The Glance

Songs of Soul-Meeting

Translated by Coleman Barks and Nevit Ergin

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In 1244, the brilliant poet Rumi and the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz met and immediately fell into a deep spiritual connection. The Glance taps a major, yet little explored theme in Rumi's poetry-the mystical experience that occurs in the meeting of the eyes of the lover and the beloved, parent and child, friend and soul mate.

Coleman Barks's new translations of these powerful and complex poems capture Rumi's range from the ethereal to the everyday. They reveal the unique place of human desire, love, and ecstasy, where there exists not just the union of two souls, but the crux of the universe.

Here is a new kind of love lyric for our time-one of longing, connection, and wholeness.

$32.00

September 1, 2001

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Called 'Jelaluddin Balkhi' by the Persians and Afghans, Rumi was born on September 30, 1207, in Balkh, Afghanistan, then a part of the Persian Empire. Between 1215 and 1220, he and his family fled the threat of the invading Mongols and emigrated to Konya, Turkey; it was sometime after this that he became known as 'Rumi' meaning 'from Roman Anatolia'. His father, Bahauddin Walad, was a theologian and a mystic, and after his death Rumi took over the role of sheikh in the dervish learning community in Konya. Rumi pursued the life of an orthodox religious scholar until 1244 when he encountered the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz. After an exchange of religious ideas Shams and Rumi became inseparable friends,…