Magnificent One

Why do more people each year find in Rumi a powerful antidote to the spiritually suffocating conditions of modern life? Perhaps because, as Kabir Helminski observes, his spirituality expresses "the recognition of the Beloved or Friend in human form, not as the worship of personality, but as a recognition of the spiritual gifts the One continually bestows on His creatures. For Rumi...friendship and love are essential values."Cultivating such inspiring friendship between souls is at the heart of this selection from Dr. Nevit Ergin's pioneering translation of Rumi's great Divan-i Kebir. As Shems of Tebriz did for Rumi himself, these verses invite the magnificent one in us to awaken through love to the presence of the Magnificent One itself.This book also introduces a major literary and cultural event. Prior to Dr. Ergin's work, less than 10 percent of the Divan-i Kebir existed in English. (In all, the Divan includes up to 44,000 verses arranged in 21 distinct forms called "meters.") In preparation for the first-ever complete English translation of the Divan, Magnificent One acquaints readers with Dr. Ergin's ongoing labor of love by sampling themes from the six meters he has translated so far.