REVIEW: The Forty Rules Of Love

This book has been sitting on my shelf for some time (along with a few others). I picked it up about two months ago, and today on the train on my way to work, I managed to finished it. Admittedly there were times I skipped the pages, for reasons I share below.

As this book revolves a lot around creed, religion and faith, it is difficult for me to review this book without being neutral. That said, it is obvious that the author of this book has opinions about religion and faith, and so do I.

This book started through the eyes of Ella, a modern housewife, mother and wife to a typical American family (or probably somewhat dysfunctional). Given a book to review, the narrative is then expanded to several more point of views, of which the main ones are the scholar turned sufi called Rumi, and the wandering dervish called Shams. The life of these three characters, among others, are interwoven focusing on spirituality, religion, love and poetry.

I'll tell you the things that I feel good about this book first. 

The narration is great. Simple, but eloquent. You'd probably think that the choices of words are too-straight forward, but to the complexity of the story doesn't warrant it to be too-linguistic. The premise, as a whole, is also great. It is obvious that the author has done a great deal of research (or was taught, or maybe even instilled during her childhood) and she knows what to write about religion, spirituality and history.

That said, not everything that she has written about religion is agreeable to me. Which brings me to the things about this book that left me with a mixed feeling. In Islam (and I believe most religions if not all), there are things that are clear, and there are things that are debatable. I found the author sometimes debate the basic things in Islam that are already clear cut. I do not wish to elaborate those things here as this review is (I think) not read by Muslims only. What annoys me a bit is that all the things being debate is under the pretext of 'love', 'self-belief towards God' and 'doing the right thing'.  Blasphemous? I think yes. Sweet blasphemy? I strongly disagree.

In all honesty, reading this book has been a roller coaster ride for me. There were times I felt elated with its philosophy, and there were also times the idea made me angry I felt like throwing it out the window. There were times I could relate to the characters, and there were times I wished that some characters should just shut up and stop trying to be clever all the time. Things can get too preachy that I simply skipped a few pages.

All in all, the book managed to keep me reading. The same reason that I disagreed with it is probably also the same reason I continued reading it. I cannot simply say I would recommend the book to anybody.

Should any Muslim wish to read the book, I strongly think you should understand the basic teachings of Islam first. And for non-Muslims, if you're looking for a book to understand about Islam, this isn't the book for you to read. For other reasons, the book is pretty enjoyable.