The Forty Rules of Love

The novel "The Forty Rules of Love" is considered one of the most popular translated novels among readers around the world, and it is the novel that made the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak famous. The novel was published in English and immediately achieved huge sales and became one of the best-selling books. Elif Shafak's works have been translated into more than 30 languages so far. A brief about the book "The Forty Rules of Love": The heroine of "The Forty Rules of Love," Ella, is a unhappy wife, at forty years old, when she read a novel about the life of Jalal al-Din Rumi and his teacher, the Sufi dervish Shams Tabrizi. She was enchanted by Shams' rules, which illuminate ancient philosophical concepts about the unity of peoples and religions, about the passion for poetry, and about the deep love buried within each of us. This turns Ella's life upside down. Ella Rubinstein is a forty-something woman unhappy in her marriage. She gets a job as a literary agency critic, and her first assignment is to review and write a report on a book called "Torturous Baptism," which is a novel by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is captivated by the story of Shams Tabrizi's search for Jalal al-Din Rumi and the role of the dervish in transforming a successful but unhappy religious man into a committed Sufi, an emotional poet, and a proponent of love. She is also taken by Shams' rules, which offer insight into the ancient philosophy based on uniting people and religions, and the presence of love within each of us. Through reading this book, she realizes that Rumi’s story reflects her own, and that Zahara, like Shams in the novel, came to show her the path to freedom. Quotes from "The Forty Rules of Love": First Rule: The way we see God is only a reflection of the way we see ourselves. If God only brings to our minds fear and shame, then a great deal of fear and shame flows within our souls. But if we see God filled with love and mercy, then so are we. Do not judge the way people communicate with God, for each person has their own way and prayer. God does not take us by our words, but looks into the depths of our hearts. And it is not rituals or ceremonies that make us believers, but whether our hearts are pure or not. It is easy to love a God characterized by perfection, purity, and infallibility. But the harder thing is to love your fellow humans with all their flaws and shortcomings. Remember, one only knows what they are capable of loving. There is no wisdom without love. And unless we learn how to love God's creation, we will not be able to love truly nor know God truly. Your life is full, complete, or so it seems to you, until someone appears who makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror reflecting the absent, not the present, showing you the emptiness in your soul, the emptiness you have been resisting seeing.