn Ilahi-Ghomshei; title: Principles of the philosophy of ecstasy in Rūmī's poetry / Leonard Lewisohn; title: RŪmī's sufi ecumenism "one shrine alone": Christians, sufis, and the vision of Mawlānā / Roderick Grierson; title: The contemporary relevance of Rūmī's language of the soul / Kabir Helminski; title: Historical and theological perspectives on Rūmī's oeuvre: towards a chronology of the poems in the Dīvān-i shams: A prolegomenon for a periodization of Rūmī's literary oeuvre / Franklin Lewis; title: The revival of the spiritual dimension of the sunna in Rūmī's Mathnawī / Shahram Pazouki; title: From Rūmī's Mathnawī to the popular stage / Iraj Anvar & Peter Chelkowski; title: Designs of love: sense and structure in Rūmī's Mathnawī; title: Open heart surgery: the poetic operation of love in Rūmī's mathnawī / Alan Williams; title: The ascension of the word: rhetoric and reader engagement in Rūmī's Mathnawī / James W. Morris; title: Wakened by the dove's trill: structure and meaning in the preface to Rūmī's Mathnawī, book IV / Carl W. Ernst); title: Spiritual progression in books one and two of the Mathnawī / Simon Weightman; title: In memoriam: Gökalp Kâmil / Roderick Grierson.