The Forty Rules of Love (Ella Chapter 32)

“Better safe than sorry,” said the Web site. “Check his shirts for lipstick stains, see if he comes home smelling of unfamiliar perfumes.” This was the first time Ella Rubinstein had taken an online test, titled “How to Tell If Your Husband Is Cheating on You!” Although she found the questions tacky, by now she knew that life itself could occasionally feel like one big cliché. In spite of her final test score, Ella didn’t want to confront David on this matter. She still had not asked him where he’d been on the nights he hadn’t come home. These days she spent most of her time reading Sweet Blasphemy, using the novel as an excuse to cover up her silence. Her mind was so distracted that it was taking her longer than usual to finish the book. Still, she was enjoying the story, and with every new rule of Shams’s she mulled her life over. When the children were around, she acted normal. They acted normal. However, the moment she and David were alone, she caught her husband looking at her curiously, as if wondering what kind of wife would avoid asking her husband where he’d spent the night. But the truth was that Ella didn’t want a piece of information she wouldn’t know how to handle. 

The less she knew about her husband’s flings, the less they would occupy her mind, she thought. It was true what they say about ignorance. It was bliss. The only time that bliss had been disrupted was last Christmas, when a survey from a local hotel arrived in their mailbox, addressed directly to David. Customer service wanted to know whether he was happy with his stays. Ella left the letter on the table, on top of a pile of mail, and that evening she watched him take the letter out of the opened envelope and read it. “Ah, a guest evaluation form! The last thing I needed,” David said, managing a half smile for her. “We held a dental conference there last year. They must have included all the participants on their customer list.” She believed him. At least the part of her that didn’t like to rock the boat did. 

The other part of her was cynical and distrustful. It was that same part that the next day found the hotel’s number and dialed it, just to hear what she already knew: Neither this year nor the one before had they ever hosted a dental conference. Deep inside, Ella blamed herself. She hadn’t aged well, and she’d gained considerable weight over the last six years. With every new pound, her sexual drive had declined a bit further. 

The cooking classes rendered it more difficult to shed the extra pounds, though there were women in her group who cooked more often, and better, and still remained half her size. When she looked back at her life, she realized that rebellion had never suited her. She had never smoked weed with boys behind closed doors, gotten kicked out of bars, used morning-after pills, thrown fits, or lied to her mother. 

Never cut class. Never had teen sex. All around her, girls her age were having abortions or putting their out-of-wedlock babies up for adoption, while she observed their stories as though watching a TV program on famine in Ethiopia. It saddened Ella that such tragedies were unfolding in the world, but the truth was that she never saw herself as sharing the same universe with those unfortunate ones. She had never been a party girl, not even as a teenager. She preferred to sit at home and read a good book on a Friday night rather than whoop it up with strangers at some wild party. “Why can’t you be like Ella?” the mothers in the neighborhood asked their daughters. “See, she never

gets herself in trouble.”

The Forty Rules of Love (Suleiman the Drunk Chapter 31)

Before the commotion I was snoozing peacefully with my back to the tavern wall, and then the racket outside made me nearly jump out of my skin. “What’s going on?” I screamed as my eyes snapped open. “Did the Mongols attack us?” There was a ripple of laughter. I turned around and found several other customers making fun of me. Dirty bastards! “Don’t you worry, old drunk!” yelled Hristos, the tavern owner. “No Mongols coming after you. 

It’s Rumi passing by with an army of admirers.” I went to the window and looked out. Sure enough, there they were—an excited procession of disciples and admirers repeatedly chanting, “God is great! God is great!” In the middle of it all was the erect figure of Rumi, mounted on a white horse, radiating strength and confidence. I opened the window, ducked my head out, and watched them. Moving at a pace no faster than a snail’s, the procession came very near. In fact, some of the crowd were so close that I could easily have touched a few heads. Suddenly I had a brilliant idea. 

I was going to snatch off some people’s turbans! I grabbed the wooden back scratcher that belongs to Hristos. Holding the window open with one hand and the scratcher in the other, I leaned forward, managing to reach the turban of a man in the crowd. I was just about to pull the turban off when another man inadvertently looked up and saw me. “Selamun aleykum,” I saluted, smiling from ear to ear. “A Muslim in a tavern! Shame on you!” the man roared. “Don’t you know wine is the handiwork of Sheitan?” I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could make a sound, something sharp whizzed by my head. 

I realized in sheer horror that it was a stone. If I hadn’t ducked at the last second, it would have cracked my skull. Instead it had shot through the open window, landing on the table of the Persian merchant sitting behind me. Too tipsy to comprehend what had happened, the merchant held the stone in his hand, examining it as if it were an obscure message from the skies. “Suleiman, close that window and go back to your table!” Hristos bellowed, his voice hoarse with worry. “Did you see what happened?” I said as I staggered back toward my table. “Someone hurled a stone at me. They could have killed me!” Hristos raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but what were you expecting? Don’t you know there are people who don’t want to see a Muslim in a tavern? And here you are displaying yourself, reeking of alcohol, your nose glowing like a red lantern.” “S-so what?” I stuttered. “Am I not a human being?” Hristos patted me on the shoulder as if to say, Don’t be so touchy. “You know, this is exactly why I abhor religion. All sorts of them! Religious people are so confident of having God by their side that they think they are superior to everyone else,” I said. Hristos did not respond. He was a religious man, but also a skilled tavern owner who knew how to soothe an incensed customer. He brought me another carafe of red wine and watched me as I guzzled it. Outside, a wild wind blew, slamming shut the windows and scattering dry leaves left and right. For a moment we stood still, listening carefully, as if there were a melody to be heard. “I don’t understand why wine was forbidden in this world but promised in heaven,” I said. “If it’s as

bad as they claim, why would they serve it in paradise?” “Questions, questions …” Hristos murmured as he threw his hands up. “You are always full of questions. Do you have to question everything?” “Of course I do. That’s why we were given a brain, don’t you think?” “Suleiman, I have known you for a long time. You are not just any customer to me. You are my friend. And I worry about you.” “I’ll be fine—” I said, but Hristos interrupted me. “You are a good man, but your tongue is as sharp as a dagger. That’s what worries me. There are all sorts of people in Konya. And it’s no secret that some of them don’t think highly of a Muslim who has taken to drink. You need to learn to be careful in public. Hide your ways, and watch what you say.” I grinned. “May we top off this speech with a poem from Khayyám?” Hristos heaved a sigh, but the Persian merchant who had overheard me exclaimed cheerfully, “Yes, we want a poem from Khayyám.” Other customers joined in, giving me a big round of applause. Motivated and slightly provoked, I jumped onto a table and began to recite:

“Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think, 

 And at the same time make it a sin to drink?”

The Persian merchant yelled, “Of course not! That wouldn’t make any sense!”

“Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus 

  Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!”

If there was one thing these many years of drinking had taught me, it was that different people drank differently. I knew people who drank gallons every night, and all they did was get merry, sing songs, and then doze off. But then there were others who turned into monsters with a few drops. If the same drink made some merry and tipsy and others wicked and aggressive, shouldn’t we hold the drinkers responsible instead of the drink?

“Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why; 

  Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.”

Another round of applause followed. Even Hristos joined the excitement. In the Jewish quarter of Konya, in a tavern owned by a Christian, we, a mixed bunch of wine lovers of all faiths, raised our glasses and toasted together, hard though it was to believe, to a God who could love and forgive us even when we ourselves clearly failed to do so

The Forty Rules of Love (Desert Rose the Harlot Chapter 30)

I was born in a small village near Nicaea. My mother always said to me, “You were born in the right place, but I am afraid it was under the wrong star.” The times were bad, unpredictable. From one year to the next, nothing remained the same. First there were rumors of the Crusaders coming back. We heard terrible stories about the atrocities they committed in Constantinople, ransacking the mansions, demolishing the icons inside chapels and churches. 

