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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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When mysterious letters start arriving on his doorstep, Harry Potter has never heard of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

They are swiftly confiscated by his aunt and uncle.

Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a strange man bursts in with some important news: Harry Potter is a wizard and has been awarded a place to study at Hogwarts.

And so the first of the Harry Potter adventures is set to begin.

Publishers:
UK Print - Bloomsbury
US Print - Scholastic
eBook - Pottermore
Digital Audiobook - Pottermore
UK Illustrated - Bloomsbury
US Illustrated - Scholastic
UK MinaLima edition - Bloomsbury
US MinaLima edition - Scholastic

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling

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Autem tantas scripserit id eum. Consul vocibus et vix, sed iusto paulo omnium ex, dicit tation ut vel.

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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

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Robert Downey Jr., Michael Keaton, and Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

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Kung Fu Panda (2008)

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Whale Rider (2002)

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The True Meaning of Leadership - Taught by Our Children

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Today, while the rest of the world was asleep, children and students in New Zealand woke up, skipped school, and instead flocked together in more than 20 cities around the country to kick off the Global Climate Strike. As morning arose over Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, the same thing happened in more than 2000 cities across 123 countries. It's estimated that millions of people under 20 years old took to the streets.

This is a historic event. Never before have children and young adults organized a global protest, and rarely has the world seen a protest of this scale and scope.

Today is a day that politicians and corporate leaders should note. Why? Because today a new standard for leadership has emerged.

It all started with a 16-year-old Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg. At the age of 9, she became depressed when she learned that we humans are destroying our planet, as we simultaneously post happy, celebratory pictures on social media. She sensed a collective condition of self-deception.

At 15, she decided to take the only action she felt available to a teenager. She went on strike from school, exclaiming that there's no point in studying if we have no future. She created a small banner that read "School strike for the climate" and started a one-person protest in front of the Swedish parliament.

At first, she was ridiculed. But she persisted. She deeply understood that it was the only rational thing to do. After six months of standing outside in the Nordic weather, the media started to pay attention.

Greta is now considered by many to be an oracle. She's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and invited to present at multiple global forums, including giving a TED talk. While speaking to an assembled crowd of billionaires, heads of state, and celebrities at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in a matter-of-fact way, she said, "Adults keep saying we owe to the children to give them hope. But I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act if as the house was on fire."

At the United Nations Climate Summit, she asserted, "You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You're not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden, you leave to us children. You say you love your children above all else, and yet you're stealing their future in front of their very eyes. "

Fearless, she speaks truth to power. We all know that we're approaching the irreversible climate events that threaten to make earth uninhabitable. Thousands of scientists have documented the trends, the causes, and the likely outcomes - all beyond any reasonable doubt. Still, governments and companies fail to acknowledge this reality, let alone agree on or implement a solution.

Multiple dictionaries define leadership as "the action of leading a group of people or an organization." Any sensible understanding of leadership should focus on the greater good, and especially on the greater good for the long term. In this light, the formal leaders of the world - governments, foundations, think tanks, and corporations - have failed. Miserably.

But today something changed.

Greta Thunberg has inspired a whole new generation of emerging leaders; young people all over the world who take responsibility, who organize themselves around caring for our one and only planet, and who advocate for the long-term greater good.

Today is a day for politicians and corporate leaders to take note. If they care about votes or customers, they must put climate change at the top of their agenda. Like Greta and the young people she's inspired, they must begin to lead for the long-term greater good.

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The True Meaning of Leadership - Taught by Our Children

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Today, children and students all over the world have skipped school, and instead flocked together in more than 2000 cities across 123 countries to participate in the Global Climate Strike. It's estimated that millions of people under 20 years old took to the streets.

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Culture and Leadership: They’re Simply Two Sides of the Same Coin

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The good news is that culture has caught on as a concept. but leading culture expert Edgar Schein, says it's just as a "word" and people need to be aware that 90 percent of their behavior is driven by cultural rules and not personality.

Schein, a best-selling author and Professor Emeritus with MIT Sloan School of Management, shared this and other key insights about culture and leadership in the second part of a recent interview with CultureUniversity.com.

He continues to be troubled by the misuse of the word "culture" and the "failure of people to see that culture is not this surface phenomenon, but it is our very core, that we live in culture, we display a culture, and we are always driven by the culture."

Leaders create culture

Schein believes that:

Culture and leadership are two sides of the same coin. When organizations start or when groups start there is always a leader who has a preferred way of doing things, and those preferences by definition are going to be imposed on the group members. If you don't like the way I run this group, I'll replace you. The leader's values and preferences are the first ways that a group or organization does things and if that works it becomes eventually the culture of that group. So in a very real sense, founders and leaders create culture."

In an established organization, "the way in which they've always done things limits what a leader can do, even what defines a leader in that organization." A leader can't just walk in and do things their way," he said. "The system will not let you."

