Rumi: A Spiritual Biography (Lives and Legacies) [Hardcover]

Leslie Wines (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lives and Legacies | Publication Date: January 25, 2001

Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian lawyer-divine and SUfi, widely considered literature's greatest mystical poet...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich in the Christian world, Jalaluddin Rumi was both poet and mystic, and is counted among the greatest Islamic artists in both arenas. His poetry, translated from medieval Persian, has become extremely popular in the United States, and Sufism, the mystical practice that he helped establish, has found a new home among American converts to Islam. Wines's short biography of the great religious poet is straightforward and easily comprehensible, showing clearly her own background in journalism. The bare outlines of Rumi's lifeAhis family's flight from Afghanistan to modern Turkey during the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, his early educational achievements, and the meeting with the eccentric Shams al-Din al-Tabriz that catapulted him into love and mysticismAare presented here with a sprinkling of the poetry for which Rumi is famous. Wines's book offers no new or startling knowledge about Rumi, as she has relied on secondary sources by well-known scholars for her information; therefore it is not particularly interesting to anyone who already knows the general facts of his life. For those who have come to Rumi through his poetry and are only secondarily discovering the man, however, her accessible biography, with its list of further recommended reading, is a fine resource. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This book is one of many now appearing to meet the growing interest in Sufism and the Islamic poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi. Journalist Wines (UPI, Glamour magazine) takes the reader through Rumi's itinerant childhood and his wanderings throughout the Middle East before settling in Konya (in modern Turkey), where he encountered the legendary dervish Shams. Assuming a significant amount of fact behind the legend, the author explains the evolving pupil/mentor relationship between Rumi and Shams, whose preoccupation with one another led to the exclusion and fury of Rumi's own disciples. Shams transformed Rumi from "a great intellectual into a great mystic," yet his sudden departure from Konya, the uncertainty surrounding his murder, and the spiritual impact he had on Rumi led to a soul-searching that culminated in the Mathnawi, the sacred text for which the poet is renowned. Wines has written an adequate account of Rumi's relationship to the controversial nature of Sufism in medieval Islamic society as well as to the poet's own contemporaries. Recommended for Sufi collections and for public libraries catering to an increased demand for material on this subject.DLoren Rosson III, Nashua P.L., NH
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Crossroad 8th Avenue; First Edition edition (January 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824523520
• ISBN-13: 978-0824523527
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,310,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rumi comes to life, February 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Rumi: A Spiritual Biography (Lives and Legacies) (Hardcover)

As the critic Edwin Muir noted in 1926 of Lytton Strachey, Strachey (whose works became the touchstones for modern biography) did 2 things for biography: he humanized it by irony, he gave it form. He went out in search not of great figures and noble character, but of human nature, and he always found. So too does author Leslie Wines in Rumi: A Spiritual Biography.

Wines's biography of Rumi is rich with good storytelling and marvelous irony and, like Strachey, with just a little touch of sardonic wit. How else to approach the incredible legends and hagiographers of Rumi? But her approach is never disrespectful or irreverent. While critical of the hagiographic trend of Rumi's contemporaries, as well as most future historians, Wines does not simply and tediously recount these legends but, while wading through such ushers in a fresh and bold imagining of this great poet with a critical contemporary eye. Ultimately Rumi comes to life on the pages of this short literary biography like he never has before.

Wines humanizes Rumi. In short, Wines shows how Rumi's work responds to an increasing need many of us have for an instinctive and mystical response to life, and for a more joyful daily exiistence. She shows us how Rumi's very broad appeal--even to those who are not particularly interested in spiritual writings or even poetry--derives from his very genuine cosmopolitan nature and character. Like Rumi's own work there is little sentimentality for its own sake in the author's examination of her subject, which very convincinly sheds light on Rumi's contemporary relevance and dazzling creative appeal and our mystic identification with this great humanist. And she shows us how Rumi's meditations on love and the chaotic nature of poetry and life, along with the extraordinary social, cutural and politically tumultuous times (not unlike our own)of his life resonate with the modern reader and transcend medieval times to our own present day.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mad for Rumi, February 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Rumi: A Spiritual Biography (Lives and Legacies) (Hardcover)

One of the author's chapter's titles is "Mad for Music", another "The Most Digressive Story Ever Told" (this second one is a concentration on his literary work)and is reflective of the author's touch of "sly whimsy" as one other reviewer said. The writing is very good and I like what amounts to the combination of a somewhat of a journalistic style with great storytelling. The author was obviously enchanted with her subject,b ut unlike many other writers on Rumi, does not take herself or Rumi for that matter TOO seriously. What do I mean by that? It would seem to me that she approaches Rumi in just the way he himself would want to be appraoched, in fact asked to be, and would have approached his own self.

Leslie Wines captures Rumi with a vibrancy and immediacey I've yet to see. I am a great admirer of the Penguin Lives series. A large part of the tremendous success of Penguin Lives is its nack for hitching up just the right author and subject; absolute compatibility, simpatico between subject and writer. So too with this series with Leslie Wines and Rumi.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a capable overview...., February 20, 2001

By 

Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLO... (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rumi: A Spiritual Biography (Lives and Legacies) (Hardcover)

...of the life and times of the great Persian poet-mystic.

So why am I giving this a 3?

1. The paper on which the book is printed is cheap crap. Obviously this isn't the author's fault, but it might affect whether you want to purchase it.

2. The events described in the book constitute a biography but don't emphasize what we know of Rumi's interiority, spirituality, creativity, or mysticism, so I wasn't clear on why the title refers to a "spiritual biography."

3. Some of the grammatical errors surprised me, particularly the ongoing misuse of commas. Because the author is advertised as a seasoned journalist, perhaps the editor tweaked her writing. Unfortunate.

4. I rapidly grew tired of the continual references to a mistrust of obviously legendary accounts of Rumi's life. I don't need to be told, for example, that a famous miracle attributed to Rumi is "questionable." As a reader, I can be trusted to decide this for myself.

Despite these shortcomings, I found the book readable and informative. I recommend it as a useful intro to the life of Rumi.