Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi [Paperback]

W.M. Thackston Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 1999

     This translation of Rumi's Fihi ma Fihi should easily become the standard English edition of this important collection of his discourses, conversations, and commentaries on various and sundry topics. In many cases the discussions preserved in this book provide the most sustained exposition available of Rumi's thought on a given topic.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Rumi, a great 12th-century Islamic mystic, writer, and saint, should be better known to Westerners not only for the intrinsic value of his work but to counteract popular stereotypes of Islam. This translation of some of Rumi's sayings and conferences reads smoothly, revealing Rumi's profound sense of God's transcendence, unity, and beauty and of the human call to love God, forsake individuality, and grow. Students of Islam and comparative religious mysticism are probably the primary readership for this book, but practicing Muslims and religious seekers of other traditions (especially Jews and Christians) may be inspired by Rumi. Recommended for academic libraries and large public libraries.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Persian

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala (October 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570625328
• ISBN-13: 978-1570625329
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Noble Effort, September 20, 2001

By 

Thomas F. Ogara (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi (Paperback)

Professor Thackston has done admirably with this translation of "Fihi ma fihi." Especially since, in my opinion, this is the hardest of Rumi's works to translate.

In his poetry, Rumi is sublime, and accordingly difficult to translate, but any translator can only do so much with a poem. If you miss some nuances, it's just the tradeoff that the translator of poetry must make. The "Masnavi", on the other hand, is a lengthy work, but it has a coherence that makes the translator's life relatively easy and compels the reader on.

"Fihi ma fihi", however, very often seems to ramble off in a thousand directions. Indeed, sometimes it's hard to escape the feeling that this book was Rumi's attic, all full of jumbled odds and ends, many of them beautiful, but not necessarily in any coherent order. In fact, however, a second reading can reveal that the book is a great deal more than that. If you have been under the impression that Rumi is a sort of Omar Khayyam for the New Age, this book can convince you that just possibly he belongs in company with Shakespeare, Goethe and Pushkin.

This translation is eminently readable and even prods the reader on. Professor Thackston has certainly succeeded in translating Rumi's infallible knack to make us look at the world through different eyes. The one sacrifice was Rumi's elegant rhetoric, which just can't be translated. For that you'll have to learn Farsi. In the meantime, this book is to be enjoyed.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the Dreamer of God's Logic, June 10, 2000

By 

James Swanek (Anaheim, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi (Paperback)

Rumi's discourses are really not so different from his poetry. In each he tries to make the listener (because his style is essentially teacher speaking to apprentice) understand that it is LOGICAL to see how much God loves each person. Because it is more difficult for the rest of us to see what is obvious to those so touched with delight by the intimate presence of God, he uses emotions to convey what to him is the logic. He thus uses poetic language to convey the message, since we find it easier to "understand" an emotive content. Much as Christ spoke in what must have seemed to many impossibly hard-to-understand metaphors, Rumi's discourses do often require an extraordinary "letting go" to sense the logic in his argument. An important work for all the ages.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rumi - The Greatest Poet of the "intoxicated" Sufi School, June 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi (Paperback)

It is the translation of Fihi Ma Fihi, which is full of Rumi's discourses. It sort of dispells all notions of "sufism vs islam" rather sufism is Islamic Mysticism in the truest sense and Rumi explains why the outter conformity to the Sharia (Sacred Law)is very important (i.e. the religous dispensations that are given to mankind through the last of the revalatory Porphet, according to Islam; Prophet Muhammed saws). He himself was a Hanafi (one of the four schools of law within the Orthodox Islam).

The book really clarifies his thoughts and ideas behind the poems. Lot of western readers of his poems tend to use his semantics and syntex to project their own meaning to it rather than discover the deep insights and the Reality he is trying to point toward.

"I am the servant of the Qur'an While I am still alive.

I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen One."

(Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi) http://www.jerrahi.org/writings_english/invitation.htm