Schein pointed out that,

"Once IBM is IBM, once GE is GE, only certain kinds of leaders will be tolerated. When Carly Fiorina came to Hewlett-Packard, she immediately raised hackles all over the place because she was too flamboyant, she wanted to do expensive stuff, so that limited the amount that she could do as a leader. So you can see that culture constrains leadership in a mature company just as leaders create culture in a young company."

Leaders should use humble inquiry

Schein believes leaders should not focus on changing culture but on solving business problems and he outlined this and other insights in part one of his interview.

His most recent book, Humble Inquiry - The Gentle Art of Asking and Not Telling, outlines an approach leaders should utilize to build trust and surface real issues and potential solutions to those business problems.

He explained it this way:

Humble inquiry is creating a climate in which you display, through your asking genuine questions, an interest in the other person such that they will want to tell you the truth about what really is going on. Now why is that important? I think the major pathology in all organizations that I've seen is that upward communication is very faulty.

Subordinates know lots of things that would make the place work better or safer that they for various reasons withhold. If you survey them and ask 'why aren't you telling your boss what is really going on, they'll say 1) he shoots the messengers, 2) I used to tell him but he never really took any interest in it, or 3) I tell him but they never fix anything so I no longer have any incentive to tell.'

Now, if I'm right and that is the problem, the only way to cure that is for the boss to change his behavior, to go to that subordinate and engage in humble inquiry. Say to that subordinate, 'I'm really interested in what you see in how we can be safer and better and what not, and I'm listening.' If the boss doesn't do that, we are going to continue to have accidents and low quality products because the information isn't surfacing."

We all have experience with the Humble Inquiry

All of us know how to be humbly inquiring. We do it with our friends, relatives, children and parents, so it's not a skill we don't have. (The issue is) "when we take it to the work place, for some reason we think we should now get stiff and formal.

The switch I have to learn to make, if I'm an old leader and I'm dissatisfied and want to change this, is I have to wake up to the fact that these subordinates are people and I have to get interested in them. If I get interested in them and curious, the behavior will become natural. It is not a new skill, it is applying an old skill in a new setting and recognizing its relevance."

Leaders should "orchestrate"

Edgar Schein had some interesting insights into why more leaders don't apply humble inquiry.

The larger culture of management says: once you're a manager, now you have the right to tell other people what to do which is really how a lot of young managers behave. They think, ' OK, now I'm the boss, so I get to tell.' This culture of 'tell' is very congruent with Western capitalist culture because our whole foundation is built on the higher you go, the more you know and the more you can tell people what to do.

Work now is a highly distributed process where lots of things have to play together for the product to go out the door and so it's no longer a case of where the manager can tell what to do. The manager now has to orchestrate, create relationships and make sure everything works together.

I don't think very many managers have figured that out. They still think they're the boss rather than the orchestrator."

Do you agree with the need for leaders to focus on humble inquiry and being an "orchestrator"?

This post originally appeared on CultureUniversity.com with a full interview video and transcript.

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Culture and Leadership: They're Simply Two Sides of the Same Coin

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The good news is that culture has caught on as a concept. but leading culture expertÂ Edgar Schein, says itâ€™s just as a â€œwordâ€ and people need to be aware that 90 percent of their behavior is driven by cultural rules and not personality.

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Quotes And Leadership Lessons From The Live Action Lion King

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I can't tell you how excited I was to see the new, live-action Lion King movie. The Lion King was a favorite movie of mine and to see it brought to life seemed like a no-brainer.

Oh... how wrong I was.

The latest Disney animated movie to be brought to life didn't wow and engage like their previous effort, Aladdin. Instead, Pam and I sat bored in the theater watching this trainwreck of a movie.

The new Lion King felt uninspired and thrown together. Nothing truly caught my attention and I was disappointed because of this.

If you do go and watch the live-action Lion King, know you won't be in for a great movie. You'll be in for a great movie made into something mediocre.

However, if you go to see the live-action Lion King for the leadership lessons it could contain, you won't be disappointed. I walked away with pages of notes. Today, we're going to look at those in the latest Reel Leadership article.

Quotes And Leadership Lessons From The Live-Action Lion King

1. Leadership is vast in scope:

The live-action Lion King opens much like the original animated Lion King. The creatures of the pride land have gathered to honor the birth of young Simba (voiced by JD McCrary and Donald Glover).

There were all kinds of animals present. There were antelopes and giraffes. Lions and monkeys abound as well. You probably saw every type of animal living in Africa appear in this scene.

The scope of animals in the Lion King was breathtaking.

Leadership is a lot like this scene in the Lion King. Leadership is vast in scope.

When you think of the scope of leadership, your thoughts can wander to:

Personal development training

Relationship development

Time management

Project management

And so much more. Leadership isn't about a single thing. Leadership is about many things.

2. Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor):

Life's not fair, is it my friend?

Scar is Simba's uncle. He's also the bad guy in the Lion King.

In one scene, he does share a wise thought with his nephew. He tells the young lion that life isn't fair.

Oh, how you and I need to grasp this truth. Life isn't fair to us. Life isn't fair to our team members. And life isn't fair to anyone else.

