Book Review: The Forty Rules of Love
A soul provoking journey of love and spirituality
Book Introduction
The forty rules of love is a very soul-captivating story. This story has two perspectives, one revolves around Ella’s life, where she lost all her emotions of love and life, and how a book sent to her to read and review as a job obligation by the agency she was working in, changed her life. The other perspective is about the book “Sweet Blasphemy” written on the spiritual relationship between Shams of Tabraiz and Rumi. As the story goes on, Ella’s great interest in the book compelled her to seek answers from Aziz Zahara author of “Sweet Blasphemy”, about the philosophical queries she had in her mind about the forty rules of love given by the Shams Tabraiz. With time she felt a change in her life with the presence of Aziz Zahara as Rumi’s life was changed by Shams’ presence.
Book Review
Ella Rubenstein is a forty-year-old housewife, mother of three children, her husband cheats on her. She was unable to give a reason to the thought that, why she is given all these misgivings, and that thought was drowning her in shallow waters of hopelessness. She has started losing all her emotions of love and life and used to keep herself busy with the household chores to avoid thinking about all these problems. But her mind kept drowning in the hopelessness she was trying to avoid. To counter this, she started working in an agency. One day she received a packet at her house. When she opened that packet there was a book in it sent by her agency to read and review. That book was “Sweet Blasphemy”. That book was written on the spiritual journey that took place between Rumi and his beloved companion Shams’. While reading this manuscript she felt herself being rescued from the darkness she was drowned in as well as her conversation with the author of this book Aziz Zahara solved her mysteries regarding life and love.
“Love exists within each of us from the moment we are born
and waits to be discovered from then on”.
The second perspective is about a mystic and wandering dervish of 13th century Shams of Tabraiz. He was given a gift of visions by which he can see the future. There he saw his death which make him worried about the knowledge he has with him, and he told everything to his Head Mystic, who asked him to start his journey towards Baghdad where he will find a person with an unsettled soul waiting for him for his enlightenment. Following the instructions, he started his journey, and then he found Rumi. In his mission of enlightening Rumi’s soul, they both were severely criticized because of their actions by the people even by Rumi’s family, especially when Rumi was sent to the tavern to sit some time with drunken and bring two bottles of wine. Here, shams wanted to teach him that spiritual growth is not about what people think about you, but about the oneness of consciousness. Ignoring all these difficulties he successfully showed Rumi the path of love and light. Following this very path, Rumi then became the world’s finest and most soulful poet.
“Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden.
I will meet you there”.
This novel is written by one of the most famous writers Elif Shafak. Through this story, she gave us a message that it is very difficult to be on the path of love and light even in these times like it was in the time of Rumi and Shams. We are living in a society, where everyone is fighting with each other about their religious beliefs, culture, creed, and color. You need to love humans despite their flaws and keep helping others to walk on the right path of love and light because many Rumi’s are still waiting for their shams to come and enlighten their souls. There is a great lesson for the people who are suffering from life, please don’t let the darkness overcome you, because your Shams is on his way and will reach you soon.