Next we heard about Seljuk attacks. And before the tales of terror of the Seljuk army faded, those of the ruthless Mongols started. The name and the face of the enemy changed, but the fear of being destroyed by outsiders remained as steady as snow on Mount Ida. My parents were bakers and good Christians. One of my earliest memories is the smell of bread out of the oven. We weren’t rich. Even as a child, I knew that. But we weren’t poor either. I had seen the stare in the eyes of the poor when they came to the bakery begging for crumbs. Every night before going to sleep, I thanked the Lord for not sending me to bed hungry. It felt like talking to a friend. For back then God was my friend. When I was seven, my mother became pregnant. Looking back today, I suspect she might have had several miscarriages before that, but I didn’t know anything about such things. I was so innocent that if anyone asked me how babies were made, I would have said God kneaded them out of soft, sweet dough. 

But the bread baby that God kneaded for my mother must have been enormous, because before long her belly swelled up, big and tight. Mother had become so huge she could barely move. The midwife said her body was retaining water, but that didn’t sound like a bad thing to me. What neither my mother nor the midwife knew was, there wasn’t one baby but three. All were boys. My brothers had waged a war inside my mother’s body. One of the triplets had strangled his brother with his umbilical cord, and as if to take revenge, the dead baby had blocked the passage, thus preventing the others from coming out. For four days my mother remained in labor. Night and day we listened to her screams until we heard her no more. Unable to save my mother, the midwife did her best to save my brothers. Taking a pair of scissors, she cut my mom’s belly open, but in the end only one baby survived. 

This is how my brother was born. My father never forgave him, and when the baby was baptized, he did not attend the ceremony. With my mother gone and my father turned into a sullen, bitter man, life was never the same. Things rapidly deteriorated at the bakery. We lost our customers. Afraid of becoming poor and having to beg someday, I started to hide bread rolls under my bed, where they would get dry and stale. But it was my brother who really suffered. I at least had been loved and taken good care of in the past. He never had any of that. It broke my heart to see him being mistreated, and yet a part of me was relieved, even grateful, that it wasn’t I who had become the target of my father’s fury. I wish I had protected my brother. Everything would be different then, and I wouldn’t be in a brothel in Konya today. Life is so strange. 

A year later my father remarried. The only difference in my brother’s life was that whereas before it was my father who ill-treated him, now it was my father and his new wife who did so. He started to run away from home, only to come back with the worst habits and the wrong friends. One day my father beat him so badly he almost killed him. After that, the boy changed. There was a cold, cruel stare in his eyes that wasn’t there before. I knew he had something in mind, but it never occurred to me what a horrible plan he was brewing. I wish I had known. I wish I could have prevented the tragedy. Then, one morning in spring, my father and stepmother were found dead, killed with rat poison. As soon as the incident became public, everyone suspected my brother. When the guards started asking questions, he ran away in panic. I never saw him again. And just like that, I was alone in the world.

Unable to stay at home where I still sensed my mother’s smell, unable to work at the bakery where disturbing memories hovered in the air, I decided to go to Constantinople to stay with an old spinster aunt who had now become my closest relative. I was thirteen. I took a carriage to Constantinople. I was the youngest passenger on board and the only one traveling alone. A few hours on the road, we were stopped by a gang of robbers. They took everything—suitcases, clothes, boots, belts, and jewelry, even the driver’s sausages. Having nothing to give them, I stood aside quietly, certain that they would do me no harm. But just when they were about to leave, the gang leader turned to me and asked, “Are you a virgin, dainty thing?” I blushed and refused to answer such an improper question. Little did I know that my blushing was the answer he wanted. “Let’s go!” the gang leader shouted. “Take the horses and the girl!” While I resisted them in tears, none of the other passengers even tried to help me. The robbers took me to a thick, dense forest, where I was surprised to see they had created a whole village. 

There were women and children. Ducks, goats, and pigs were all over the place. It looked like an idyllic village, except it was inhabited by criminals. Soon I understood why the gang leader had asked me if I was a virgin. The chief of the village was severely ill with nervous fever. He had been in bed for a long time, with red spots all over his body, trying countless treatments to no avail. Recently someone had convinced him that if he slept with a virgin, his illness would be transmitted to her and he would be clean and cured. There are things in my life I don’t want to remember. My time in the forest is one of them. Even today, whenever the forest comes to my mind, I think of the pine trees and only the pine trees. I preferred sitting alone under those trees to the company of the women in the village, most of whom were the wives or daughters of the robbers. There were also a number of harlots who had come there on their own. 

I couldn’t understand for the life of me why they didn’t run away. I was determined to do so. There were carriages crossing the forest, most of them belonging to the nobility. It was a mystery to me why they were not robbed, until I realized that some carriage drivers bribed the robbers before passing through the forest and in return got the right to travel safely. Once I figured out how things worked, I cut my own deal. After stopping a carriage heading to the big city, I pleaded with the driver to take me with him. He asked too much money, although he knew I had none. I paid him the only way I knew how. Only long after I arrived in Constantinople would I comprehend why the harlots in the forest would never run away. The city was worse. 

It was ruthless. I never looked for my old aunt. Now that I was fallen, I knew a proper lady like her wouldn’t want me. I was on my own. It didn’t take the city long to crush my spirits and ruin my body. Suddenly I was in another world altogether—a world of malice, rape, brutality, and disease. I had successive abortions until I was damaged so badly that I stopped having periods and could no longer conceive. I saw things on those streets for which I have no words. After I left the city, I traveled with soldiers, performers, and Gypsies, serving the needs of all. Then a man called Jackal Head found me and brought me to this brothel in Konya. The patron wasn’t interested in where I came from as long as I was in good shape. She was delighted to learn I couldn’t have babies and would not cause her any problems in that respect. To refer to my barrenness, she named me “Desert,” and to embellish that name somewhat, she added “Rose,” which was fine with me, as I adored roses.

The Forty Rules of Love (Desert Rose the Harlot Chapter 29)

Brothels have existed since the beginning of time. And so have women like me. But there is something that amazes me: Why is it that although people say they hate seeing women prostitute themselves, the same people make life hard for a prostitute who wants to repent and start life anew? It is as if they are telling us they are sorry that we have fallen so low, but now that we are where we are, we should stay there forever. I don’t know why this is. All I know is, some people feed on the miseries of others and they don’t like it when there is one less miserable person on the face of the earth. But no matter what they say or do, I am going to walk out of this place one day. This morning I woke up bursting with a desire to listen to the great Rumi preach. Had I told the patron the truth and asked permission, she would have made fun of me. “Since when do whores go to mosques?” she would have said, laughing so hard her round face would have turned crimson. That’s why I lied. After that hairless dervish left, the patron looked so preoccupied I sensed it was the right time to go and talk. She is always more approachable when distracted. I told her I needed to go to the bazaar to run some errands. She believed me. After nine years of my working like a dog for her, she does. “Only on one condition,” she said. “Sesame is coming with you.” That wasn’t a problem. I liked Sesame. A big, hefty man with the mind of a child, he was reliable and honest to the point of simplicity. How he survived in such a cruel world was a mystery to me. Nobody knew what his real name was, perhaps not even himself. We had named him so because of his infatuation with sesame halva. When a harlot from the brothel needed to go out, Sesame accompanied her like a silent shadow. He was the best guard I could have wished for. 

The two of us took the dusty road winding through the orchards. When we reached the first intersection, I asked Sesame to wait for me, and I disappeared behind a bush where I had hidden a bag full of men’s clothes. It was harder than I thought to dress up as a man. Wrapping long scarves around my breasts, I flattened my chest. 

Then I put on baggy trousers, a cotton vest, a long maroon robe, and a turban. Finally I covered half my face with a scarf, hoping to resemble an Arab traveler. When I walked back toward him, Sesame flinched, looking puzzled. “Let’s go,” I urged him, and when he didn’t budge, I uncovered my face. “My dear, haven’t you recognized me?” “Desert Rose, is that you?” Sesame exclaimed, putting one hand on his mouth like a child in awe. “Why did you dress up like that?” “Can you keep a secret?” Sesame nodded, his eyes widening with excitement. “All right,” I whispered. “We are going to a mosque. But don’t tell the patron.” Sesame’s bottom lip quivered. “No, no. We were going to the bazaar.” “Yes, dear, later. First we are going to listen to the great Rumi.” Sesame panicked slightly, as I knew he would. The change in plans was unsettling to him. “Please, this means a lot to me,” I begged. “If you agree and promise not to tell anyone about it, I’ll buy you a huge chunk of halva.” “Halva.” Sesame clucked his tongue with delight, as if the word alone had left a sweet taste in his

mouth. And with sweet expectation, we set off toward the mosque where Rumi was going to speak.