When you're able to grasp this truth, life and leadership become so much easier.

3. We can give people too many chances:

Zazu (John Oliver) is Mufasa's (James Earl Jones) majordomo. He helps to care for Simba. He's also a wise red-billed hornbill.

Zazu talks to Mufasa and shares his thoughts about Scar. He tells Mufasa that Scar should have been expelled from the kingdom many years ago.

Mufasa isn't happy with Zazu after he hears this. Mufasa continuously struggled with what to do with his brother. His desire to keep his brother around eventually leads to his death.

As leaders, it is up to us whether or not to give someone a second or third or fourth chance. Many times, extra chances are okay.

Yet we also have to weigh the consequences of giving people another chance.

Be careful to whom you give another chance to. The extra chance you give may be your downfall.

4. Mufasa:

While others search for what they can take, a true king searches for what he can give.

Mufasa takes his son on an adventure. He shows Simba what will be his one day. Simba is amazed.

But the wisdom Mufasa drops to Simba is profound. Mufasa knows true leadership doesn't come from what they can take. A true leader is one who gives.

This goes for you and me as well. If we want to be great leaders, we have to search for what we can give.

What can you give to those you lead?

5. Understand balance:

Mufasa understood balance. He shared this wisdom with Simba.

He tells Simba the animal kingdom is balanced. From the antelope to the ant, they create balance. And, even though the antelope feed the lions, one day the death of a lion would feed an antelope.
Everything is a balancing act.
Leaders need to understand balance. There's a fine line between chaos and balance. Figuring out the balance will help you lead your team well.

6. Mufasa:

Ready for some fun?

While Mufasa was a serious lion king, he also had fun. When he saw Zazu coming to give his report, he let Simba have fun as well.

He showed Simba how to stalk Zazu. And then he let Simba pounce at the bird.

This scared Zazu but it also allowed Simba to have fun.

Leaders aren't always serious. There are times leaders can have fun. Learn those times and then revel in them.

7. Be careful what you say to others:

Simba and Scar talk after Scar sees Simba fail at stalking a beetle. Simba shares something he shouldn't have with his uncle.

In a scene that reminds me of Joseph and his brothers, Simba tells Scar one day he would be king. When he was king, he would be giving orders to his uncle.

This didn't settle well with Scar. Simba's words only fanned the jealousy Scar had towards Mufasa and Simba.

We have to be careful about how we talk to others, especially those we lead. We have to talk with respect to those we lead.

If we try to tell them how they have to listen to us or how we're going to demand them to work, we're going to push them away.

Be careful what you say to others and how you say it. Your words and tone matter.

8. Immature leaders can't wait for control:

Do you remember what Simba's problem was? He couldn't wait to be king. He was so excited to be king to have control over everything.

His desire for control led him down a dark path. One he almost never recovered from.

You have to be wary of young leaders who are looking for control. If you see this desire in an up and coming leader, show them there's a better way.

Help them realize leadership isn't about gaining control. Leadership is about helping others realize their potential.

9. We need to be reminded of our own headstrongness:

Simba and Nala (voiced by Shahadi Wright Joseph and Beyonce) ran away to the elephant graveyard. Simba desired to be seen as an adult lion and he took a friend with him.

Mufasa was understandably upset when he found out what Simba and Nala had done. He ran to the elephant graveyard to save the pair. When he got there, he saved the two lion cubs. He was also ready to give them a tongue lashing.

This is when Zazu stepped in. He told Mufasa to remember what he was like as a young lion cub. Mufasa had been a headstrong lion, much like Simba.

You may be ready to rip into one of your team members because they were reckless or headstrong. They did something and there was a consequence they hadn't seen coming.

It's our human nature to want to set things straight. However, we have to be willing to remember how we were when we were younger. We were just as headstrong or foolish as our young team members.

Remember this before you correct. You were once just like them.

10. Bad leaders will mislead:

As Simba's uncle, Scar was in a leadership position to Simba. Simba looked up to him and listened to what he said.

Should Simba have listened to his uncle? No, he shouldn't have. Scar looked for opportunities to mislead and hurt his nephew.

Scar lied to Simba about

The elephant graveyard

How to find his roar

Mufasa's death

Bad leaders will find ways to mislead their team members. They will do this to bolster their own status or for their own good.

Beware of leaders like this. They can be hard to spot and they will do major damage.

11. We need friends:

After Mufasa's death, Simba ran away from his pack. He ran long and hard and eventually passed out. Once he was out, the vultures began to circle him.

Simba was lucky. There were two new characters about to be introduced. Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) noticed the vultures and were going to play vulture bowling.

Their timing was impeccable. They saved Simba's life and a new friendship was formed.

Who do you have as close friends? Do you have anyone you could say is a friend?

Leaders can't lead alone. Leaders need friends outside of the business world to interact and grow with.

Find your pack. Grow your friendships. Make sure you're doing life with others.

