Rumi: The Hidden Treasure
by Shems Friedlander
80 pp., 12 photographs, 5x8 ½,

Rumi, one of the greatest mystics of Islam, is known both for his poetry and for having founded the Mevlevi order, sometimes known as the ‘whirling dervishes’ famous for their ecstatic dancing and music (sema). This book allows fresh insights into the world of Rumi which has lasted over seven hundred years and brings it up to the present with numerous illustrations of the sema today. As well as explaining the significance of the music, the clothing and the ritual that takes place within the Hall of Celestial Sounds, it also presents for the first time a description of the ‘secret’ sema.