Rumi: A Philosophical Study

Description

Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Husayn Balkhi, known as Rumi, is one of the greatest of the Sufi poets of Islam. He is perhaps unparalleled in the annals of world literature in expounding the inmost secrets and mysteries relating to man, the cosmos and the Divinity. Although Rumi has been studied, especially through his Mathnawi, as a great Sufi and gnostic (arif), seldom has he been viewed as a sage-philosopher. In the present book he has been studied from both vantage points, bringing to light the complementarity of the gnostic and philosophical aspects of Rumi’s thought.

Gholamreza Aavani is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. He is head of the Iranian Philosophical Society and the International Society of Islamic Philosophy (ISIP), and is a Member of the Steering Committee of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP). For one semester of each of the last three years he has served as the Kenan Rifai Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at Beijing University, China. He was head of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy from 1984 to 2011.