The Discourses of Rumi

Recognized as perhaps the greatest mystical poet of Islam, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) communicated something through his writing that has attracted spiritual seekers from almost every religion in the world, for hundreds of years. Primarily famous for his poetry, Rumi has also left another manuscript that is not so well known - the collection of discourses given at the gatherings with his students. It Is What It Is (Fihi ma Fihi) is considered by some scholars to be an abbreviated prose companion to his far more famous six volume work, the Masnavi. “It is,” meaning his collected discourses, “what it is,” meaning, evidently, the Masnavi.

This present book is edited and rewritten by Doug Marman from A. J. Arberry’s original English translation, published in 1961 as Discourses of Rumi. Arberry himself admitted that his scholastic, literal, work “is not an easy book to read...and the original is by no means easy always to understand.” According to more recent studies of the original manuscript (Chittick and Shah, for example,) Arberry’s translation also has some technical errors, and better understandings of Rumi’s subtle spiritual teachings have come to light.

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