New book on Rumi thought on shelves

ISTANBUL

“Love is All,” Professor Talat Halman’s new book on Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes, has recently been published by Bilkent Kültür Girişimi (Bilkent Cultural Initiative).

The book contains discussion of Rumi’s mysticism and humanitarian ideals, his biography, selections from his magnum opus “Mesnevi” (the 26,000 couplet masterpiece of Sufi poetry), his “Divan” (collection of love poems), and “Rubaiyyat” (quatrains), translated into English. The book is also luxuriously illustrated, with reproductions of miniature paintings, frontispieces and other visuals from the Mevlevi tradition - many depicting scenes of the Mevlevi whirling ceremony - reproduced in their original color. It also includes a number of photographs by the celebrated photographer Ara Guler.

The majority of the poems in the book were translated into English in meter rhyme by Talat Halman, while others were translated by renowned translators such as Reynold Nicholson and A. J. Arberry.