Rumi and the Path of Divine Love in Islam 
Lecture by Dr Omid Safi

Whereas Rumi’s poetry has become far better known, we tend to know much less about the legacy of Radical Love (‘Eshq) that culminates in Rumi, Hafez, Attar, Ahmad Ghazali, and many other Muslim sages. This talk will serve to introduce the audience to the “path of radical love” (mazhab-e ‘eshq; madhhab-i ‘Ishq), a powerful current of mysticism in Islam that begins with a bold claim: There is, ultimately, One Love. It is this Radical Love which brings together humanity and divinity through a mystically powerful cosmic current.  

Date: Saturday January 30, 2016
Time: 8:00 pm
Location: Auditorium, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission: $5

Omid Safi is a prominent Muslim public intellectual, and a professor of Islamic Studies specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and Islamic spirituality. He is the Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center, one of the leading institutions for research on Islam and promoting publicly accessible scholarship on Islam and Muslim communities worldwide.

He is the editor of the volume Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. His work Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam, dealing with medieval Islamic history and politics, was published in 2006. His Memories of Muhammad is an award-winning biography of the Prophet Muhammad. His last volume on American Islam was just published by Cambridge University Press. He has a forthcoming volume from Princeton University Press on the famed mystic Rumi. The Carnegie Foundation recognized Omid as a leading Scholar of Islam in 2007-2008.

Professor Safi has appeared frequently in the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN, and international media, and he regularly blogs at On Being. He leads a summer program in Turkey, Illuminated Tours, which focuses on the spiritual dimension of Islam and the rich encounter of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism there.