Sufi Comics: Rumi Kindle Edition

beautifully designed. wish all books were like this.

This book is the latest of three books from Sufi Comics. It's a must read, like the one that has proceeded it. It's a series that you will read over and over again.

Simply lovely introduction to a great spiritual master.

Excellent art and presentation. Sufi Comics never fails to deliver in bringing to life the spirituality of Islam, with comedy and depth of heart and soul. Rumi is no different.This is a great addition to the library for the whole family.My personal favorite poem-comics in this volume are The Tattoo Artist and Keep Your Dragon In The Snow. Keep Your Dragon In The Snow is a perfect metaphor for the entire point of religion and spirituity. Rumi helps us realize this with a fun story about a young man claiming to have slain a dragon, and in this volume we are treated with a graphical presentation of the story. The dragon itself is terrifyingly realized. Admittedly, with The Tattoo Artist my initial love comes from having been tattooed myself and knowing of people who can't handle the pain. The use of that entire experience to elucidate a spiritual point is fantastic. It seems an unusualimage for a Muslim to use, because of the taboo on tattoos in Islam.The inclusion of verses from the Qur'an and traditional sayings from Muhammad (sal) and the Imams of his Family (as), on beautifully illuminated English pages and in Arabic calligraphy, goes a long way to co textualizing both Rumi himself, as well as his poetry. All too often, Rumi and other Sufi poets (Hafiz, Sa'di etc) are divorced from their Muslim religious life and environment in an attempt to universalize them. As a result, something is not merely lost in translation, a great disservice is done to the world by removing Islam from the spiritual lives of these men. This is especially true in these troubled times, when a person simply watching the news would be hard pressed to believe that such beauty of word and character and depth of spiritual insight could originate in the heartlands of Islam.-Dawud Khuluq

Ever since I read Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī’s (is also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī’s) Masnavi – I am completely Rumified. His magical and spritual words will leave you wanting more, such is the writing of Rumi.Born in the village of Wakhsh, a small town located at the river Wakhsh in Persia (in what is now Tajikistan) in the year 30 September 1207.When I was reading book 3 of Masnavi, I heard that Vakil brothers are going to publish a comic on Rumi, Since that day I was wondering which stories will they pick up from the wast collections of stories in Masnavi. One more thing which made me restless and curious to read this book was – how the stories will be rendered? will it match my imagination or better than that?When I read the comic book and the stories in it – they are way better than what I imagined they might look like in comic form. The book is divided into different chapters,each chapter will tell a spiritually illuminating story, the first one is the story which will tell the origins of Rumi – How Rumi became Rumi. Origin story is beautifully illustrated by Rahil Mohsin and conveys to user the true origins of Rumi. I didn’t knew before reading this story that Rumi and His father met Ibn Al-Arabi (the greatest Sufi master) and how he uttered when he saw Rumi and His father – “There goes the sea followed by ocean!”.The story I most liked and one of my favorite is the ‘Keep your dragon in snow’ – this story is awesomely illustrated and tells user that your Lower Self (Nafs) is never dead and don’t assume it to be otherwise. It’s exactly like a frozen dragon in snow – if you think it to be dead and bring it out in light of wanting-energy – it will brake out from freeze and kill you without showing the slightest mercy. So Keep your dragon in snow.Another timeless tale which tells of annihilation of Self when you are on the path of Haqiqa [Reality] beautifully rendered and illustrated in the tale named “Since You Are I“. As one of the Sufi mystics puts it ‘When you are on the path of Sharia ‘I‘ is required and When you are on the path of Haqiqa Keeping/Saying ‘I‘ is a grave sin’.When we user our sensual eye we cannot see the world as a whole – because sensual eyes has limited visibility but if we user our intellectual (aqli) eye – it can cover the infinite boundaries of universe and see the world as whole. This point is illustrated beautifully in Sufi Comic’s ‘The Elephant in the Dark‘ tale.Some Indian bring an elephant to be exhibited in a dark room. A number of men touch and feel the elephant in the dark and, depending upon where they touch it, they believe the elephant to be like a water spout (trunk), a fan (ear), a pillar (leg) and a throne (back). Rumi uses this story as an example of the limits of individual perception – as he puts it“The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the beast”.“If each had a candle and they went in together the differences would disappear.”Each story is followed by an Ayath of the Holy Quran and Sayings of Holy Prophet Muhammad (Blessings and peace be upon him) or Hazrath Ali (May Allah be pleased with him). Each Ayah/Saying is chosen to match the story.Go ahead and read this wonderfully illustrated and spiritually illuminating tales from Rumi – in the comic form. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to read “Comics for the soul”.

Such a wonderful comic, beautiful illustrations.

Must read for all, irrespective of faith..