12. Pumbaa:

But we can help him. We're in a position to help him.

Pumbaa and Timon disagreed on whether or not to help Simba at first. Simba was a lion, after all.

Yet Pumbaa knew something great leaders know. If you have the power to help someone, you should consider helping them.

13. Bad leaders destroy organizations:

Scar took over the pride land after Mufasa's death. He began working towards his own desires.

His desires brought ruin and death to the pride land. The lush environment and thriving animal life were gone.

When a bad leader takes control of an organization, they will slowly but surely bring death to the organization. They will strangle out the good work that had been done and replaces it with their vision.

Sadly, this will see many great team members leave. Clients will leave. Eventually, bad leaders will destroy what they're leading.

14. Nala:

You have to take your place as king.

Nala went on the hunt and found Timon and Pumbaa. She began to stalk them and almost killed them when Simba intervened.

This rekindled a romance between the pair of lions. It also prompted Nala to confront Simba.

Nala knew the kingdom needed a good king. She saw goodness in Simba. Because of this, she told Simba he needed to take his place as king.

People can spot a good leader far off. They can sense when a person would do good for an organization.

If someone tells you that you need to step up and be a leader, listen to them. They're not doing this to blow smoke. They're telling you this because they believe in you and know you would rock it.

Listen to those who are encouraging you to lead. They can see your potential when you cannot.

15. The right mentor matters:

Scar drove Simba away from his pack. He told Simba lies and made him believe this. This created shame in Simba's life.

On the other hand, Rafiki (John Kani) was a great mentor to Simba. He pushed Simba to become better. To remember who he was.

Finding the right mentor matters to your ability to lead well. Find a mentor who aligns with your beliefs and has the skills you will need in the future.

Listen to them. Let them guide and mold you into the leader you must become.

16. Shame holds us back:

Why did Simba run from his pack? Scar shamed him. Scar made him believe he was the reason for his father's death.

Shame wouldn't let Simba return to his home. Only when he overcame the shame was he able to go home.

Shame will hold you back as a leader. You will feel like you don't belong or you can't do the job well.

Find the source of shame. Then beat shame back.

17. Mentors never truly leave us:

Rafiki helped Simba believe Mufasa was still with him. While Mufasa was dead, he still lived on.

He lived on in the heart of Simba. Simba could reach back into his memories and figure out what his father would have done. His mentor never left him.

And your mentors will never truly leave you. Every time they pour into you, they're leaving a part of themselves with you. This part will grow and develop as you listen to what they say.

Their words of wisdom and inspiration will be there for you when you need them.

18. Simba:

Come on! What are you waiting for?

When Simba overcame his shame and realized he could go back to his home, he began his journey home. Along the way, he ran into Nala who had also begun her trek back after Simba refused to go.

When he ran into Nala, he called her to go. He told her to "Come on! What are you waiting for?" He called her to join him on his journey back.

Are you calling others into your leadership journey? There are plenty of people who can join you in addition to your friends.

You can call

Rock star team members

Former coworkers at another organization

Friends or family

to join you in the organization you're leading now. By doing so, you will have people by your side and along for the journey.

19. Sarabi (Alfre Woodard):

A true king's power is his compassion.

Sarabi is Simba's mother. She stuck around the pride land to help the other lions.

Scar continuously pursued her. With her rejections, he taunted her.

Sarabi had to rebuke Scar when he criticized Mufasa's care for others. Sarabi knew Mufasa's strength as a king was his compassion.

Are you having compassion for those you lead? Compassion isn't a weakness. Compassion is a strength.

When you have compassion for others, you can offer them something of yourself. You can show them grace or help them to grow. Or you might have to help them get through a tough spot.

Be a compassionate leader. By showing compassion, you will win the hearts of your team.

20. Great leaders restore:

Scar did a number on the pride land. He destroyed what was once lush and beautiful.

Simba did the opposite. He found a way to restore the pride land to their former glory.

Be a leader who restores what has been destroyed. Look for ways to bring life back to a dying organization.

Great leaders do this. You can do this.

21. Just because you can doesn't mean you should:

The original animated Lion King was a masterpiece. The movie holds up still today. I don't see the same holding true for the new Lion King.

In months, this Lion King will be forgotten. Or it may be remembered as a giant misstep by Disney.

Disney knew they could make a live-action Lion King. So they did. This doesn't mean they should have.

You will have the ability to do things. This doesn't mean you should do them.

Consider wisely what you will do before you do it. Don't do it because you can. Do it because you should.

If you'd like to be reminded of the Reel Leadership lessons in the animated Lion King, be sure to click the link.

Question: If you've watched the live-action Lion King, what leadership lessons did you take away from the movie? If you haven't seen the movie, what Reel Leadership lessons from the live-action Lion King that I shared resonated with you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Quotes And Leadership Lessons From The Live Action Lion King

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I can't tell you how excited I was to see the new, live-action Lion King movie. The Lion King was a favorite movie of mine and to see it brought to life seemed like a no-brainer. Oh... how wrong I was. The latest Disney animated movie to be brought to life didn't wow and engage [...]

