Reviews for Salman Rushdie's Postcolonial Metaphors: Migration, Translation, Hybridity, Blasphemy, and Globalization, Vol. 109

The average rating for Salman Rushdie's Postcolonial Metaphors: Migration, Translation, Hybridity, Blasphemy, and Globalization, Vol. 109 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-04-04 00:00:00 Lori Batton I couldn't put down this collection of essays on Rumi and His Sufi Path of Love and finished it in one fell swoop on a flight from Istanbul to New York. A small bookseller who set up shop at the Second Court of Topkapi Palace sold it to me. This is the magnificent resident of the Ottoman Empire Sultans. What an extraordinarily delightful place to find such a text! This slim text is readily available to U.S readers and should enchant lovers of Rumi and Sufism. A recent compilation, published this year and edited by M. Fatih Citlak and Huseyin Bingul, it is by far the best expository book about Sufism and Rumi that I have ever read. And I have read many. The first essay, "Rumi's Path of Love and Being Freed with the Sama" introduces Sufis as "Friends of the Truth." There is no more eloquent or veracious fashion of depicting the Sufis than in this way. The author Mehmet Seker writes that, potentially, we are able to achieve the level of the best of creation by using and developing our spiritual attributes. Those who can escape from the material world and escalate toward the high ranks of the heart and soul will experience the world in a different way, he writes, and they will become conscious of the secrets of creation. When they look, they will see things that others cannot, and everywhere they look, they will see manifestations of the divine. Seker writes that Rumi was one of these "Friends of the Truth." He was one of the perfect representatives of the many Sufi devotees whose way of life is to love and be of service to people, to become a perfect human being, and thus to have the pleasure of God. He also introduces the Mevlevi sect, the Sufi order that Rumi belonged to, and the Whirling Dervishes who perform the Sama, a ceremony of meditative dancing by spinning and turning as their ritual to connect to the Divine. The Sama is contemplation or meditation in action, seeking a direct connection to the Divine, yet it is still grounded in Islam. The ney or reed-flute is the instrument of choice for these ceremonies as the Sufis believe that music, when combined with meditation and contemplation, is a faster way of reaching God. I treasure this beautiful compilation of essays by scholars and writers who find themselves enamored by Rumi and Sufism. How could they not? For hundreds of years this mystic and poet has bridged the gap between the East and West and calmed the tension of the "clash of civilizations." Dog-ear the following essays: Rumi's Path of Love and Being Freed, Sama and the Spiritual Signs Within, Eva de Vitray Meyerovitch and Her Contributions to the Promotion of Rumi, and Ecstasy in the Song of the Reed's Plaintive Notes.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-08 00:00:00 Fil DiMaria Consistently attractive, but inconsistently written (or perhaps translated). It's an edited volume with a good introduction to Rumi...but some of the sections are well-written and engining, while other sections are awkward or repetitive. Con: Inconsistent writing/translating. Pro: It's written from the inside; much of the English-language Rumi literature is written from a decidedly Western perspective, so it's good to see it from the descendants' viewpoint.