The Forty Rules of Love (Hasan the Beggar Chapter 28)

In the next hour, a few coins were dropped into my bowl. All were chipped copper. I yearned for a gold coin, with symbols of sun, lion, and crescent. Since the late Aladdin Keykubad had loosened the rules on currency, coins issued by the beys of Aleppo, the Fatimid rulers in Cairo, and the caliph of Baghdad, not to mention the Italian florin, were all pronounced valid. The rulers of Konya accepted them all, and so did the town’s beggars. Together with the coins, a few dry leaves fell on my lap. The maple tree was shedding its reddish gold leaves, and as a gusty wind blew, quite a number of these made it into my bowl, as if the tree were giving me alms. Suddenly I realized that the maple tree and I had something in common. A tree shedding its leaves in autumn resembled a man shedding his limbs in the final stages of leprosy. I was a naked tree. My skin, my organs, my face falling apart. Every day another part of my body abandoned me. And for me, unlike the maple tree, there would be no spring in which I would blossom. What I lost, I lost forever. When people looked at me, they didn’t see who I was but what I was missing. Whenever they placed a coin in my bowl, they did so with amazing speed and avoided any eye contact, as if my gaze were contagious. In their eyes I was worse than a thief or a murderer. As much as they disapproved of such outlaws, they didn’t treat them as if they were invisible. When it came to me, however, all they saw was death staring them in the face. That’s what scared them—to recognize that death could be this close and this ugly. Suddenly there was a great commotion in the background. I heard somebody yell, “He is coming! He is coming!” Sure enough, there was Rumi, riding a horse as white as milk, wearing an exquisite amber caftan embroidered with golden leaves and baby pearls, erect and proud, wise and noble, followed by a throng of admirers. Radiating an air of charisma and confidence, he looked less like a scholar than a ruler—the sultan of the wind, the fire, the water, and the earth. Even his horse stood tall and firm, as if aware of the distinction of the man he carried. 

I pocketed the coins in my bowl, wrapped my head so as to leave half of my face in the open, and entered the mosque. Inside, it was so packed it seemed impossible to breathe, let alone find a seat. But the one good thing about being a leper was that no matter how crowded a place, I could always find a seat, since nobody wanted to sit next to me. “Brothers,” Rumi said, his voice rising high, sweeping low. “The vastness of the universe makes us feel small, even inconsequential. Some of you might be asking, ‘What meaning could I, in my limitedness, possibly have for God?’ This, I believe, is a question that has occurred to many from time to time. In today’s sermon I want to generate some specific answers to that.” Rumi’s two sons were in the front row—the handsome one, Sultan Walad, who everyone said resembled his late mother, and the young one, Aladdin, with an animated face but curiously furtive eyes. 

I could see that both were proud of their father. “The children of Adam were honored with knowledge so great that neither the mountains nor the heavens could shoulder it,” Rumi continued. “That is why it says in the Qur’an, Truly We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear it because they were afraid of it. Only man took it up. Having been given such an honorable position, human beings should not aim any lower than what God had intended.” Pronouncing his vowels in that strange way only the educated are capable of, Rumi talked about God, assuring us that He dwelled not on a distant throne in the sky but very close to each and every one of us. 

What brought us even closer to God, he said, was none other than suffering. “Your hand opens and closes all the time. If it did not, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding. The two are as beautifully balanced and coordinated as the wings of a bird.”

The Forty Rules of Love (Hasan the Beggar Chapter 27)

Believe it or not, they call this purgatory on earth “holy suffering.” I am a leper stuck in limbo. Neither the dead nor the living want me among them. Mothers point me out on the streets to scare their misbehaving toddlers, and children throw stones at me. Artisans chase me from their storefronts to ward off the bad luck that follows me everywhere, and pregnant women turn their faces away whenever they set eyes on me, fearing that their babies will be born defective. None of these people seem to realize that as keen as they are to avoid me, I am far keener to avoid them and their pitiful stares. It is the skin that changes first, becoming thicker and darker. Patches of varying sizes, the color of rotten eggs, appear on the shoulders, knees, arms, and face. There is a lot of stinging and burning in this phase, but then somehow the pain withers away, or else one becomes numb to it. Next the patches start to enlarge and swell up, turning into ugly bulbs. The hands turn to claws, and the face is so deformed as to be unrecognizable. Now that I am nearing the final stages, I cannot close my eyelids anymore. Tears and saliva flow without my control. Six of the nails on my hands have fallen off, and one is on its way. Oddly enough, I still have my hair. I guess I should consider that lucky. I heard that in Europe lepers are kept outside the city walls. Here they let us live in the city as long as we carry a bell to warn other people of our presence. We are also allowed to beg, which is a good thing, because otherwise we would probably starve. 

Begging is one of only two ways to survive. The other is praying. Not because God pays special attention to lepers but because for some strange reason people think He does. Hence, as much as they despise us, the townspeople also respect us. They hire us to pray for the sick, the crippled, and the elderly. They pay and feed us well, hoping to squeeze out of our mouths a few extra prayers. On the streets, lepers might be treated worse than dogs, but in places where death and despair loom large, we are the sultans. Whenever I am hired to pray, I bow my head and make incomprehensible sounds in Arabic, pretending to be absorbed in prayer. Pretend is all I can do, for I don’t think God hears me. I have no reason to believe He does. 

Though it is less profitable, I find begging much easier than praying. At least I am not deceiving anyone. Friday is the best day of the week to beg, except when it is Ramadan, in which case the whole month is quite lucrative. The last day of Ramadan is by far the best time to make money. That is when even the hopeless penny-pinchers race to give alms, keen to compensate for all their sins, past and present. Once a year, people don’t turn away from beggars. To the contrary, they specifically look for one, the more miserable the better. So profound is their need to show off how generous and charitable they are, not only do they race to give us alms, but for that single day they almost love us. 

Today could be a very profitable day, too, since Rumi is giving one of his Friday sermons. The mosque is already packed. Those who can’t find a seat inside are lining up in the courtyard. The afternoon is the perfect occasion for panhandlers and pickpockets. And just like me, they are all present here, scattered within the crowd. I sat down right across from the entrance of the mosque with my back to a maple tree. There was a dank smell of rain in the air, mixed with the sweet, faint tang coming from the orchards far away. I put my mendicant bowl in front of me. Unlike many others in this business, I never have to openly ask for alms. A leper doesn’t need to whine and implore, making up stories about how wretched his life is or how poor his health. Giving people a glimpse of my face has the effect of a thousand words. So I simply uncovered

my face and sat back.

The Forty Rules of Love (Rumi Chapter 26)

Bright and plump, the gorgeous full moon resembled a massive pearl hanging in the sky. I got up from the bed and looked out the window into the courtyard, awash in moonlight. Even seeing such beauty, however, did not soothe the pounding of my heart or the trembling of my hands. “Effendi, you look pale. Did you have the same dream again?” whispered my wife. “Shall I bring you a glass of water?” I told her not to worry and to go back to sleep. There was nothing she could do. Our dreams were part of our destiny, and they would run their course as God willed it. Besides, there must be a reason, I thought, that every night for the last forty days I had been having the same dream. The beginning of the dream differed slightly each time. Or perhaps it was always the same but I entered it from a different gate each evening. On this occasion I saw myself reading the Qur’an in a carpeted room that felt familiar but was like no place I had been before. Right across from me sat a dervish, tall, thin, and erect, with a veil on his face. He was holding a candelabrum with five glowing candles providing me with light so that I could read. After a while I lifted my head to show the dervish the verse I was reading, and only then did I realize, to my awe, that what I thought was a candelabrum was in fact the man’s right hand. 

