Logic of the Birds

Professors Carl Ernst and Cyrus Zargar discuss the poetry and singular legacy of al-Hallaj, the famous early Sufi poet and teacher who became legendary for his shocking statement, Ana al-Ḥaqq, “I am the Real,” and his dramatic execution by the authorities in Baghdad in 309/ 922. al-Hallaj left behind a body of beautiful Sufi poetry in Arabic that is still popular today and became a legendary figure in Sufi literature. Links and Further Reading/Listening: “Life, Works, and Poetic Legacy of a Martyred Mystic” Abbasid History Podcast. . Carl Ernst, al-Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2018) […]

Professors Fatemeh Keshavarz and James Morris explore the poetry of Rumi, a famous Islamic scholar and Sufi master whose profound Persian poetry was widely-revered and recited from the Balkans to Western China, and recently became very popular in the United States as well. He is best known for his masterpieces, the Masnavi-i Ma‘navi (The Spiritual Couplets), a six-volume poetic work of around 25,000 verses, dubbed “the Qur’an in Persian,” and the Divan-i Shams, a collection of over 3,000 ecstatic ghazals. Links and Further Reading/Listening: Prof. Keshavarz’s Radio Rumi Podcast . Mawlana Rumi Review . “Rumi – The Most Famous Sufi […]