In the praise of The Forty Rules of Love

An amalgam of both fiction and non-fiction, a novel in a novel, masterly woven into a gem book
by a Turkish writer, Elif Shafak, the writer of many other masterpieces like The Gaze, The
Bastard of Istanbul, Honor, The Flea Palace, Three Daughters of Eve, The Saint of Incipient
Insanities, and The Architect’s Apprentice, The Forty Rules of Love is a stunningly-written,
decently-plotted, and dexterously-tapestried biographical novel about Mawlana Jalal-u-din
Rumi and Shams of Tabrez. Centered on Shams’ forty rules of love, this novel is a purely mystic
magnum opus by Elif Shafak.
With everything in her life, a rich, handsome husband, three children, except one thing __ love,
Ella is an American housewife, who has been asked to write a report on a novel ‘Sweet
Blasphemy’, given to her by a literary agency she works in. She doesn’t know anything about
the novel except that it’s a biography of a eastern mystic poet Jalal-u-din Rumi. Once she starts
it, her life is turned topsy-turvy.
In one corner of the universe, blessed with every luxury, thousands of disciples, a beautiful
family, fame, and above all enviable life, Rumi is a scholar. Yet is there an emptiness __ of love
__ he says, in his life. And he dreams of a dream in which he finds himself in a big city, with a
great hustle and bustle, searching for a person here and there. Whereas In the other corner,
blessed by the vast knowledge of everything is a wandering dervish, who names himself Shams
of Tebrez, waiting for a companion, a true one, whose promise God has made to him, he would
be given when he prayed for one.
Destined to meet each other by the God and bound to embark together on a journey of love,
Rumi and Shams are apart, each awaiting to discover who his companion is, the heart of each
beating out-of-normal, every beat restless.
Ella, as she reads Rumi and Shams, falls in love with the author of the novel she is reading, Aziz,
whom her contact starts from emails, reaching to their romantic meetings. Her life is changing,
the lack of the only thing in her life __ love __ vanishing.
The presence of the beloved in the form of Shams’ entrance into and then the absence of the
beloved in the form of Shams’ going out of Rumi’s life __ that’s how a Rumi is formed __ turns
him into a great mystic poet whom the world is to remember till its annihilation.
Orbiting around the world of love, this novel is a must-read diamond, worthy of noticing its
every speck in depths. Soon after you finish it reading, you will no more be the same ‘you’. It
will transform you into ‘the-you-minus-I’.
Abundant love to Elif Shafak and her The Forty Rules of Love, owing to which I am no more
the same!
__Adrees Ahmed