He had been holding out his hand to me, with each one of his fingers aflame. In panic I looked around for water, but there was none in sight. I took off my cloak and threw it on the dervish to extinguish the flames. But when I lifted the cloak, he had vanished, leaving only a burning candle behind. From this point onward, it was always the same dream. I started to look for him in the house, searching every nook and cranny. Next I ran into the courtyard, where the roses had blossomed in a sea of bright yellow.

I called out left and right, but the man was nowhere to be seen. “Come back, beloved. Where are you?” Finally, as if led by an ominous intuition, I approached the well and peered down at the dark waters churning below. At first I couldn’t see anything, but in a little while the moon showered me in its glittering light and the courtyard acquired a rare luminosity. Only then did I notice a pair of black eyes staring up at me with unprecedented sorrow from the bottom of the well. “They killed him!” somebody shouted. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps this was what my own voice would sound like in a state of infinite agony. And I screamed and screamed until my wife held me tight, drew me to her bosom, and asked softly, “Effendi, did you have the same dream again?”

The Forty Rules of Love (The Novice Chapter 25)

Upon hearing this, the wandering dervish bowed humbly and gratefully to kiss Baba Zaman’s hand. That is when the master asked that bizarre question: “You say you are ready to deliver all your knowledge to another person. You want to hold the Truth in your palm as if it were a precious pearl and offer it to someone special. But opening up someone’s heart to spiritual light is no small task for a human being. You’re stealing God’s thunder. What are you willing to pay in return?” For as long as I live, I will never forget the answer the dervish gave then. Raising an eyebrow, he said

firmly, “I am willing to give my head.” I flinched, feeling a cold shiver travel down my spine. When I put my eye to the crack again, I noticed that the master looked shaken by the answer as well. “Perhaps we have done enough talking for today.” Baba Zaman exhaled a sigh. “You must be tired. Let me call the young novice. 

He will show you to your bed and provide clean sheets and a glass of milk.” Now Shams of Tabriz turned toward the door, and I felt down to my bones that he was gazing at me again. More than that. It was as if he were looking through and into me, studying the pits and peaks of my soul, inspecting secrets that were hidden even from me. Perhaps he was involved with black magic or had been trained by Harut and Marut, the two angels of Babylon that the Qur’an warned us against.

Or else he possessed supernatural talents that helped him to see through doors and walls. Either way he scared me. “No need to call the novice,” he said, his voice attaining a higher pitch. “I’ve a feeling he is nearby and has already heard us.” I let out a gasp so loud it might have woken the dead in their graves. In utter panic I jumped to my feet and scurried into the garden, seeking refuge in the dark. But an unpleasant surprise was awaiting me there. “So there you are, you little rascal!” yelled the cook as he ran toward me with a broom in his hand. “You are in big trouble, son, big trouble!” I jumped aside and managed to duck the broom at the last minute. “Come here or I’ll break your legs!” the cook shouted behind me, puffing. 

But I didn’t. Instead I dashed out of the garden as fast as an arrow. While the face of Shams of Tabriz shimmered before my eyes, I ran and ran along the winding trail that connected the lodge to the main road, and even after I had gotten far away, I couldn’t stop running. My heart pounding, my throat dried up, I ran until my knees gave out and I could run no more.

The Forty Rules of Love (The Novice Chapter 24)

Upon saying this, the dervish paused as if he had heard a sudden sound. Then the strangest thing happened. He stood up, straightened his spine, and slowly, deliberately began to walk toward the door, all the while looking in my direction. It was as if he somehow knew I was spying on them.

It was as if he could see through the wooden door. My heart pounded like mad. I wanted to run back to the kitchen but couldn’t see how. My arms, my legs, my whole body froze. Through and beyond the door, the dark eyes of Shams of Tabriz were fixed upon me. 

As terrified as I was, I also felt a tremendous amount of energy rushing through my body. He approached, put his hand on the door handle, but just when I thought he was about to open the door and catch me, he stopped. I couldn’t see his face from this close and had no idea what had changed his mind. We waited like that for an unbearably long minute. Then he turned his back, and as he paced away from the door, he continued with his story. “When I got a little older, I asked God to take away my ability to dream, so that every time I encountered Him, I would know I wasn’t dreaming. He agreed. He took them all away. 

That’s why I never dream.” Shams of Tabriz now stood by the open windows across the room. Outside, there was a light drizzle, and he watched it pensively before he said, “God took away my ability to dream. But to compensate for that loss, He allowed me to interpret the dreams of others. I am a dream interpreter.” I expected Baba Zaman not to believe this nonsense and to scold him, as he scolds me all the time. But instead the master nodded respectfully and said, “You seem to be an unusual person. Tell me, what can I do for you?” “I don’t know. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me that.” “What do you mean?” asked the master, sounding puzzled. “For almost forty years, I have been a wandering dervish. I am skilled in the ways of nature, although the ways of society are still alien to me. If necessary, I can fight like a wild animal, but I myself cannot hurt anyone. I can name the constellations in the sky, identify the trees in the forests, and read like an open book the types of people the Almighty has created in His image.” Shams paused briefly and waited as the master lit an oil lamp. Then he continued. “One of the rules says, You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover. There is no one who has lived after seeing Him, just like there is no one who has died after seeing Him. 

Whoever finds Him will remain with Him forever.” In that dim, flickering light, Shams of Tabriz seemed even taller, his hair falling to his shoulders in disorderly waves. “But knowledge is like brackish water at the bottom of an old vase unless it flows somewhere. For years I prayed to God for a companion to share the knowledge accumulated inside me. Finally, in a vision in Samarkand, I’ve been told I should come to Baghdad to fulfill my destiny. I understand that you know the name of my companion and his whereabouts and will tell me, if not now, then later.” Outside, the night had settled, and a wedge of moonlight streamed in through the open windows. I realized how late it was. The cook must have been looking for me. But I didn’t care. For once it felt good to break the rules. “I don’t know what kind of answer you are asking of me,” murmured the master. “But if there is a piece of information I am destined to reveal, I know it will happen in due time. Until then you can stay here with us. Be our guest.” 

The Forty Rules of Love (The Novice Chapter 23)

Bowing and scraping, I showed the judge to the door and quickly returned to the main room to collect the dirty bowls. I was surprised to find Baba Zaman and the wandering dervish in the same position as when I left them, neither one saying a word. Out of the corner of my eye, I checked them, wondering if it could be possible to carry on a conversation without talking. I lingered there as long as I could, arranging the cushions, tidying up the room, picking up the crumbs on the carpet, but after a while I ran out of reasons to stay. Halfheartedly, I dragged my feet back to the kitchen. As soon as he saw me, the cook started to rain orders. “Wipe the counter, mop the floor! Wash the dishes! Scrub the stove and the walls around the grill! And when you are done, don’t forget to check the mousetraps!” Ever since I’d come to this lodge some six months ago, the cook had been riding roughshod over me. Every day he made me work like a dog and called this torture part of my spiritual training, as if washing greasy dishes could be spiritual in any way. A man of few words, the cook had one favorite mantra: “Cleaning is praying, praying is cleaning!” “If that were true, all the housewives in Baghdad would have become spiritual masters,” I once dared to say. He threw a wooden spoon at my head and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Such back talk will get you nowhere, son. If you want to become a dervish, be as mute as that wooden spoon. Rebelliousness is not a good quality in a novice. Speak less, mature quicker!” 

I hated the cook, but, more than that, I feared him. I had never disobeyed his orders. That is, until this evening. As soon as the cook turned his back, I sneaked out of the kitchen and tiptoed to the main room again, dying to learn more about the wandering dervish. Who was he? What was he doing here? He wasn’t like the dervishes in the lodge. His eyes looked fierce and unruly, even when he bowed his head in modesty. There was something so unusual and unpredictable about him that it was almost frightening. I peeped through a crack in the door.

At first I couldn’t see anything. But soon my eyes adjusted to the semidarkness inside the room and I could make out their faces. I heard the master ask, “Tell me, Shams of Tabriz, what brings someone like you to Baghdad? Have you seen this place in a dream?” The dervish shook his head. “No, it wasn’t a dream that brought me here. It was a vision. I never have dreams.” “Everybody has dreams,” Baba Zaman said tenderly. “It’s just that you might not remember them all the time. But that doesn’t mean you don’t dream.” “But I do not,” the dervish insisted. “It is part of a deal I made with God. You see, when I was a boy, I saw angels and watched the mysteries of the universe unfold before my eyes. When I told this to my parents, they weren’t pleased and told me to stop dreaming. When I confided in my friends, they, too, said I was a hopeless dreamer.

