The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi

by Coleman Barks, John Moyne

Overview

The Lost Words of the Sufi Master and Father of Rumi

Bahauddin, Rumi's father, was not only a major force in the development of Islamic spirituality, but also a deeply influential force in his son's life. In this, the first ever substantial English version of a wonderful but virtually unknown book, Bahauddin proves to be a daring, spiritual genius. His voice comes through the delightful, passionate craft of Coleman Barks, who transforms the Persian translations of John Moyne into fresh spiritual literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060750633
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/28/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.43(d)

About the Author

Coleman Barks is a renowned poet and the bestselling author of The Essential Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book, The Soul of Rumi, Rumi: The Book of Love, and The Drowned Book. He was prominently featured in both of Bill Moyers' PBS television series on poetry, The Language of Life and Fooling with Words. He taught English and poetry at the University of Georgia for thirty years, and he now focuses on writing, readings, and performances.

Read an Excerpt

The Drowned Book
Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi

BLUE ROBE 23

Show the true way. (Qur'an 1:6)²⁴

I have been given a taste for what is beautiful. Like milk running through my body, the gates open. I wear a blue robe woven of six directions with watercolor images flowing over the cloth, a thousand kinds of flowers, yellow jasmine, wild iris. Orchard corridors, handsome faces on the street, I am composed of this beauty, the attar of pressed plants, rose oil, resinous balsam: live essence, I am the intelligent juice of flowers.

ONE OF THE WAYS GOD TASTES

In the middle of praying I was thinking about the nymphs of paradise again, said to be half-camphor, half-saffron, with their hair of pure musk.

Then I remembered the old saying about such and such whose head is soaked in shame, with his foot bound tight in truthfulness.

Then I recalled the qualities of God: compassion, generosity, elegant intricacy, luminous wisdom, mercy, beauty. I became grateful that I know the taste of some of these qualities, according to my limited capacity, and even beyond it.

I see a long table spread with a tablecloth. On it are the powers and qualities and creations, the seven stars from which flow our pleasure here. Even in my unconsciousness, God enters my desire and my soul with the taste of those qualities.

I feel myself becoming one of the ways God tastes.

The Drowned Book
Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi. Copyright © by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Editorial Reviews

We will return to this extraordinary Sufi book again and again to whet our appetite for yearning, mystery, and grace.” — Spirituality and Health

From the Publisher

We will return to this extraordinary Sufi book again and again to whet our appetite for yearning, mystery, and grace.

Spirituality and Health

"We will return to this extraordinary Sufi book again and again to whet our appetite for yearning, mystery, and grace."

Spirituality & Health

If book sales are any indication, the most popular poet in America in the last decade has been Jalal al-Din Rumi, a Sufi mystic who died over 700 years ago. In The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, Father of Rumi, Coleman Barks (who edited Rumi's poetry in the popular edition The Essential Rumi 10 years ago) explores one of the formative influences on the spiritual poet: his father, Bahauddin. In the book, Barks joins with John Moyne, an expert in Islamic Persian, in translating Bahauddin's "The Drowned Book" into English for the first time. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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