Shems Friedlander's Work on Rumi Continues

Shems Friedlander, director of AUC's Apple Center for Graphic Communications and chairman of the Sony Gallery International Advisory Board, continues his efforts to make the message of 13th-century Sufi master Jalaluddin Rumi known and understood throughout the modern world. This fall and winter have been full ones for Friedlander.

The Watkins Review, a British review devoted to publications on the spiritual, chose a still from the film as cover photo for its Autumn/winter issue, which also contained an article by Friedlander on his book Rumi - The Hidden Treasure (Archetype, London, 2002; Fons Vitae, Louisville, 2001).

Following its screenings at the Rumi Festival co-sponsored by the Performing and Visual Arts Department (PVA) and the Adham Center early on in the spring 2002 semester and at the Seattle-based Damah Film Festival in October, his documentary film RUMI: The Wings of Love was selected by the Comite du Film Ethnographique for a January 29, 2003 showing at the world-famous Musee de L'Homme, Paris.

A revised edition of his Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes, with preface by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Foreword by Annemarie Schimmel, is in preparation and a Farsi translation of the original edition is scheduled for publication in Tehran in the late spring.

Friedlander is pleased with the way that his work is gaining international recognition. As he says, "In the West, people love Rumi, but they don't understand him. The main thing I try to get over is that Rumi embraced all religions, but he did so as a Muslim."

Friedlander is now working on a new documentary, on the dhikr—the Remembrance of Allah-to be called The Circles of Remembrance. The film will stress the basic similarities underlying the many different approaches among the Sufi orders to this basic ritual.

By Humphrey Davies