I tried talking to my teachers, but their response was no different. Finally I understood that whenever people heard something unusual, they called it a dream. I began to dislike the word and all that it represented.” 

The Forty Rules of Love (The Master Chapter 22)

With glinting eyes Shams continued. “Scholars who focus on the sharia know the outer meaning. Sufis know the inner meaning. Saints know the inner of the inner. And as for the fourth level, that is known only by prophets and those closest to God.” “Are you telling me that an ordinary Sufi has a deeper grasp of the Qur’an than a sharia scholar?” the judge asked as he tapped his fingers on the bowl. A subtle, sardonic smile curved the dervish’s mouth, but he didn’t answer. “Be careful, my friend,” the judge said. “There is a thin line between where you stand and sheer blasphemy.” If there was a threat in these words, the dervish seemed not to have noticed it. “What exactly is ‘sheer blasphemy’?” he asked, and then with a sharp intake of breath he added, “Allow me to tell you a story.” And here is what he told us: One day Moses was walking in the mountains on his own when he saw a shepherd in the distance. The man was on his knees with his hands spread out to the sky, praying. Moses was delighted. But when he got closer, he was equally stunned to hear the shepherd’s prayer. “Oh, my beloved God, I love Thee more than Thou can know. I will do anything for Thee, just say the word. Even if Thou asked me to slaughter the fattest sheep in my flock in Thy name, I would do so without hesitation. Thou would roast it and put its tail fat in Thy rice to make it more tasty.” Moses inched toward the shepherd, listening attentively. “Afterward I would wash Thy feet and clean Thine ears and pick Thy lice for Thee. That is how

much I love Thee.” Having heard enough, Moses interrupted the shepherd, yelling, “Stop, you ignorant man! What do you think you are doing? Do you think God eats rice? Do you think God has feet for you to wash? This is not prayer. It is sheer blasphemy.” Dazed and ashamed, the shepherd apologized repeatedly and promised to pray as decent people did. Moses taught him several prayers that afternoon. Then he went on his way, utterly pleased with himself. But that night Moses heard a voice. It was God’s. “Oh, Moses, what have you done? You scolded that poor shepherd and failed to realize how dear he was to Me. 

He might not be saying the right things in the right way, but he was sincere. His heart was pure and his intentions good. I was pleased with him. His words might have been blasphemy to your ears, but to Me they were sweet blasphemy.” Moses immediately understood his mistake. The next day, early in the morning, he went back to the mountains to see the shepherd. 

He found him praying again, except this time he was praying in the way he had been instructed. In his determination to get the prayer right, he was stammering, bereft of the excitement and passion of his earlier prayer. Regretting what he had done to him, Moses patted the shepherd’s back and said: “My friend, I was wrong. Please forgive me. Keep praying in your own way. That is more precious in God’s eyes.”

The Forty Rules of Love (The Master Chapter 21)

There followed a ripple of laughter as the men in the room were eager to show their agreement with the judge—high-pitched, unconfident, and unhappy laughs from people used to toadying to superiors. I felt uneasy. Obviously it hadn’t been a good idea to bring the judge and the dervish together. “Perhaps I was misunderstood. I didn’t mean to say one could not find God if he stayed in his hometown. That is certainly possible,” conceded the dervish. “There are people who have never traveled anywhere and yet have seen the world.” “Exactly!” The judge grinned triumphantly—a grin that vanished upon hearing what the dervish uttered next. “What I meant to say, Judge, was that one could not find God if he stayed in the fur coat, silk garment, and pricey jewelry that you are wearing today.” A stunned silence descended upon the room, the sounds and sighs around us dissolving down to dust. We all held our breath, as if expecting something bigger to happen, though what could have been more shocking, I didn’t know. “Your tongue is too sharp for a dervish,” the judge said. “When something needs to be said, I’ll say it even if the whole world grabs me by the neck and tells me to keep quiet.” This was met with a frown from the judge, but then he shrugged dismissively. “Well, whatever,” he said. “In any case, you are the man we need. We were just talking about the splendor of our city. You must have seen many places. Is there a place more charming than Baghdad?”

Softly, his gaze moving from one man to another, Shams explained, “There is no question Baghdad is a remarkable city, but no beauty on earth lasts forever. Cities are erected on spiritual columns. Like giant mirrors, they reflect the hearts of their residents. If those hearts darken and lose faith, cities will lose their glamour. It happens, and it happens all the time.” I couldn’t help but nod. Shams of Tabriz turned to me, momentarily distracted from his thoughts, with a friendly flicker in his eyes. I felt them on me like the heat of a sweltering sun. That was when I clearly saw how he merited his name. This man was radiating vigor and vitality and burning within, like a ball of fire.

He was indeed Shams, “the sun.” But the judge was of a different mind. “You Sufis make everything too complicated. The same with philosophers and poets! Why the need for so many words? Human beings are simple creatures with simple needs. It falls upon the leaders to see to their needs and make sure they do not go astray. That requires applying the sharia to perfection.” “The sharia is like a candle,” said Shams of Tabriz. “It provides us with much valuable light. But let us not forget that a candle helps us to go from one place to another in the dark. If we forget where we are headed and instead concentrate on the candle, what good is it?” The judge grimaced, his face closing up. I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. 

Entering into a discussion about the significance of the sharia with a man whose job was to judge, and often punish, people according to the sharia was swimming in dangerous waters. Didn’t Shams know that? Just as I was looking for an appropriate excuse to take the dervish out of the room, I heard him say, “There is a rule that applies to this situation.” “What rule?” asked the judge suspiciously. Shams of Tabriz straightened up, his gaze fixed as if reading from an invisible book, and he pronounced: “Each and every reader comprehends the Holy Qur’an on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insight. The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with. Next is the Batm—the inner level. Third, there is the inner of the inner. And the fourth level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to remain indescribable.”

The Forty Rules of Love (The Master Chapter 20)

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Thank God just then we heard a knock on the door. It was the ginger-haired novice. He made a beeline toward me and whispered in my ear that we had a visitor, a wandering dervish who insisted upon seeing me and refused to talk to anyone else. Normally I would have asked the novice to take the newcomer to a quiet, welcoming room, give him warm food, and make him wait until the guests had left. But as the judge was giving me a hard time, it occurred to me that a wandering dervish could dispel the tension in the room by telling us colorful stories from faraway lands. So I asked the novice to bring the man in. A few minutes later, the door opened and in walked a man dressed head to toe in black. Lank, gaunt, and of indeterminable age, he had a sharp nose, deeply set pitch-black eyes, and dark hair that fell over

his eyes in thick curls. He wore a long, hooded cloak, a wool garment, and sheepskin boots. There were a number of charms around his neck. He held a wooden bowl in his hand of the sort that mendicant dervishes carry to overcome their personal vanity and hubris by accepting the charity of others. I realized that here was a man who did not pay much attention to the judgments of society. That people could confuse him with some vagrant, or even a beggar, didn’t seem to bother him in the least. As soon as I saw him standing there, awaiting permission to introduce himself, I sensed he was different. It was in his eyes, in his elaborate gestures, written all over him. Like an acorn that might seem modest and vulnerable to ignorant eyes but already heralds the proud oak tree that it will turn out to be, he looked at me with those piercing black eyes and nodded silently. “Welcome to our lodge, dervish,” I said as I motioned for him to take a seat on the cushions across from me. After greeting everyone, the dervish sat down, inspecting the people in the room, taking in every detail. Finally his gaze stopped at the judge. The two men looked at each other for a full minute, without so much as a word, and I couldn’t help wondering what each thought of the other, as they seemed so very opposite. 

