MYSTICAL POEMS OF RUMI (I-II) (Selections from Diwan i Shams by Jalal al-Din Rumi)

MYSTICAL POEMS OF RUMI (I-II) (Selections from Diwan i Shams by Jalal al-Din Rumi) A. J. Arberry Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) has long been recognized as the greatest mystical poet of Islam, and it can well be argued that he is the supreme mystical poet of all mankind. Divan-i Shams by Rumi is a masterpiece of wisdom and eloquence expressing spiritual wisdom of the highest level through the use of mundane images. *5* He invites and deserves the most attentive and intensive study, by a succession of devoted scholars, whose combined explorations will vastly improve upon our first halting attempt. Future generations, as his poetry becomes wider known and more perfectly understood, will enjoy and applaud with increasing insight and enthusiasm the poems of this wisest, most penetrating, and saintliest of men. – A. J. Arberry *** “An excellent introduction to Rumi, the greatest mystical poet of Islam…. Rumis scope, like that of all great poets, is universal-reaching from sensuous luxuriance to the driest irony.” — Sherman Goldman, East- West Journal *** “[Rumi is] one of the world’s greatest lyrical poets in any language- as well as probably the most accessible and approachable representative of Islamic civilization for Western students.” – James W. Morris