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Leadership: Getting the Truth

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"You can't handle the truth!"

Most people know that line from the movie, A Few Good Men. But if you're the person in charge, handling the truth is your second problem. The first problem you must solve is getting it in the first place.

If you're a leader, the truth is hard to come by. You'll never be able to scrape up enough facts and reliable data to be sure of any decision. You're always "under uncertainty."

Human nature conspires against you, too. People who work for you would prefer not to be the messenger who gets killed. They've seen plenty of messengers get killed over the years, so even if you're a different kind of boss, they can't be sure.

Then, to make things even worse, you're pretty good at shading the truth yourself. A host of biases and a psychological tic or two can make it seem like you're hearing the truth when you're not.

In this post, I'm using the word "truth" in two ways. One way is that the truth is information that matches reality. The other is "truth" in the sense of "candor." Candor is when people give you their honest judgment about something.

How do you get the truth so you can handle it? Here are four things to do.

Get Out of Your Office

John Le Carre was right. "A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world."

When you're in the office, you get reports and lots of filtered information. You increase the odds you'll hear something new, fresh, and true, if you get out of your office. Whether you call it "MBWA" or whatever you choose, most great bosses do it.

Harold Washington was the head of public housing in Oakland. He used to say that reports were great, but they won't tell you if the 8th floor landing was swept properly. That's why he made it a point to visit the different buildings he was responsible for. He'd ride in the elevators, walk the stairs, visit the playgrounds, and chat with the residents. Sometimes, he'd ring random doorbells and ask people how things were going.

Sam Walton was fond of saying, "Nothing important happens in Bentonville." So, he got out to visit the stores. This wasn't a "idiot from corporate" visit, either. He walked around the stores and talked to people. He checked to see what merchandise was moving. And he always got back to Bentonville with a list of things that Wal-Mart could do better.

One way to get the truth is to get out of your office and go looking for it.

Develop Alternative Sources of Information

Every great boss I've observed or worked with has developed a way to get alternative information. My boss, and later mentor, Leonard Tompkins, was the head of a small corporation, but he opened the mail every day. Most of the successful leaders I've seen look for ways to find out about what's going on without getting a report.

One successful executive I know worked for a company with plants in several towns. He subscribed to the newspapers for all those towns. He learned things he would not have learned otherwise about what was going on in the field.

Find and Treasure Your Truth-Tellers

Every organization has people who aren't afraid of you. They'll tell you what they think, no matter what. Most of the time, those people aren't beholden to you.

In one company I worked with, there was a man who had been with the founder since the beginning. The company outgrew his skillset. He was still there because the founder could ask what he thought about almost anything and get an honest opinion.

Most of the time, you must go outside your sphere of influence to get that kind of honesty. Coaches are a great source. Many leaders belong to peer support groups. They're made up of other people in similar jobs, but in different companies.

Don't Kid Yourself

Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman said, "You must not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool."

Most of us think our performance is far better than it is. 80 percent of drivers, for example, say they're in the top half of all drivers.

We judge ourselves differently than we judge others. We judge others by the effect of their behavior. But we judge ourselves by our intent. Not only that, we are "conformation bias on parade."

This is particularly deadly for you as a leader. You can kid yourself into thinking you're doing research to evaluate your opinion, when you're just gathering support. And the people who work for you know what you want and are likely to help you confirm your cherished ideas.

Bottom Line

Getting the truth and honest opinions is important if you want to be the best leader you can be, but it's devilishly hard.

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Three Star Leadership | Wally Bock | Leadership: Getting the Truth

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"You can't handle the truth!" Most people know that line from the movie, A Few Good Men. But if you're the person in charge, handling the truth is your second problem. The first problem you must solve is getting it in the first place. If you're a leader, the truth is hard to come by.

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Are Athletes Good Role Models?

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The term role model is defined as "a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially younger people" ( Random House Dictionary). Accordingly, a brain surgeon or airline pilot can be a role model for similarly motivated boys and girls. Role models may have a considerable impact on a person's values, education, and chosen training objectives. For example, they have been shown to have significant effects on female students' self-confidence in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields.
What about sport stars as role models?
There's a history of speculation and argument about athletes taking on the status of role models. In 1993, Nike ran a ground-breaking TV commercial from early April through the end of the NBA playoffs. The ad featured Charles Barkley proclaiming "I am not a role model." At the time, he was a superstar hoopster for the Phoenix Suns, and his comment generated quite a stir, as he staunchly defended his position.
What was so controversial about what "Sir Charles" said?
He emphasized that athletes' ability to make baskets or catch touchdown passes has nothing to do with being a role model. That is, having sporting ability doesn't automatically qualify a person to be a role model. Rather, Barkley believed that's a job for parents. I agree and would include teachers and coaches who spend a huge amount of time with kids and influence their upbringing and future success.
Like it or not, our society has a strong dependence on athletes as role models for children and adolescents.
Athletes are role models whether or not they choose to take on the responsibility, and whether they are good or bad role models. But athlete "hero worship" wasn't always as prevalent as it is today. There was a time when others served as America's role models (civic leaders, clergy, legal and medical experts, etc.). It might be argued that the shift reflects decay in our nation's moral standards.