I offered the dervish warm goat milk, sweetened figs, and filled dates, all of which he politely refused. When asked his name, he introduced himself as Shams of Tabriz and said he was a wandering dervish searching for God high and low. “And were you able to find Him?” I inquired. A shadow crossed his face as the dervish nodded and said, “Indeed, He was with me all along.” The judge interjected with a smirk he didn’t bother to hide, “I never understand why you dervishes make life so complicated. 

If God was with you all along, why did you rummage around this whole time in search of Him?” Shams of Tabriz bowed his head pensively and remained silent for a moment. When he looked up again, his face was calm, his voice measured. “Because although it is a fact that He cannot be found by seeking, only those who seek can find Him.” “Such wordplay,” the judge scoffed. “Are you trying to tell us that we cannot find God if we stay in the same place all our lives? That’s nonsense. Not everyone needs to dress in tatters and hit the road like you!” 

The Forty Rules of Love (The Master Chapter 19)

Baghdad took no note of the arrival of Shams of Tabriz, but I will never forget the day he came to our modest dervish lodge. We had important guests that afternoon. The high judge had dropped by with a group of his men, and I suspected there was more than cordiality behind his visit. Renowned for his dislike of Sufism, the judge wanted to remind me that he kept an eye on us, just as he kept an eye on all the Sufis in the area. The judge was an ambitious man. He had a broad face, a sagging belly, and short, stubby fingers, each with a precious ring. He had to stop eating so much, but I suspected that nobody had the courage to tell him, not even his doctor. Coming from a long line of religious scholars, he was one of the most influential men in the area. With one ruling he could send a man to the gallows, or he could just as easily pardon a convict’s crimes, lifting him up from the darkest dungeons. Always dressed in fur coats and expensive garments, he carried himself with the grandeur of someone who was sure of his authority. 

I did not approve of his big ego, but for the well-being of our lodge I did my best to remain on good terms with this man of influence. “We live in the most magnificent city in the world,” the judge pronounced as he popped a fig into his mouth. “Today Baghdad overflows with refugees running away from the Mongol army. We provide them safe haven. This is the center of the world, don’t you think, Baba Zaman?” “This city is a gem, no doubt,” I said carefully. “But let us not forget that cities are like human beings.

 They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die. At this moment in time, Baghdad is in its late youth. We are not as wealthy as we used to be at the time of Caliph Harun ar-Rashid, though we can still take a measure of pride in being a center of trade, crafts, and poetry. But who knows what the city will look like a thousand years from now? Everything might be different.” “Such pessimism!” The judge shook his head as he reached out to another bowl and picked a date. “The Abbasid rule will prevail, and we will prosper. That is, of course, if the status quo is not disrupted by the traitors among us. There are those who call themselves Muslim, but their interpretation of Islam is far more dangerous than threats from infidels.” I chose to remain silent. 

It was no secret that the judge thought the mystics, with their individualistic and esoteric interpretations of Islam, were troublemakers. He accused us of paying no heed to the sharia and thus disrespecting the men of authority—men like him. Sometimes I had the feeling he would rather have all Sufis kicked out of Baghdad. “Your brotherhood is harmless, but don’t you think some Sufis are beyond the pale?” the judge asked, stroking his beard.

The Forty Rules of Love (Ella Chapter 18)

Before the sun had set and the children had come back home, Ella placed a bookmark in the manuscript and put Sweet Blasphemy aside. Curious about the man who had written the novel, she went online and Googled “A. Z. Zahara,” wondering what would pop up but not expecting much. To her surprise, a personal blog appeared. The colors on the page were predominantly amethyst and turquoise, and on top of the page a male figure with a long white skirt whirled slowly. Having never seen a whirling dervish before, Ella took a careful look at the picture. The blog was titled An Eggshell Named Life, and beneath it there was a poem with the same title:

Let us choose one another as companions!

Let us sit at each other’s feet! 

Inwardly we have many harmonies—think not 

That we are only what we see.

The page was full of postcards from cities and sites all around the world. Underneath each postcard there were comments about that particular place. It was while reading these that Ella came across three pieces of information that immediately drew her attention: First, that the A in A. Z. Zahara stood for Aziz. Second, that Aziz regarded himself as a Sufi. Third, that at the moment he was traveling somewhere in Guatemala. In another section there were samples of the photos he had taken. Most were portraits of people of all colors and stripes. Despite their stark differences, they resembled one another in one curious respect: All the people in all the portraits had something visibly missing. For some the missing element was a simple thing, like an earring, a shoe, or a button, while for others it was much more substantial, like a tooth, a finger, or sometimes a leg. Underneath the photos it read:

No matter who we are or where we live, deep inside we all feel incomplete. It’s like we have lost something and need to get it back. Just what that something is, most of us never find out. And of those who do, even fewer manage to go out and look for it.

Ella scrolled up and down the Web page, clicked on every postcard to enlarge it, and read every comment Aziz had made. At the bottom of the page, there was an e-mail address, azizZzahara@gmail.com, which she wrote down on a piece of paper. Next to that she found a poem by Rumi:

Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life of 

Love, living is a burden—as you have seen.

It was while reading this poem that a most peculiar thought flashed across her mind. For a fleeting moment, it felt as if everything Aziz Z. Zahara included in his personal blog—the pictures, the comments, the quotations, and the poems—were written for her eyes only. It was a strange and slightly supercilious

thought, but one that made perfect sense to her.

The Forty Rules of Love (Shams Chapter 17)

During my travels I have taken all sorts of roads, from popular trade routes to forgotten tracks where

you wouldn’t run into a soul for days on end. From the coasts of the Black Sea to the cities of Persia, from the vast steppes of Central Asia to the sand dunes of Arabia, I have passed through thick forests, flat grasslands, and deserts; sojourned at caravansaries and hostels; consulted with the learned men in age-old libraries; listened to tutors teaching little children in maktabs; discussed tafsir and logic with students in madrassas; visited temples, monasteries, and shrines; meditated with hermits in their caves; performed zikr with dervishes; fasted with sages and dined with heretics; danced with shamans under the full moon; come to know people of all faiths, ages, and professions; and witnessed misfortunes and miracles alike. I have seen poverty-stricken villages, fields blackened by fire, and plundered towns where the rivers ran red and there were no men left alive above the age of ten. I have seen the worst and the best in humanity. Nothing surprises me anymore. As I went through all these experiences, I began to compile a list that wasn’t written down in any book, only inscribed in my soul. This personal list I called The Basic Principles of the Itinerant Mystics of Islam. To me these were as universal, dependable, and invariable as the laws of nature. Together they constituted The Forty Rules of the Religion of Love, which could be attained through love and love only. And one of those rules said, The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. 

Knowing your ego will lead you to the knowledge of God. It had taken me years to finish working on these rules. All forty of them. And now that I was done, I knew I was nearing the final stage of my time in this world. Lately I had been having many visions in this direction. It wasn’t death that worried me, for I didn’t see it as an end, but dying without leaving a legacy behind. There were many words piled up inside my chest, stories waiting to be told. I wanted to hand all this knowledge to one other person, neither a master nor a disciple. I sought an equal—a companion. “God,” I whispered into the dark, damp room, “all my life I traveled the world and followed Thy path. I saw every person as an open book, a walking Qur’an. 

I stayed away from the ivory towers of scholars, preferring to spend time with outcasts, expatriates, and exiles. Now I am bursting. Help me to hand Thy wisdom to the right person. Then Thou can do with me as Thou wish.” Before my eyes the room was showered with a light so bright that the faces of the travelers in their beds turned lurid blue. The air inside smelled fresh and alive, as if all the windows had been pushed open and a gusty wind brought in the scent of lilies and jasmine from faraway gardens. “Go to Baghdad,” fluted my guardian angel in a singsong voice. “What is awaiting me in Baghdad?” I asked. “You prayed for a companion, and a companion you will be given. In Baghdad you will find the master who will point you in the right direction.” Tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes. Now I knew that the man in my vision was no other than my spiritual companion. Sooner or later we were destined to meet. And when we did, I would learn why his kind hazel eyes were eternally sad and how I came to be murdered on an early-spring night.

