Mixing contemporary with historical

This novel is the quest infused with mystic love which isboth enthralling and enlightening. The novel speaks volumes about love,spirituality, religion and how to transform our lives and fill it with love.The Forty Rules of Love is a literary fiction enriched at the same time bothwith the contemporary fiction [the lives of Ella Rubenstein, her husband David,their three children and Aziz Zahara] and the historical fiction [Mawlana Rumiand Shams of Tabriz as protagonists]. It’s a novel within a novel. Throughoutthe novel Shafak has used a very lucid language. What really makes this novelmore interesting is that every single chapter starts with the letter “B” thathas a meaning of its own for the Sufis taking Ella and us into an exotic worldwhere faith and love are heartbreakingly explored.

Ella Rubenstein is a forty year housewife with threechildren, a cheating husband and with endless domestic responsibilities. Shelives a monotonous unhappy life but of which she is complacent. The plotunfolds when she gets a job for a literary agency based in Boston and has toprepare an extensive report on a novel titled ‘Sweet Blasphemy’ written by anunknown European author A. Z. Zahara. It is a historical, mystical novel on theremarkable bond between Jalal ad-Din Rumi, and Shams of Tabriz, unconventionaldervish full of scandals and surprises.

   

Ella gets fascinated by the character of Shams of Tabriz,his search for Rumi and the dervish’s role in transforming a famous mainstreamcleric to a committed mystic, passionate poet, an advocate of love and togethertheir timeless message of love for all cultures and ages. She is mesmerized bythe Forty rules of love which Shams from time to time elaborates to thedifferent people he meets. By virtue of his having visions about future, Shamsforesees his own death. He turns restless and wanders in search of a soul whois at par with him and someone as soulful as he is, to share the endless wisdomGod has bestowed upon him. He travels all the way to Konya, and Baghdad to findRumi, a scholar cum cleric with unsettled soul. On the way of impartingknowledge to Rumi, Shams faces a lot of challenge, and hatred from the societyand particularly from Rumi’s family. Rumi also undergoes trials andtribulations on the way of becoming the greatest of sought-after Sufi and apoet of all times. Shams sacrifices his life for the love of Rumi, and getskilled by those who were not happy with this mystical union.

Ella decides to look for her lessons from Shams of Tabriz’sForty Rules of Love and tries to apply them to his own world. She feels herselfcompletely changed as she reads on. She starts conversations with the author ofthe novel Aziz Zahara and feels that the author has come to change her life theway Shams came to change the life of Rumi. She realizes that Rumi’s storymirrors her own and that Aziz Zahara like Shams has come to set her free of allthe societal bondages. She finds her lost love and hope in Aziz Zahara. Sheleaves everything behind to meet him at Boston. To her amazement she finds himequally in love with her and she decides to live with him till his last breath.

As a staunch feminist and a social activist, c not onlytakes us to the journey about the lives of Shams of Tabriz and Mawlana Rumi butto the 13th century society and the various problems people faced. Elif Shafakguides us to the various perspectives of the people around like Hasan theBeggar, Suleiman the drunk, the zealot, and Baybers the Warrior. Her femalecharacters are the most strong and determined of all like Desert Rose theHarlot, Kimya and Kerra. The extraordinary tale of Desert Rose, a broken,brutalized prostitute but a profound courageous woman who retains her humanitydespite a world bent on crushing her at every turn. Elif Shafak takes apiercing, unflinching look at the trauma women’s minds and bodies are subjectedto in a social system determined by patriarchal codes. Surely we can say thatin the lines of Zarbakht Bilal “The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerizing blendof love,religion and spirituality”

Musaib Rasool is Masters in Political Science from University of Kashmir.

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