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Delicious Laughter: Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the Mathnawi of Jelaluddin Rumi
Book by Coleman Barks, Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi
160 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1990
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About the author
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
1,170 books15.7k followersSufism inspired writings of Persian poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi; these writings express the longing of the soul for union with the divine.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, "our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, "my master") and more popularly simply as Rumi - was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic who lived in Konya, a city of Ottoman Empire (Today's Turkey). His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.
His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto, and Bengali.
Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorāṣān, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by his father, Bahā ud-Dīn Wālad or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards, eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya, where he lived most of his life, composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature, and profoundly affected the culture of the area.
When his father died, Rumi, aged 25, inherited his position as the head of an Islamic school. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic.
On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus.
Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next 12 years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.
In December 1273, Rumi fell ill and died on the 17th of December in Konya.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, "our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, "my master") and more popularly simply as Rumi - was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic who lived in Konya, a city of Ottoman Empire (Today's Turkey). His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.
His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto, and Bengali.
Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorāṣān, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by his father, Bahā ud-Dīn Wālad or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards, eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya, where he lived most of his life, composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature, and profoundly affected the culture of the area.
When his father died, Rumi, aged 25, inherited his position as the head of an Islamic school. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic.
On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus.
Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next 12 years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.
In December 1273, Rumi fell ill and died on the 17th of December in Konya.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 6, 2016
When the house of the brain fills with a wanting,
your heart gets crowded with anxieties.
The rest of the body may be undisturbed,
but in your chest there's constant traffic.
Find a safe haven instead
in the strong autumn wind of awe.
your heart gets crowded with anxieties.
The rest of the body may be undisturbed,
but in your chest there's constant traffic.
Find a safe haven instead
in the strong autumn wind of awe.
December 26, 2025
Not forgetting Coleman Barks not understanding Arabic and censoring out explicit mentions of Islam, these are pretty good 'versions' (as they are called, rather than translations); credit to him for making 800 year old poems palatable for a modern audience. I really liked a lot of these! Some high-quality standard parables (Dying Laughing, Chinese Art and Greek Art, An Early Morning Eye), funny, and/or gross and/or dirty stories (Spiritual Seniority, Muhammed and the Huge Eater), and combinations of the two (Faraj's Wedding Night, The Importance of Gourdcrafting)
E.g.:
- Woman engages in bestiality with a donkey, using a gourd as a sort of "flanged device" to stop it from literally rearranging her guts
- Her maid gets jealous and curious, has a go herself, sans gourd, and literally fucking dies
- Lesson: "You opened your shop before a master taught you the craft"
E.g.:
- Woman engages in bestiality with a donkey, using a gourd as a sort of "flanged device" to stop it from literally rearranging her guts
- Her maid gets jealous and curious, has a go herself, sans gourd, and literally fucking dies
- Lesson: "You opened your shop before a master taught you the craft"
March 19, 2021
This is among my favorites of Coleman's adaptations from Rumi, and some of these teaching stories are side-splitting funny. Some are more mystical; all are concrete in imagery, well selected.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
September 2, 2008
Included in these selections from The Mathnawi are the infamous "Latin parts" that Nicholson chose to translate into Latin rather than into English when he translated The Mathnawi in the 1920s. No one could handle this rowdy translation better than Coleman Barks. These stories may be bawdy and sometimes rude, but always reveal the depth of perception in Rumi's teaching.
January 26, 2009
I've been reading Rumi so long that most of these stories and poems are now familiar to me. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this as an introduction to Rumi, but anyone just starting to get into him who likes the bawdy stuff would find this a favorite.
January 11, 2012
Beautiful raw (sometimes uncomfortably so) poems filled with wisdom. A fresh take on self-realization, old-school style. Caught me off-guard and put me out of my comfort zone, as a great work of art should.
June 17, 2008
Beyond beautiful...
December 3, 2010
Pretty much x-rated. Not a moral judgement, but that was what he wrote.
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January 29, 2022There are those who believe that poetry can't be translated, who believe that a poem must be read in its original language to be fully appreciated. I don't know whether or not I agree, but I can think of a number of examples that support this argument - the most egregious example being the Coleman Barks "translations" of Rumi.
Above is a version of a Rumi poem "translated" by Coleman Barks ("translated" in quotes because Barks can neither read nor speak Persian). Below is a literal translation of the same poem.
The poems of Rumi are sacred, and the "translations" of Coleman Barks are profane - as any act of cultural erasure intended to secularize content for an undiserning audience would be considered profane. I urge everyone to seek out better translations, and to read more about these faux-translations here: Persian Poetics
Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
Above is a version of a Rumi poem "translated" by Coleman Barks ("translated" in quotes because Barks can neither read nor speak Persian). Below is a literal translation of the same poem.
Beyond kufr and Islam there is a desert plain,
in that middle space our passions reign.
When the gnostic arrives there he'll prostrate himself,
not kufr, not Islam, nor is thereany space in that domain.
The poems of Rumi are sacred, and the "translations" of Coleman Barks are profane - as any act of cultural erasure intended to secularize content for an undiserning audience would be considered profane. I urge everyone to seek out better translations, and to read more about these faux-translations here: Persian Poetics
April 8, 2025
These particular poems, part of a six-volume masterwork, the Mathnawi, by Jelaluddin Rumi, the Sufi mystic, are teaching stories using an array of human properties (including the compulsive, ludicrous, bawdy and sanctimonious) to give a "glimpse of the inner life". Coleman Barks writes in the introduction, "Everything is a metaphor for this poet. Muhammed said the Greater war (Jihad) is the struggle inside the Self. For Rumi, anything that human beings do, any cruelty, any blindness, resonates with wisdom about the inner life. Any love-impulse especially, however distorted, moves as part of a larger Wanting...Rumi does not so much judge them as hold them up for a lens to look into the growth of the soul, which is the deep subject behind these stories." These stories are filled with indiscreet depictions of human activities, as well as mundance surprises coupled with the organic unfolding of mystical teachings.
December 6, 2016
As lover of Rumi nothing gives greater joy and deeper wisdom than the teaching tales from late in his life. This collection includes all of the wry and naughty poems previously untranslated in the West. Rumi makes the ribald into a lesson of divination. Wonderful collection.
November 4, 2018
Great poems that continue to grow as the reader does, it's a lively collection of stories with great depth of radiance.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews