The Sufi Phenomenon: The Case of Elifshafak's the Forty Rules of Love

Abstract

This paper is intended to analyze the delineation of the Sufi Phenomenon in ElifShafak's novel "The Forty Rules of Love". The novel draws a correlation between the world of 13th century and that of 21st century through the parallel narratives of development of friendship of a renowned scholar-turned- poet, Rumi and a mystic Sufi, Shams, and that of a mystic writer, Aziz and a housewife, Ella. Emanating out of the precincts of religion, time and space, the concept of a Universal Spirituality is presented; the bedrock of which is Love.The tenets of this Universal spirituality are derived from Sufism. Shafak has depicted this Universal Spirituality a mutual platform of communion and relation for the mankind, be of East or West, and Love is that centripetal force that can bind them together. It is where all music attunes to the One symphony and Unity is realized.