Love is the last novel of Elif Safak who is best selling writer in Turkey. This is the only book that I read from her. Frankly, I was prejudiced about her… Because, I was thinking that she is following the same strategy with Orhan Pamuk (nobel winner writer!). I mean, she has been trying to be popular by insulting Turkishness like Orhan Pamuk…
By the way, her parents divorced when she was a child, and Elif Safak remained with her mother. Since her mother was working at Turkish Embassies she spent her teenage years in many foreign countries, before returning to Turkey. She graduated in International Relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She also lived in Massachusetts, United States.
Love is her ninth book and it is about a modern love story between a Jewish-American housewife (living in Boston) and a modern Sufi living in Amsterdam. There is also a historical background that narrates the spiritual bond between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz. It is very interesting novel when you think what is the connection between Ella Rubinstein, a middle-aged housewife and a member of a Jewish family living in Boston in the 2000s, and Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, who lived in Konya in the 1200s….
Love is the best book I read about Mevlana’s life. It also explains forty rules of Shams of Tabriz. Actually, I learnt that Mevlana became Mevlana as he was inspired by Shams of Tabriz. And, Shams of Tabriz has a great effect in his life, his mind and spirituality… She explained in her interviews that she imagined the forty rules, but it is definite that she is inspired by her readings on Sufism. Since Elif Safak has a close interest in Anatolian Sufism, Sufism in Pakistan, India, the US and Europe.
By the way, her parents divorced when she was a child, and Elif Safak remained with her mother. Since her mother was working at Turkish Embassies she spent her teenage years in many foreign countries, before returning to Turkey. She graduated in International Relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She also lived in Massachusetts, United States.
Love is her ninth book and it is about a modern love story between a Jewish-American housewife (living in Boston) and a modern Sufi living in Amsterdam. There is also a historical background that narrates the spiritual bond between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz. It is very interesting novel when you think what is the connection between Ella Rubinstein, a middle-aged housewife and a member of a Jewish family living in Boston in the 2000s, and Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, who lived in Konya in the 1200s….
Love is the best book I read about Mevlana’s life. It also explains forty rules of Shams of Tabriz. Actually, I learnt that Mevlana became Mevlana as he was inspired by Shams of Tabriz. And, Shams of Tabriz has a great effect in his life, his mind and spirituality… She explained in her interviews that she imagined the forty rules, but it is definite that she is inspired by her readings on Sufism. Since Elif Safak has a close interest in Anatolian Sufism, Sufism in Pakistan, India, the US and Europe.
The great Turkish mystic and poet Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi
"Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are." Mevlana
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are." Mevlana
She explains Love’s Shariah (path) in her book…She says that “Love’s Shariah is different from all religions as its Shariah or path consists entirely of God. There is unity in the “Shariah of love,” as Mevlana understood. It rejects discrimination. Yet, in order to attain this unity, one has to transcend the “disillusion of selfhood.” One must stop treating himself/herself as a separate or distinct “self.”
The book is full of life lessons, you should think a lot about the each rule of Shams of Tabriz. I would like to write down one of them- the 40th rule “A life without love is a life lived in vain. Do not ask which love I should run after: divine, metaphorical, worldly, celestial or physical! Distinctions will lead to distinctions.”
The book is full of life lessons, you should think a lot about the each rule of Shams of Tabriz. I would like to write down one of them- the 40th rule “A life without love is a life lived in vain. Do not ask which love I should run after: divine, metaphorical, worldly, celestial or physical! Distinctions will lead to distinctions.”
I suggest this book everyone without distinctions…
I hope the distinctions will become less in our lives…As humankind we can learn to live without distinctions in our unique world…