On the other hand, some exceptional athletes have important messages for their fans. For example, former heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis made a significant contribution to youngsters' understanding of appropriate masculine behavior, when he made a public service announcement that "Real men don't hit women." The point is clear: Athletes have an incredible opportunity to use their celebrity power to positively influence the next generation.
What are the qualities that make an athlete a good role model?

Enthusiastic about being a role model. The athlete welcomes the platform for promoting positive societal change-a willing crusader for good.

Altruistic mission. The athlete uses the position to share messages of inspiration and hope-a selfless drive to benefit others.

Makes a commitment to behaving in ways that reflect high moral values. The athlete acts in ways that support personal integrity.

Presents himself or herself in a realistic and responsible manner. "I'm not a role model because I'm a superstar jock, but because I'm a great person." The athlete also helps fans realize that he or she isn't perfect. After all, role models are only people with weaknesses and flaws. They're not immaculate idols.

Freely devotes time and energy to community activities. The athlete makes appearances at neighborhood events, serves on local boards, works with charity organizations, etc.

Champions a mastery goal orientation. The athlete focuses on personal effort and accomplishments instead of making comparisons with others. In a sense, mastery oriented people compare themselves with themselves. They can feel success and satisfaction when they have learned something new, seen skill improvement in themselves, or given maximum effort. Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden captured the essence of a mastery orientation in his famous definition of success: "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable." (For more information, see my Psychology Today blog titled "How to Be a Winner".)

Possesses a keen sense of empathy. The athlete has the capacity to share or recognize emotions experienced by others. Empathy involves putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing how much you can truly understand them. It includes caring for others and having a desire to help them. Empathy motivates pro-social behavior designed to aid in solving communal challenges. As emphasized by Stephen R. Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, "When you show empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems."

Displays a healthy balance between striving for excellence and having fun in the process. The athlete promotes the virtues of working hard to achieve goals and the importance of enjoying the journey.

A word of caution is warranted.
Youngsters who believe their sport heroes are the most fantastic people in the world and can do no wrong are vulnerable to disappointment. Why? Because examples of fallen stars are many, such as Alex Rodriguez and Lance Armstrong who admitted to the use of performance enhancing drugs. When a revered athlete goes astray, it can create disillusionment and even trauma. So, here's the bottom line: Kids shouldn't be allowed to become too attached to athletes as role models.
Do you want to learn more about parenting and coaching young athletes?

The Mastery Approach to Parenting in Sports and Mastery Approach to Coaching are research-based videos that emphasize skill development, achieving personal and team success, giving maximum effort, and having fun.

To access the videos, go to the Youth Enrichment in Sports website.

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The term role model is defined as "a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially younger people" ( Random House Dictionary). Accordingly, a brain surgeon or airline pilot can be a role model for similarly motivated boys and girls.

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Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Aladdin

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I can show you the world Shining, shimmering splendid Tell me, princess, now when did You last let your heart decide? These lyrics defined a generation much like " Do you want to build a snowman? Or ride our bike around the halls? I think some company is overdue I've started talking to The pictures on the walls!" from Frozen has defined the current generation for many young people.

I remember when the animated version of Aladdin was released in 1992. The animation was stunning. The story was engaging. And the music was top notch.

There were few people who didn't fall in love with Aladdin at this time. Now, it's time for a whole new generation to fall in love with the Aladdin story in a whole new way.

Disney released the live-action version of Aladdin to adoring audiences this past weekend. The characters in Aladdin were brought to life in a beautiful way. Aladdin felt so similar to the original animated movie yet so different (in a good way).

The story revolves around a young street urchin turned prince named Aladdin (Mena Massoud). His pursuit of Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) leads him into the evil clutches of the Royal Vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari). Through this encounter with Jafar, Aladdin finds a magical lamp and meets with the Genie (Will Smith).

Disney and the cast did a terrific job of bringing the classic animated movie to real life. They also did a great job of bringing Reel Leadership lessons to the screen.

There are plenty of leadership lessons in Aladdin. You'll discover them as we take the magic ride through Aladdin through the eyes of Reel Leadership.

Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Aladdin

1. The desire for more isn't what life is about:

Aladdin opens with a small boat passing a larger boat. Two children were discussing how great it would be to own such a large vessel. Then their father, the mariner (Will Smith), breaks into their conversation.

He tells them he has a story to tell them. That the desire for larger things isn't what life is about. And we dive into the tale of Aladdin.

We've been inundated with conversations on how to get more. How to be more. How we shouldn't settle for less than what we deserve.

But what if all of that isn't the truth? What if you and I could be happy with what we have right here, right now? The world would be a better place.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having a desire for more. It's when the desire for more begins to consume you, this is when the desire is wrong. Be careful that your desire isn't consuming and changing you.

