The Forty Rules of Love is a novel by Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, born on October 25, 1971 in Strasbourg, eastern France. She writes in Turkish and English, and her works have been translated into more than thirty languages. The author uses her first name and her mother's name as a pen name to sign her works. Shafak holds a BA in Political Science from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey, as well as a MA in Gender and Feminist Studies and a PhD in Political Science from the same university. She received an award from the Institute of Sociologists for her master's thesis on Islam, women, and Sufism. She is best known for writing the novel The Forty Rules of Love in 2010. [1]
About the novel The Forty Rules of Love
Definition of the novel The Forty Rules of Love What awards has the novel The Forty Rules of Love won? The novel The Forty Rules of Love was first published in 2009 by Viking Publishing and Distribution, and has 500 pages. The novel has been translated into many languages around the world. The novel was nominated for the Dublin International Literary Award in 2011, and has won many awards, such as the Muhammad Hassan Al-Askari Award for Literary Translation in 2017. [2]
Characters of the novel The Forty Rules of Love Who is Ella Rubinstein whose life changed with Shams Tabriz? Ella Rubinstein: A forty-year-old American woman, married to an unfaithful man, with whom she has three children, works as a housewife but is unhappy in her life, but finds work as a reader in a literary agency, and her life changes after that. [3] Aziz Zahara: An unknown writer and novelist, originally from the Netherlands, converted to Islam and Sufism and immigrated to Turkey to live there, and he is the author of the novel Sweet Blasphemy. [3] Shams Tabriz: One of the great dervishes and Sufis in the thirteenth century AD, he is a wandering dervish, who works to call for Sufism and incite against social and religious prejudices and traditional wisdom. [3] Jalal ad-Din Rumi: A famous sheikh, religious scholar and imam, but despite that, he was not happy and was not satisfied with his life, and he is the person that Shams Tabriz is looking for. [3]
The content of the novel The Forty Rules of Love How did Ella Rubinstein meet Shams Tabrizi and was influenced by him? The life of Ella Rubinstein The events of the novel proceed in two timelines as if they were two novels in one novel, as the events of the novel begin by talking about the life of Ella Rubinstein at the beginning of the twenty-first century, specifically in the year 2008 AD [4]. Despite the stability of her life in her home with her husband and children in it, her husband is not faithful to her, and she lives dissatisfied with her life, living without motivation and without passion, and no reason for happiness in her life, she begins to search for a job that will get her out of her state that makes her gloomy and miserable, so she finds work as a reader and critic in a literary agency, where she reads and reviews the novels or books assigned to her, and it was her good fortune that the first work assigned to her was the novel Sweet Blasphemy by an unknown Turkish novelist named Aziz Zahara. [5]
Sweet Blasphemy Ella is delighted with the first work assigned to her and begins reading the novel Sweet Blasphemy, which takes place in the thirteenth century AD. It begins with the famous Sufi imam and dervish Shams al-Din Tabrizi, who sees in his dreams a vision that he will die, and begins a long search for Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, who was then living in Konya. He is a great religious scholar and famous preacher, people flock to hear him from everywhere, but he is also dissatisfied with his life because he has lost his love and Sufi values. For this reason, Tabrizi was searching for him to take him out of his situation and into the world of Sufism and love, and to rediscover religion in a new style and with new ideas different from traditional beliefs. [6]
Ella Rubinstein and Aziz Zahara While reading the novel Sweet Blasphemy, Ella began corresponding with its obscure author, Aziz Zahara, via email after a long search for him. She introduced herself to him with some small information about the details of her life. After a period of time, a friendship develops between them, and they correspond several times a day, until that friendship turns into a deep love affair and romantic feelings surface. Ella is amazed by the frankness that characterizes Aziz in his ideas about love and living in the present, and she begins to dream of the meeting that will bring them together, just as Jalal al-Din al-Rumi once met Shams al-Din al-Tabrizi. [5]
The meeting of Tabrizi and Jalaluddin Rumi Shams al-Din finally arrived and met Jalaluddin Rumi and began to change his life. Rumi transformed from an imam and preacher who preached to people to a great mystic and poet who called for divine love. However, he isolated himself from people and stuck to Shams al-Tabrizi, which aroused the resentment of his family against Tabrizi, especially his son Ala al-Din, who did not like his father’s transformation from being an imam around whom people gathered to a Sufi poet, so he decided to kill Tabrizi. Despite Tabrizi’s warnings that his killing would harm Rumi, Ala al-Din did not pay attention. In the end, Rumi found Tabrizi’s body in the well, and he was greatly affected and saddened by him. This incident continued to occupy him, his poetry, and his life. [5]
Ella and Aziz's meeting Ella told her husband that she would meet Aziz, then decided to travel with him to Holland, but he told her that he had cancer and had a year and four months to leave for the other world, so Ella could not wait and after a few days she packed her bags and left for Aziz, and within a year she and Aziz traveled around the world and explored many things before arriving in Konya, the place where Jalaluddin Rumi met Shamsuddin Tabrizi, and after a short while Aziz Zahara dies, and Ella takes care of his funeral where she buries him, and decides to live in his way of Sufism, and travels to Holland to start her new life from there. [5]
Evaluation of the novel The Forty Rules of Love Who is the love that the novel The Forty Rules of Love calls for? The novel The Forty Rules of Love received great appreciation and great acclaim and entered the hearts of most readers. The novel was one of the best-selling books ever in Turkey, and it was often described as being able to change people's lives positively due to the topics it addresses without hesitation. The subject of the novel is the call to love as a great religion, and it revolves around spiritualities that are not limited to a specific religion or people, and calls for absolute tolerance, sincerity, and divine love in addition to love in everything until the last breath, but some people criticize it because some of its events are not historically confirmed, such as the killing of Shams Tabrizi in that way. [2]
Quotes from the novel The Forty Rules of Love The novel contains - in addition to the main story - forty rules of Shams Tabrizi, which provide insight into the ancient philosophy that was based on the unification of people and religions, and the existence of love within each one of us. Among these rules are: [7]
The way we see God is a reflection of the way we see ourselves. If God brings nothing but fear and blame to our minds, then there is a great deal of fear and blame flowing through our souls. But if we see God as full of love and mercy, then we are like that.
The path to truth passes through the heart, not the head. So make your heart, not your mind, your main guide. Confront, challenge and ultimately overcome the self with your heart. Knowing yourself will lead you to knowing God.
Every reader of the Holy Quran understands it at a different level according to the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insight: the first level is the external meaning, which is the meaning that most people are convinced of. Then comes the inner level. At the third level comes the innermost self. As for the fourth level, it is the depth, and it cannot be expressed in words, so it is difficult to describe.
You can study God through everything and everyone in this universe; because God is not confined to a mosque, a church, or a synagogue. If you still want to know where exactly His throne is, there is only one place you can look for Him, and that is in the heart of a true lover. No one has ever lived after seeing Him, and no one has ever died after seeing Him. Whoever finds Him will remain with Him forever.
Source: Sutour
