Rumi and the Gospel of Thomas: The Reed and the Kingdom
In 1244, the most respected religious teacher in Konya met a wandering dervish named Shams of Tabriz, and the meeting ended the teacher’s career on the spot. Jalal al-Din Rumi had been a theologian of rank, head of his late father’s community, secure in his learning. Four years later Shams vanished, probably violently, and the scholar’s grief broke open into poetry that has not stopped moving readers in eight centuries. ...