2. Great leaders are generous leaders:

Aladdin didn't have much. In fact, he was a thief to survive. He would steal from the local merchants and customers.

Bracelets... Fruits... Clothing... Nothing was safe from young Aladdin's hands.

However, Aladdin wasn't thinking only of himself when he stole. There is a scene in the movie where he sees a young boy who looks hungry. Aladdin has a bag of dates. He chose to give those dates to the young boy instead of eating them himself.

Aladdin was a thief, yes. He was also generous with what he had.

How are you with generosity? Do you see your ability to gain and build wealth strictly for your benefit? Or is there a greater desire for your money and possessions?

Great leaders know they won't be able to take their wealth with them. They also know they can make more money even if they give it away. They see the ability to give as a blessing. One they must honor.

They look for ways to give back to those they lead and to their community. They look for ways to invest in worthy organizations, their churches, and the people they do life with.

Be a generous leader.

3. Aladdin:

Where's the fun in that?

By this point in the movie, Aladdin had met a disguised Jasmine. They were running from the guards. They had to escape.

Aladdin saw an escape path. He could jump out a window, land on a cloth awning, bounce off of another, and get to the ground.

The disguised Jasmine chastised Aladdin for taking such a risk. It was dangerous and there was an easier path. Aladdin's answer? Where's the fun in that?

When you're leading, you don't have to be serious all of the time. There is a time and place for seriousness. There's also a time and a place for fun.

Look for ways to introduce you and your team to fun activities. You might make a fun game time during lunch. Or you could introduce fun colors to the office.

The office doesn't have to be boring and drab. There can be fun.

4. Your vantage point is different the higher you get:

Princess Jasmine was often barred from leaving the castle. Her father, the Sultan (Navid Negahban), wanted to keep her safe. That was his way of protecting his daughter.

The Sultan's actions kept her from seeing the world around her. She had one point of view. This view was limited in scope.

While hanging out with Aladdin, she was able to go higher and higher in the city. She eventually looked out over the city from Aladdin's house.

The view was stunning. It was like nothing she had ever seen before.

Changing her vantage point changed what Jasmine saw. The higher she got in the city, the more she could see. The same happens with leadership.

When you rise in the ranks, your vantage point changes. You will see different aspects of the organization. Many you never saw or thought about before.

Take it in when you rise up a level. Look over what you can now see.

5. Give people something new:

Many classic songs make a return in the Aladdin remake. You will still hear songs like the Genie's You've Got A Friend In Me and A Whole New World. They knew they had to keep the classic soundtrack.

They also knew they had to give the audience something new. One of the new things in Aladdin is an update of the classic songs. There's been some changes to the songs you remember. And the changes were fun.

There's also the addition of two new songs in Aladdin. They gave the audience something new to go along with the old.

You can check out the Aladdin soundtrack on Amazon

Your organization's offerings may be stagnant. They may rarely change. This doesn't mean you can't give your customers something new once in a while.

Look for ways to introduce a new way to deliver your current products. Find a chance to introduce a twist to your current offerings.

Little tweaks along the way can add in big delight for your customers.

6. Beware of bad counsel:

Jafar was out for his own desires. He wanted the power of the Sultan. He actively pursued it.

So much so, he was using his snake staff to hypnotize the Sultan to do his bidding. Under his spell, Jafar would offer ideas to the Sultan. Ideas the Sultan would never think of without the bad counsel.

You may believe everyone on your team is out for the betterment of the team. There will be people who are only looking out for themselves. In doing so, they will offer up bad counsel.

Measure the advice you're given. Make sure it aligns with the values of your organization. Make sure you're not being used to do something that isn't right.

7. Jafar:

You cannot read experience.

While Jafar is the villain in Aladdin, he also has his moments of wisdom. When he uttered the line of "You cannot read experience," he was speaking the truth.

You can read all you want. You can fill yourself with as much knowledge as your mind can hold. What you cannot do is gain experience from reading. You have to experience things to gain experience.

If you're not out there, doing things, you're not gaining experience. You need to put to use what you're learning. What you're reading.

Only by doing, will you become a better leader.

8. Jasmine (repeating a saying from her mother):

We can only be as happy as our least happy subject.

Jasmine was thinking about the things her mother used to say. One of those was the line above.

Have you ever thought about this? As a leader, can you truly be happier than the least of those you serve? I think Jasmine's mother was onto something with this.

We may be able to appear happier. But are we?

If you know you're hurting someone. If you're not being fair to someone. Or showing respect to those you lead... Are you really going to be happy doing what you're doing?

Look out for the welfare of those you lead. Their happiness will impact your happiness.

9. Have friends who will hold you accountable:

Aladdin entered the Cave of Wonders under the orders of Jafar. He was to seek out the Genie's lamp and return the lamp to Jafar. Along the way, he was not to touch anything in the cave.

