British Society for Middle Eastern Studies

Rumi: Past and Present East and West-The Life Teachings and Poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi by Franklin D. Lewis Review by: Nile Green British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Nov., 2005), pp. 287-289 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30037713 . Accessed: 24/08/2013 21:24
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REVIEWS:LANGUAGEAND CULTURE

WHEELER M. THACKSTON.

TO SYRIAC. IBEX Publishers, INTRODUCTION Bethesda, 1999,ISBN 936347-98-8. Maryland,

Syriac, which is one of the daughtersof the Aramaic 'sub-family' has always been associated with the ChristianChurch and is, therefore,considered one of the most importantSemitic languages in which mainly liturgical and historical books have been composed. Hence, students of divinity, theology and religious studies as well as Semitic philology and other related areas considerably benefit from their reading ability of texts writtenin this language. Thackston's book is not the first Syriac text-book in English. It had been preceded by a number of similar works, such as B. Davidson, Syriac Reading Lessons (No date); T.H. Robinson,Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (1915) andT. Muraoka,Classical Syriacfor Hebraists(1987). Yet its contribution is, generally speaking,in its methodology. The book includes a preface which provides a bird's eye view of the history of the languageandliterature, followed by an introduction to the phoneticsystem and of and with a chart the Semitic consonants.The orthography ending comparative lessons devoted to the are following twenty Syriac morphologicalsystem. Each unit consists of a discussion of a topic or topics in grammar,clearly set and illustrated,followed by a vocabularyand exercises. There are three appendixes which include verbal inflections, states of the noun and verbs with enclictic objects. The second part includes twelve excerpts taken from the Peshitta and various historical works. Syriac - English vocabulary and an Index of the grammaticalterms discussed conclude the book. Althoughthe book is undoubtedlya good text-bookfor beginnersit suffersfrom a numberof serious shortcomings:a. The book does not offer any discussion of syntax and word order. b. Syriac vocalization is not used at all. c. There is no English - Syriac vocabulary.d. It does not provide answersto all exercises, only to the preliminarydrills. The importanceof these points cannot be over-emphasized,since the beginner student does not have sufficient knowledge of the language and lacks the sensitivity that would enable them to draw the right conclusions concerning sentence structure or to check whether their answers are correct. Also, the transliteration providedin all the lessons may be helpful,but it shouldnot come at the expense of the Syriac vocalization system. Moreover,I am not convinced that the tables in the Appendixes should only appearin transliteration. The addendaandcorrigendasuggestedfor futureeditionswill no doubtimprove the book, which should stronglybe recommendedafter their inclusion. RETIREDFROMLEEDS UNIVERSITY AVIHAI SHIVTIEL

EASTANDWEST- THELIFE PASTANDPRESENT FRANKLIN D. LEWIS.RUMI: TEACHINGSAND POETRY OF JALAL AL-DIN RUMI. Oxford, Oneworld Publications, 2000, ISBN 1851682147 (Hardcover). In a recent issue of the London based Persian satirical magazine, Asghar Agha, an Iranianexile playfully reworkedthe famous opening lines of the Masnavi of 287

