The Masnavi, Book Three
Page 43
12 See e.g. F. Attar, The Conference of the Birds, ed. and tr. A. Darbandi and D. Davis (Harmondsworth, 1983).
13 S. Safavi and S. Weightman, Rumi’s Mystical Design.
14 In a famous passage among Rumi’s discourses, he is reported to have compared writing poetry with serving to a guest something that one finds unpleasant like tripe, because that is what the guest wants (Rumi, Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi, tr. W. M. Thackston, Jr (Boston, 1994), 77–8). The main theme of the sixteenth discourse (pp. 74–80), in which this passage is found, is the relationship between form and content, and it includes Rumi’s response to the charge that he is ‘all talk and no action’ (p. 78). The statement should therefore be understood in its proper context, rather than as evidence that Rumi disliked the art of writing poetry.
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Bhagavad Gita
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HEMACANDRA
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THOMAS AQUINAS
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Reflections on the Revolution in France
CONFUCIUS
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DESCARTES
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ÉMILE DURKHEIM
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
FRIEDRICH ENGELS
The Condition of the Working Class in England
JAMES GEORGE FRAZER
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SIGMUND FREUD
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JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
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ADAM SMITH
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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman