Rumi, Fountain of Fire

you are forever
my shining sun and
i am like this poem
restless with hopes and fears

Rumi's message transcends the limitation of language and the boundaries of time. Human beings were born for unlimited freedom and infinite bliss, and their birthright is within their grasp. But in order to reach it, they must surrender to love. What makes Rumi's expression of this message different from other expressions is his extraordinary directness and uncanny ability to employ images drawn from everyday life.

Nader Khalili has been able to bring out the fact that Rumi's message has practical and concrete relevance to our everyday world. Beauty, Rumi knows, is a profound need of the human soul, because God is beautiful and the source of all beauty, as God is the soul's only real need. Nader has been performing a major human service by bringing beauty into architectural forms. In this volume he illustrates his versatility by bringing it into linguistic forms as well.
—Professor William C. Chittick, State University of New York, Stony Brook