The time has come to reveal more of Rumi than the inaccurate portrayal of a new age guru. With careful selections from his work and accompanying commentaries this book will bring readers closer to his poetry’s true, traditional meaning. ‘Everyone has, in their view, become my close friend but they have not sought out the secrets within me.’ — Rumi

The bestselling poet in America today, thirteenth-century Sufi mystic Jalalu'ddin Rumi has inspired and enlightened thousands with his playful, passionate work celebrating the sacred in everyday life. Now the spiritual wealth of Rumi's stories and poetry in translation are accompanied by rare and wonderful art in the Sufi tradition. This fresh rendering brings new life to these incomparable parables, which have transcended time, place, culture, and religion to speak directly to the hearts and souls of contemporary readers. With a foreword by Huston Smith, these selections of the inimitable mystic's prose and poetry have been taken from all of the master's works. Each parable, such as The King and the Handmaiden, The Grocer and the Parrot, The Ugly Old Woman, and The Man Who Was Always Being Swindled, is related as Rumi might have presented it to his fascinated audiences, as he whirled in meditation and trance. But each story also has a spiritual message, a holy essence that applies across all faiths, uttered from the heart of Islam. Each of these messages is provided here in a modern rendering that keeps the flavor of this unique period of history, of culture, and of inspired, passionate beauty.

This new volume of Rumi’s works, the first-ever English translation of his Arabic poems, will be exciting for the newcomer to Rumi’s verses as well as to readers already familiar with his mystical philosophy. The poems take the reader on a journey of spiritual exploration, ecstatic union, cruel rejection, and mystic reconciliation. Rumi reveals his soul and welcomes everyone to his spiritual feast. This dual-language volume opens a treasury of Rumi’s mystic thought and startling poetry. His verses pulsate with desire and longing, with sensuality, and with ecstatic celebration. Rumi found in his mystic poetry a vehicle for the expression of the endless spiritual bounties of love. He placed love at the center of his faith and doctrine, and he pronounced it to be the goal of his life and the only form of true worship. This collection is stunningly rendered in English by an award-winning poet and a distinguished translator of Arabic poetry.

The wisdom of the great Sufi master comes to life in this compendium of 365 Rumi poems and writings for daily contemplation and inspiration My heart wandered through the world constantly seeking after my cure, but the sweet and delicious water of life had to break through the granite of my heart. When the words of Rumi enter your heart, something softens, breaks, and is subtly reborn. That he wrote the words seven hundred years ago in a medieval Persian world that bears little resemblance to ours makes their uncanny resonance to us today just that much more remarkable. Here is a treasury of daily wisdom from this most beloved of all the Sufi masters—both his prose and his ecstatic poetry—that you can use to start every day for a year, or that you can dip into for inspiration any time you need to break through the granite of your heart.

Written from the ninth to the twentieth century, these poems represent the peak of Islamic Mystical writing, from Rabia Basri to Mian Mohammad Baksh. Reflecting both private devotional love and the attempt to attain union with God and become absorbed into the Divine, many poems in this edition are imbued with the symbols and metaphors that develop many of the central ideas of Sufism: the Lover, the Beloved, the Wine, and the Tavern; while others are more personal and echo the poet's battle to leave earthly love behind. These translations capture the passion of the original poetry and are accompanied by an introduction on Sufism and the common themes apparent in the works. This edition also includes suggested further reading.

A representative and wide range of Imam al-Ghazali's aphorisms with accompanying commentaries, presented in a beautiful gift format.

From the premier interpreter of Rumi comes the first definitive one-volume collection of the enduringly popular spiritual poetry by the extraordinary thirteenth-century Sufi mystic.