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REVIEWS:LANGUAGEAND CULTURE

Jalal al-din Rumi to demand readers forget flutes and listen to him if they wished to hear of the sorrows of exile and the woes of those uprooted from their cultural riverbeds. While Iranians continue to enjoy and reassess their literary heritage in such ways, new generations of Europeans and Americans purchase books introducing them to a 'mystic' Rumi devoid of any specific heritage at all. Rumi: Past and Present, East and West aims in part to redress the balance in the modem publishing phenomenon that is Maulana Rumi by providing a weighty but readable account of Rumi as Muslim, poet and mystic and the ways in which his poetic and other legacies have been received, both in Islamic world and in the West. As Lewis readily confesses in the introduction to his voluminous study, this is really several books in one. Divided into five parts, the volume comprises the biographiesof Rumi and his family: an account of Rumi's successors; discussion of the texts and their teachings; a history of the Mevlevis and other Muslim followers of Rumi; and a survey of the rise of Rumi in the West. Lewis begins his study with a solid and helpful positioning of Rumi in his intellectual, religious and political context, before moving on to sift throughthe considerable body of hagiographicaland other sources on Rumi's circle in an attemptto reachthe historicalmanbehindthe poetry.An earlychapterre-examines the biography of Rumi's father, Baha al-din Valad, carefully balancing hagiographicalclaims to the fame of this provincialscholar from Vakhsh (rather than the more commonly believed Balkh) against the evidence of biographical dictionariesfrom the period. While drawing on the earlier work of Fritz Meier, Lewis carefullyreconstructs a chronologyof the family's travelsthatquestionsthe traditional accountof Rumi's family fleeing beforethe Mongol invasions.Properly positioned as his father'sson, Rumi himself takes shapein the following chapters. While makingjudicioususe of the fruitsof modem Iranian andTurkishscholarship on Rumi andhis circle, Lewis also drawsextensively on the large body of primary evidence on Rumi's life, includinghis often neglected collection of letters and the Maqalat of Shams-e-Tabrizi.What emerges is a more humanistic and three dimensionalaccountof Rumithanhas oftenbeen the case in earlierworkstendingto emphasizethe enraptured mystic over otheraspectsof whatwas clearly a complex, multi-layered and indeed developing personality. By comparing the different sources on Rumi's life, Lewis sets out to redresslong-standingmisconceptionsthat have emerged from others' less critical reliance on single sources, providing convincing evidence againstthe rumour(or better,legend) of Shams's murderas told by Aflaki andthence Jamiandhis modem heirs.Lewis's accountof the life of Shams himself, drawing on Muhammad'Ali Movahhed's edition and study of Shams'sMaqalat,is in itself a valuablecontribution to scholarship, bringingShams out from the shadows cast by the effulgence of Rumi's devotion to emerge as an interestingreligious thinkerin his own right. Lewis furtherpresents (and agrees with) Movahhed's evidence that Shams died and was buried in Khuy in western Iran.These accountsarefull of the kind of fascinatingdetails thatsummonthe past to life, such as the cost of Shams's weekly rentin Aleppo in 1246. Lewis's account of Rumi's heirs and their successors is a similarly careful blending of original researchandthe fruitsof others'scholarship.Forthe most part,whatemerges from the author'sconsiderablelaboursis convincing, thoughhis determination to draw history out of hagiography can at times appear overly optimistic. As Lewis himself notes, Bahram Behizad has recently questioned the authenticityof the 288

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REVIEWS:LANGUAGEAND CULTURE

'early' account of Rumi's life by Faridun Sepahsalar that furnishes a considerablepart of his evidence. Such are the perennial dangers of making men out of saints. Specialists on Persian literaturemay find Lewis's briefer critical accounts of Rumi's poetry less interesting, though there are still moments of great insight. Given debates over the compositionalhistory of Rumi's poems, some discussion of the theoryproposedby JulianBaldick of Rumi as more literarycraftsmanthan rhapsodicbardmay have helped settle an importantquestion.For his part,Lewis makes his opinion clear that the sheer volume of Rumi's output is proof of the natureof the Masnavi's composition,thoughgiven the compositional spontaneous of fluency many pre-modernpoets this may strike some as quaint. After an from Rumi,the authortracesthe anthologycontainingfifty of Lewis's translations influenceof Rumi in later Muslim traditionthat rangesbetween Yunus Emre and 'Abd al-KarimSorush.The absence of the nineteenthcenturyIraniansufi Safi Ali Shah (d. 1899) is perhaps a surprisingomission here. His selective account of Rumi's tremendousinfluence is, however, generally a well-judged and helpful positioning of a poet within his own legacy. Lewis's discussion of the commentarial traditionon the Masnavi similarlyhelps assess the often overlooked afterlifeandreceptionof classical texts throughto the changinginformationorder of nineteenthcenturyprintingand the subsequentemergence of nationalisticand otherpolitical claims to the poet. In later sections, Lewis presentsreaderswith an uncommonlyengagingaccountof Rumi scholarshipin both Europeanandoriental languages. Once again, his descriptions of the work of Iranian and Turkish researchersis to be applaudedin performinga valuable scholarly service. Western Rumi 'translators'and other enthusiasts Later sections on modemrn seems unnecessarilycomprehensive.Among fifty-one pages of discussionof such some readersmay find the accountsof recentrenderingsof Rumi into translations, GreekandCzech less thancompelling.In the absenceof a criticaldiscussionof the of Rumi into 'orientalmystic' and then capitalist meanings of the transformation venture,both this and the ensuing twenty-seven page section on the multimedia Rumi at times falls into the danger of becoming a list of Rumi merchandise. However, such questionablesections (and editorialdecisions) aside, this remains an indispensable work of innovative and careful scholarship that is able to maintaina laudable lightness of touch over some six hundredand eighty pages. Rumi:Past and Present, East and Westdeserves a place on the shelves of anyone interestedseriously in Islam or Iran. LADY MARGARETHALL, OXFORD NILE GREEN

ABU 'UTHMAN'AMR IBN BAHR AL- JAHIZ.Translatedfrom the Arabic by JIM AND THEAVARICIOUS AVARICE COLVILLE. London, AL-BUKHALA'). (KITAB The Kegan Paul ArabiaLibrary,1999, ISBN 0710306458 (Hardcover).

Having read the original book in Arabic, Colville's translationis a readableand an accurate work of Abu Uthman al-Jahiz Avarice and the Avaricious. Many Arabliteraticonsider al- Jahiz as masterof the Arabic language and also famous 289

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