The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi

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(as of Dec 11, 2025 13:35:17 UTC – Details)

In this lyrical, exuberant tale, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees (a Reese’s Book Club Pick), incarnates Rumi’s timeless message of love

Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara.

Ella is mesmerized by Zahara’s tale of Shams of Tabriz’s search for Rumi and the dervish’s role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams’s lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi’s story mir­rors her own and that Zahara—like Shams—has come to set her free.

The Forty Rules of Love unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, Shams, the whirling dervish—that together explore the enduring power of Rumi’s work.

From the Publisher

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 26, 2011
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143118528
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143118527
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.49 x 0.75 x 8.41 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #23,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #57 in Cultural Heritage Fiction #194 in Women’s Friendship Fiction #762 in Literary Fiction (Books)
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