The Forty Rules of Love (Shams Chapter 16)

Burdened with loneliness, all fast asleep in separate dreams, were more than a dozen weary travelers upstairs at the inn. I stepped over bare feet and hands to reach my empty bedroll that reeked of sweat and mold. I lay there in the dark, mulling over the day’s events and reflecting on any divine signs I might have witnessed but, in my haste or ignorance, failed to appreciate. Since I was a boy, I had received visions and heard voices. I always talked to God, and He always responded. Some days I ascended all the way up to the seventh sky as light as a whisper. Then I descended into the deepest pits of the earth, suffused with the smells of soil, hidden away like a rock buried under mighty oaks and sweet chestnuts. Every so often I lost my appetite for food and went without eating for days on end. None of these things scared me, though in time I had learned not to mention them to others. Human beings tended to disparage what they couldn’t comprehend. I had learned that firsthand. The first person to misjudge my visions was my father. I must have been ten years old when I started seeing my guardian angel on a daily basis and was naïve enough to think that everyone else did as well. One day, while my father was teaching me how to build a cedar chest so that I could become a carpenter like him, I told him about my guardian angel. “You have a wild imagination, son,” my father said dryly. “And you better keep it to yourself. We don’t want to upset the villagers again.” A few days before, the neighbors had complained about me to my parents, accusing me of acting strange and scaring their kids. “I don’t understand your ways, my son. Why can’t you accept that you are no more remarkable than your parents?” my father asked. “Every child takes after his father and mother. So have you.” That was when I realized that although I loved my parents and craved their love, they were strangers to me. “Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens.

I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim I shall. The ocean is my homeland. If you are with me, come to the ocean. If not, stop interfering with me and go back to the chicken coop.” My father’s eyes grew large, then small and distant. “If this is the way you talk to your father now,” he said gravely, “I wonder how you will address your enemies when you grow up.” Much to the chagrin of my parents, the visions did not disappear as I got older. If anything, they became more intense and gripping. 

I knew I made my parents nervous, and I felt guilty for upsetting them so, but the truth is, I didn’t know how to end the visions, and even if I had, I don’t think I would have. Before long I left my house for good. Since then Tabriz has become a smooth, sweet word, so fine and delicate that it melts on my tongue. Three scents accompany my memories of this place: cut wood, poppy-seed bread, and the soft, crisp smell of snow. I have been a wandering dervish ever since, not sleeping in the same place more than once, not eating out of the same bowl twice in a row, every day seeing different faces around me. When hungry, I earn a few coins by interpreting dreams. In this state I roam east and west, searching for God high and low. I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go.

The Forty Rules of Love (Ella Chapter 15)

Half an hour later, she received a call from her husband. “I can’t believe you called Scott to ask him not to marry our daughter. Tell me you didn’t do this.” Ella gasped. “Wow, word gets out fast. Honey, let me explain.” But David interjected tensely, “There is nothing to explain. What you did was wrong. Scott told Jeannette, and now she’s extremely upset. She’ll be staying with her friends for a few days. She doesn’t

want to see you right now.” He paused briefly. “And I don’t blame her.” That evening Jeannette wasn’t the only one who didn’t come home. David sent Ella a text message informing her of a sudden emergency that had arisen. There was no explanation as to the nature of the emergency. It was so unlike him and against the spirit of their marriage. He might flirt with woman after woman, could even sleep with them and spend his money on them for all she knew, but he had always come home and taken his place at the table in the evenings. No matter how deep the rift between them, she always cooked and he always ate, gladly and gratefully, whatever she put on his plate. At the end of each dinner, David never failed to thank her—a heartfelt thank-you that she always took to be a coded apology for his infidelities. She forgave him. She always did. This was the first time her husband had acted this brazen, and Ella blamed herself for the change. But then again, “guilt” was Ella Rubinstein’s middle name.

When she sat at the table with her twins, Ella’s guilt gave way to melancholy. She resisted Avi’s pleas to order pizza and Orly’s attempts not to eat anything, forcing them to munch on wild rice with green peas and roast beef with mustard glaze. And although on the surface she was the same hands-on, concerned mother, she felt a surge of despair rise in her, a sharp taste in her mouth, sour like bile. When dinner was over, Ella sat at the kitchen table on her own, finding the stillness around her heavy and unsettling. Suddenly the food she had cooked, the outcome of hours of hard work, seemed not only dull and boring but easily replaceable. She felt sorry for herself. It was a pity that, at almost forty, she hadn’t been able to make more of her life. She had so much love to give and yet no one demanding it. Her thoughts turned to Sweet Blasphemy. She was intrigued by the character of Shams of Tabriz. “It could be nice to have someone like him around,” she joked to herself. “Never a dull day with a guy like him!” And somehow the image that popped up in her mind was of a tall, dark-looking, mysterious man with leather pants, a motorcycle jacket, and black hair that fell to his shoulders, riding a shiny red HarleyDavidson with multicolored tassels hanging from the handlebars. She smiled at the image. A handsome, sexy, Sufi motorcyclist riding fast on an empty highway! Wouldn’t it be nice to get picked up while hitchhiking by a guy like that? Ella then wondered what Shams would see if he read her palm. Would he explain to her why her mind turned from time to time into a coven of dark thoughts? Or how come she felt so lonely even though she had a large, loving family? What about the colors in her aura? Were they bright and bold? Had anything in her life been bright and bold lately? Or ever? It was then and there, while sitting alone at the kitchen table with only a faint glimmer of light from the oven, that Ella realized that despite her high-flying words denying it, and despite her ability to keep a stiff upper lip, deep inside she longed for love.

The Forty Rules of Love (Ella Chapter 14)

Bested by the tension that followed the argument with David and Jeannette, Ella was so drained she had to stop reading Sweet Blasphemy for a while. She felt as though the lid of a boiling cauldron had suddenly been lifted, emitting old conflicts and new resentments in the rising steam. Unfortunately, it was no one other than she who had lifted that lid. And she had done it by dialing Scott’s number and asking him not to marry her daughter. 

Later in her life, she would deeply regret everything she’d uttered during this phone conversation. But on this day in May, she was so sure of herself and the ground beneath her feet that she could not for the life of her fathom any dire consequences from her intrusion. “Hi, Scott. This is Jeannette’s mom, Ella,” she said, trying to sound jovial, as if calling her daughter’s boyfriend were something she did all the time. “Do you have a minute to talk?” “Mrs. Rubinstein, how may I help you?” Scott stammered, surprised but ever so civilized. And in a no-less-civilized tone, Ella told him that although she had nothing against him personally, he was too young and inexperienced to marry her daughter. Upset as he might be to receive this call now, she added, someday in the not-so-distant future he would understand and even thank her for warning him in time. 

Until then she asked him to kindly drop the subject of marriage and to keep this phone conversation between the two of them. There was a thick, dense silence. “Mrs. Rubinstein, I don’t think you understand,” Scott said when he finally found his voice. “Jeannette and I love each other.” There it was again! How could people be naïve enough to expect love to open every door for them? They looked at love as if it were a magic wand that could fix everything with one miraculous touch. But Ella didn’t say any of this. Instead she said, “I understand how you feel, believe me, I do. But you are too young and life is long. Who knows? Tomorrow you might fall in love with someone else.” “Mrs. Rubinstein, I don’t want to be rude, but don’t you think the same rule applies to everyone, including yourself? Who knows? Tomorrow you, too, might fall in love with someone else.” Ella chuckled, louder and longer than she intended. “I’m a married woman. I’ve made a choice for a lifetime. So did my husband. 

And that’s exactly my point. Marriage is a serious decision, which needs to be considered very carefully.” “Are you telling me not to marry your daughter, who I love, because I might love an unidentified other in an indefinite future?” Scott demanded. The conversation went downhill from there, filled with distress and disappointment. When they finally hung up, Ella headed to the kitchen and did what she always did at times of emotional unrest: She cooked.

