Forty Rules of Love
Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak is a well-known Turkish-British novelist, public speaker, essayist, social activist and political scientist. She was born on October 25, 1971 in Strasbourg, France. Elif Shafak has written 19 books, 12 of which are novels, she is an award winning novelist and mostly widely read woman writer in Turkey. Her books are translated to almost 20 different languages of the world. Her famous books include The Bastard of Istanbul, Honor and The Forty Rules of Love.
This novel tells a story about a housewife named Ella Rubinstein who is in her late thirties and living an ordinary life without passion or drive. The main theme of the novel revolves around the fraternal love between religious scholar-poet Rumi and Sufi dervish Shams of Tabriz. Ella got to know about the story of Rumi and Tabriz through a manuscript named “Sweet Blasphemy” she is reviewing for her new job as an assistant to literary agent. Sweet Blasphemy is a novel about fraternal love between Rumi and Tabriz and how they confront the world and families for each other.
Rumi was a famous and notable religious scholar of the city and had many followers and disciples. While Shams of Tabriz were a Sufi Dervish wandering around the world in search of love and knowledge. Shams of Tabriz found his soul mate Rumi through his master. After meeting Tabriz the life of Rumi changed, they started spending time discussing different things for many days without eating and drinking anything in the same room. This went for many months; Rumi only spent time with Tabriz which disturbed the happy life of Rumi’s wife and children.
During this period Tabriz also inspired other people with his mystical Sufi talks, like the prostitute Desert Rose who after meeting Shams Tabriz left brothel and started a new life connecting with Divine and God. Tabriz presented his Forty Rules of love while engaging with different people at different times. But some people hated Tabriz like the younger child of Rumi because his father now took no interest in family matters because Rumi was spending all the time with Tabriz.
Rumi’s younger son along with some other opponents of Tabriz who dislike him because of his religious interpretation hired an assassin to kill Tabriz. They killed Tabriz in a dark night and threw his body in the well of Rumi’s house. This incident left Rumi in grief and sadness, he started spending time alone in his library. He became a well-known poet and most of his poetry was about Shams of Tabriz.
While reading this manuscript Ella contacted the author through email and this contact became frequent and personal. They started knowing about each other’s personal life and getting interested in each other. Actually Ella was fading off her ordinary life and her husband’s secret affairs with other women but she never complained. She now loves the author and met him many times and left her husband. Ella and Aziz traveled the world for one year then they went to Konya where Aziz died of cancer. Ella decided to live life like Aziz did- fully in the moment. She chooses the decision of her heart instead of that boring ordinary life.
I agree with the idea of author that we should follow the voice of our heart and should live the life fully in the moment. Life is very short and not enough to hate others rather we should only spread love and harmony.