The Portable Rumi

At his best, Rumi expresses love for another man more profoundly and more poetically than any other writer except, perhaps, Shakespeare or Hafiz. "I see my beauty in you," Rumi says in another ghazal for Shams. For seven centuries, readers have discovered their own capacity for beauty in the words of Rumi. Two noteworthy world religions have grown out of same-sex love affairs. The Roman Emperor Hadrian began a religion in the name of Antinous following the death of his young companion. Howe...