51 pages • 1 hour read
Elif ShafakThe Forty Rules of Love
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Water
Water is emphasized again and again throughout the text. In order to seduce her husband, Kimya descends into scented water as a way of cleansing and preparing herself for her marital bed. Discussing the ways that life can be lived, Shams imagines different currents flowing through the same stream, each unique but working in harmony with one another, weaving and bending in order to accommodate. Just before Shams’s death, he summons a mighty rain to fall on his soon-to-be murderers, showing control of the elements. Further, Shams’s body is thrown in a well, submerged in water. For Rumi, raindrops are a reminder of Shams, and one of the many ways that Shams reappears to Rumi. Water is used again and again as a mode of cleansing and preparing, whether it is cleansing and preparing for a lover or for death.
Magic
Magic appears again and again to emphasize the purity and power of characters in the text, especially in moments of vulnerability. In her flashback to her childhood, Kimya remembers the pivotal moment she is able to meet Rumi and request his tutelage and the way that the ghost of his first wife appeared to her. When Shams is about to be killed by the Jackal Head and his cronies, Shams washes the scene with rain that he is able to start and stop by his own volition.
The Letter “B”
Right before the Foreword to Sweet Blasphemy, Aziz describes the importance of the letter B in his novel. Aziz starts every chapter of his novel with the letter B as a nod to Sufi mysticism and to the Arabic spelling of the letter “B.” The dot that is normally placed below the B “embodies the entire universe,” just as the B symbolizes and explains the teachings of the Qur’an and is found in the Bismallah (an invocation to Allah).
The 40 Rules of Love
Safek’s title, The Forty Rules of Love, directly correlates to Shams of Tabriz’s own work, referred to as, The 40 Rules of Love. Shams’s rules, or observations, address the nature of both love and God, and are said to have inspired Rumi in understanding a radical, more universal type of love that influenced Rumi’s future as a mystic love poet. Ella embraces this radical love after reading about Shams and Rumi, and she applies these observations to her own understanding of love, trauma, and the universe.
Related Titles
By Elif Shafak
