The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Suny Series, Islamic Spirituality)

Rating:
Summary: Reviving a dead phenomena
Review: I appreciate the author's attempt to revive a phenomena which has been dead for a few centuries now. The fact is that suffism never had a useful role in the everyday life of moslems and with all their claims of greatness they could not foresee the collapse of Islamic world, and with it of course the collapse of suffism. We appreciate "romantic" writings of sufis but it would have been more useful if they had engaged in some sort of reform movements in order to possibly prevent the fall of Islamic world. Sufis never bothered with more relevant and practical aspect of human life, they never advanced any political theory to help Islamic world rid of itself from tyrany of authoritarian rulers and indeed it seems as if they approve of such a system and political structure. At anyrate, suffism as we know it, rose to its peak, like Islamic civilization itself, and then declined and died away. Suffism today is a name without a reality, just as Islam is a name without a reality, or if it has a reality it is a confused and confusing reality. It would be interesting to see if authors like Mr. Chittic will be able to breath life into a dead phenomena by romanticizing it.

Rating:
Summary: Rumi, a great master
Review: This is a good book on explaining some of the poems of the great mystic Rumi. I somewhat disagree with the authors choice of title. many great sufis refrained calling themselves sufi, after the movement became popularized and took a different color. Sufi orders sprung up like mushroom and every group claimed to follow a great mystic figure, like Rumi. one often wonders if Rumi and his like would have approved of notions like "Sufi order" which seems like "feudaliztion" of the movement. Many great mystics avoided " orderization" of their path. Their "order" was simply Islam and the path to realization was sharia itself. To many, becoming a sufi is nothing more than repeating certain names of God about a zillion times and whirling around till one gets dizzy or as one of my modern day sufi friend puts it " one becomes natural high". And that dizziness or " natural high" is interpreted as " self disclosure" of God. It doesn't take much to " unveil" God, does it?

Rating:
Summary: Book of Intoxication and ecstacy
Review: To be very precise this book is full of intoxication and ecstacy of GOD