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An exceptional contribution to the understanding of a key figure in Islamic mysticism, this book offers a 20th century commentary—by the eminent Sufi and spiritual guide Kenan Rifai—on Jalal ad-Din Rumi’s 13th-century Spiritual Couplets, or Masnavi. Symbolically connecting the long poem to Qur’anic passages, hadiths, and other poems by Sufi masters, this enlightening reference answers the most tortuous of problems and guides one to comprehend the meaning of life. A rigorous translation of Rumi’s original work is also included.

Kenan Rifai was the director for Provincial Directorates of National Education in various Ottoman cities and a high school principal. Due to the tutelage of the great sheikh Hamza Rifai, he became a teacher of Islamic mysticism and Sufism at Altay Lodge. Victoria Holbrook is a distinguished scholar specializing in Ottoman studies and the author of The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romance. She lives in Istanbul.