The Forty Rules of Love (Shams Chapter 13)

But my answer was interrupted by a ruckus that broke out at the back of the dining hall. When we turned in that direction, we saw two rough-looking men yelling drunken gibberish. With unbridled insolence they were bullying the other customers, snatching food off their bowls, drinking from their cups, and, should anyone protest, mocking them like two naughty maktab boys. “Somebody should take care of these troublemakers, don’t you think?” hissed the innkeeper between clenched teeth. “Now, watch me!” In a flash he reached the end of the hall, yanked one of the drunken customers from his seat, and punched him in the face. The man must not have been expecting this at all, for he collapsed on the floor like an empty sack. A barely audible sigh came out of his lips, but other than that he made no noise. The other man proved stronger, and he fiercely fought back, but it didn’t take the innkeeper long to knock him down, too. 

He kicked his unruly customer in the ribs and then stomped on his hand, grinding it under his heavy boots. We heard the crack of a finger breaking, or maybe more. “Stop it!” I exclaimed. “You are going to kill him. Is that what you want?” As a Sufi I had sworn to protect life and do no harm. In this world of illusions, so many people were ready to fight without any reason, and so many others fought for a reason. But the Sufi was the one who wouldn’t fight even if he had a reason. There was no way I could resort to violence. But I could thrust myself like a soft blanket between the innkeeper and the customers to keep them apart. “You stay out of this, dervish, or I’ll beat the hell out of you, too!” the innkeeper shouted, but we both knew he wasn’t going to do that. 

A minute later, when the serving boys lifted up the two customers, one of them had a broken finger and the other a broken nose, and there was blood all over. A fearful silence descended on the dining hall. Proud with the awe he’d inspired, the innkeeper gave me a sidelong look. When he spoke again, it sounded as if he were addressing everyone around, his voice soaring high and wild, like a marauder bird boasting in the open sky. “You see, dervish, it wasn’t always like this. Violence wasn’t my element, but it is now. When God forgets about us down here, it falls upon us common people to toughen up and restore justice. So next time you talk to Him, you tell Him that. Let Him know that when He abandons his lambs, they won’t meekly wait to be slaughtered. They will turn into wolves.” I shrugged as I motioned toward the door. “You are mistaken.” “Am I wrong in saying I was a lamb once and have turned into a wolf?” “No, you got that right. I can see that you have become a wolf indeed.

But you are wrong in calling what you are doing ‘justice.’ ” “Wait, I haven’t finished with you!” the innkeeper shouted behind my back. “You owe me. In return for food and bed, you were going to interpret my dreams.” “I’ll do something better,” I suggested. “I’ll read your palm.” I turned back and walked toward him, looking hard into his burning eyes. Instinctively, distrustfully, he flinched. Still, when I grabbed his right hand and turned his palm up, he didn’t push me away. I inspected the lines and found them deep, cracked, marking uneven paths. Bit by bit, the colors in his aura appeared to me: a rusty brown and a blue so pale as to be almost gray. His spiritual energy was hollowed out and thinned around the edges, as if it had no more strength to defend itself against the outside world. Deep inside, the man was no more alive than a wilting plant. To make up for the loss of his spiritual energy, he had doubled up his physical energy, which he used in excess.

My heart beat faster, for I had started seeing something. At first dimly, as if behind a veil, then with increasing clarity, a scene appeared in front of my eyes. A young woman with chestnut hair, bare feet with black tattoos, and an embroidered red shawl draped over her shoulders. “You have lost a loved one,” I said, and took his left palm in my hand. Her breasts swollen with milk and her belly so huge it looks as if it could rip apart. She is stuck in a hut on fire. There are warriors around the house, riding horses with silver-gilded saddles. The thick smell of burning hay and human flesh. Mongol riders, their noses flat and wide, necks thick and short, and hearts as hard as rocks. The mighty army of Genghis Khan. “You have lost two loved ones,” I corrected myself. “Your wife was pregnant with your first child.” His eyebrows clamped down, his eyes fixed on his leather boots, and his lips tightly pursed, the innkeeper’s face creased into an unreadable map. Suddenly he looked old beyond his years. “I realize that it’s no consolation to you, but I think there is something you should know,” I said. “It wasn’t the fire or the smoke that killed her. It was a wooden plank in the ceiling that collapsed on her head. She died instantly, without any pain. You always assumed she had suffered terribly, but in reality she did not suffer at all.” The innkeeper furrowed his brow, bowed under a pressure only he could understand. His voice turned raspy as he asked, “How do you know all that?” I ignored the question. “You have been blaming yourself for not giving her a proper funeral. You still see her in your dreams, crawling out of the pit she was buried in. But your mind is playing games with you. In truth, your wife and son are both fine, traveling in infinity, as free as a speck of light.” I then added, measuring each word, “You can become a lamb again, because you still have it in you.” Upon hearing this the innkeeper pulled his hand away, as if he had just touched a sizzling pan. “I don’t like you, dervish,” he said. “I’ll let you stay here tonight. But make sure you are gone early in the morning. 

I don’t want to see your face around here again.” It was always like this. When you spoke the truth, they hated you. The more you talked about love, the more they hated you.

The Forty Rules of Love (Shams Chapter 12)

“What do you want?” I asked. “Why are you pulling my arm?” “What do I want?” the innkeeper roared with a scowl. “I want you to stop screaming, for starters, that’s what I want. You are scaring away my customers.” “Really? Have I been screaming?” I muttered as I managed to pull myself free from his grip. “You bet you were! You were screaming like a bear with a thorn stuck in its paw. What happened to you? Did you doze off during dinner? You must have had a nightmare or something.” I knew that this was the only plausible explanation, and if I went along with it, the innkeeper would be satisfied and leave me in peace. Still, I did not want to lie. “No, brother, I have neither fallen asleep nor had a bad dream,” I said. “Actually, I never have dreams.” “How do you explain all that screaming, then?” the innkeeper wanted to know. “I had a vision. That’s different.” He gave me a bewildered look and sucked on the ends of his mustache for a while. Finally he said, “You dervishes are as crazy as rats in a pantry. Especially you wandering types. All day long you fast and pray and walk under the scorching sun. No wonder you start hallucinating—your brain is fried!” I smiled. He could be right. They say there is a thin line between losing yourself in God and losing your mind. Two serving boys appeared just then, carrying between them a huge tray stacked with plates: freshly grilled goat, dried salted fish, spiced mutton, wheat cakes, chickpeas with meatballs, and lentil soup with sheep’s-tail fat. They went around the hall distributing them, filling the air with the scents of onion, garlic, and spices. When they stopped by my end of the table, I got myself a bowl of steaming soup and some dark bread. “Do you have money to pay for those?” the innkeeper asked, with a flicker of condescension. “No, I don’t,” I said. “But allow me to offer an exchange. In return for the food and the room, I could interpret your dreams.” To this he responded with a sneer, his arms akimbo, “You just told me you never had dreams.” “That’s right.

 I am a dream interpreter who doesn’t have dreams of his own.” “I should toss you out of here. Like I said, you dervishes are nuts,” the innkeeper said, spitting out the words. “Here is some advice for you: I don’t know how old you are, but I’m sure you have prayed enough for both worlds. Find a nice woman and settle down. Have children. That will help to keep your feet on the ground. What is the point of roaming the world when it’s the same misery everywhere? Trust me. There is nothing new out there. I have customers from the farthest corners of the world. After a few drinks, I hear the same stories from them all. Men are the same everywhere. Same food, same water, same old crap.” “I’m not looking for something different. I’m looking for God,” I said. “My quest is a quest for God.” “Then you are looking for Him in the wrong place,” he retorted, his voice suddenly thickened. “God has left this place! We don’t know when He will be back.” My heart flailed away at my chest wall upon hearing this. “When one speaks ill of God, he speaks ill of himself,” I said. An odd, slanted smile etched along the innkeeper’s mouth. In his face I saw bitterness and indignation, and something else that resembled childish hurt. “Doesn’t God say, I am closer to you than your jugular vein?” I asked. “God is not someplace far up in the sky. He is inside each and every one of us.

 That is why He never abandons us. How can He abandon Himself?” “But He does abandon,” the innkeeper remarked, his eyes cold and defiant. “If God is here but does not move a finger when we suffer the worst ends, what does that tell us about Him?”

“It is the first rule, brother,” I said. “How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we.” The innkeeper immediately objected, but I could see that my words had surprised him. “How is that any different than saying God is a product of our imagination? I don’t get it.”