Common threads · 6 books
Birds, flashes of insight, a visionary diary, and Rumi's many afterlives. Read Persian Sufi poetry as religious writing without losing its strangeness or pleasure.
A little guidance for each book, and where it might take you next.
Annemarie Schimmel
Read the chapters on poetry and the Sufi path. Use the historical range to notice differences between teachers rather than one universal message.
Next: The Conference of the Birds
Farīd al-Dīn ʻAṭṭār
Follow the birds as characters with excuses, hopes, and fears. Let the ending change how you understand the journey that came before it. The 1984 date identifies an English edition or translated collection, not the original text's composition.
Next: Divine Flashes
Fakhr al-Din Ibrahim 'Iraqi
Read each short flash slowly. Ask how the language of lover and beloved can also carry a claim about existence. The 1982 date identifies an English edition or translated collection, not the original text's composition.
Next: The Unveiling of Secrets
Ruzbihan Baqli
Notice the tension between personal disclosure and religious authority. Compare the voice of visionary autobiography with the poems already read. The 1997 date identifies an English edition or translated collection, not the original text's composition.
Next: The Sufi Path of Love
William C. Chittick
Read Chittick's translations with their explanations. Ask how Rumi's religious vocabulary complicates a modern reading of love poetry.
Next: Rumi: Past and Present, East and West
Franklin Lewis
Separate the historical poet from later translations and popular images. Revisit a favorite passage with its setting and transmission in mind.
Finished this reading path? Mark the moment, then find your next good book.
Also includes Mystical Dimensions of Islam
Self-knowledge, poetry, religious life, and the stories people tell to wake one another up. A path that keeps Sufi writing connected to its Islamic setting.
More Common threads paths
A reading route made on ReadPath.
More paths featuring William C. Chittick
Enter Ibn Arabi's demanding account of imagination, scripture, and existence. Read selected original passages between interpreters who make different choices about how to explain them.