There was a temptation. Aladdin wanted to touch some of the jewelry as they sought the magical lamp. At that moment, Aladdin had a friend to hold him accountable. Abu was that friend.

Abu slapped Aladdin when he reached for the jewelry. He was there to make sure Aladdin was going to stay on track.

Do you have a friend who will hold you accountable? The decisions of a leader carry a lot of weight. The decisions also affect many people.

Having someone who will tell you to do the right thing will be a godsend. You need to have a friend in your life who you will hold you accountable with the decisions you make.

10. Genie:

There isn't enough money and power in the world for you to be satisfied.

Genie told Aladdin a truth few too many people truly grasp. Genie told Aladdin regardless of the money or the power he gains, he will never be truly satisfied. Power and money only create a desire for more power and money.

Have you fallen into this trap? Do you look for the next best opportunity? We have to be careful about what we desire.

Money... Power... These things will not satisfy you. You will always desire more if this is what you're chasing after.

When we seek the tempory, we won't be satisfied. We have to seek out the eternal.

11. Be interested in what other people desire:

Genie and Aladdin had a little heart to heart conversation. During the conversation, Aladdin asked Genie what he would wish for.

Genie's response may surprise you. No one had ever asked Genie what he would wish for. This left him speechless.

Aladdin was interested in what Genie would want. He was also willing to give Genie what he wished for.

When's the last time you asked your team what they desired or would wish for? If it wasn't recently, you need to find time to ask your team this question.

By learning what your team desires, you learn what motivates them. Their motivation will vary from team member to team member but you will get an understanding of why they're working.

Get to know your people. Learn their desires. Help them fulfill them.

12. Genie:

When you're the genie, someone always wants something from you.

Because of the Genie's ability to grant wishes, everyone he meets wants something from him. They desire him to grant their wishes and make him happy.

This is a lonely road. He doesn't have a true friend because he can give people everything they want while he's held captive.

Sometimes, leadership can feel this way. Your team will constantly come to you... Looking for you to give them something.

Whether it's a promotion, raise, or wisdom, people will seek you for the things you can provide. Leadership can become lonely ... Even hurtful.

Know you're putting yourself in a position to have a lot asked of you. Be willing to give.

13. Great leaders inspire trust:

Aladdin, as Prince Ali, showed Jasmine his magic carpet. He asked her to get on the carpet with him.

To do so, he had to gain the trust of Jasmine. He did. She went on the magic carpet ride.

Great leaders have to inspire trust. They know their team will constantly question them if there's a lack of trust.

Work on building trust with those you lead. Be a leader they can trust.

14. Jasmine:

It's them. The people that make it beautiful.

Jasmine saw the city of Agrabah while riding on the carpet. She commented on how beautiful the city was.

The thing that made the city the most beautiful? The people within the city.

Do you know what makes your organization great? It's not you or the other leaders.

What makes your organization great is the people within the organization. Know your people are your greatest asset.

15. Real character shines through:

Aladdin had asked Genie to make him into a prince. This transformation hid who he really was from those he encountered.

Looking at Aladdin, they would only see the prince. They wouldn't see him.

But Jasmine saw through the change. She saw Prince Ali for who he really was. She saw Aladdin.

Why did she see Aladdin? Because she could see his character. This was something the Genie couldn't change.

There's a lot of talk about fake it until you make it. It's good advice. It can help you get over your insecurities and succeed where you couldn't without that belief in yourself.

However, the fake it until you make it belief won't change who you are. You can't fake good character. Your character will eventually expose you for who you are.

If your character is good, that is awesome. People will see you are good. If your character is bad... You better watch out.

16. Speak to the heart of your people:

Jafar gained control of the lamp and Genie. He used one of his wishes to make him into the Sultan.

With the power of the Sultan comes control of the royal guards. One of those guards was a man named Hakim (Numan Acar).

This man had been with the Sultan for a long time. To turn his back on the position would be hard.

Jasmine knew she had to speak up. She began to talk to Hakim. She told him who he was. She reminded him of where he came from. Of who his parents were.

By speaking to Hakim's heart, Jasmine prevented Hakim from following Jafar and to help protect the real Sultan.

The heart of your people is a valuable thing. You can win their heart by speaking to it or you can repel their heart.

Learn to speak to their hearts. To do this, you need to know who they are, where they came from, what they desire in their lives.

You can speak into their hearts. First, you need to know their heart.

Question: Have you seen the new live-action Aladdin? If you have, what leadership lessons did you take away? If you haven't seen the new movie, what Reel Leadership lessons from Aladdin that I shared with you resonated with you the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this Reel Leadership article, you may enjoy our collection of Reel Leadership articles eBook. You can get this eBook for free by signing up for updates by clicking here.

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Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Aladdin

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I can show you the world Shining, shimmering splendid Tell me, princess, now when did You last let your heart decide? These lyrics defined a generation much like "Do you want to build a snowman? Or ride our bike around the halls? I think some company is overdue I've started talking to The pictures on the [...]

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12 fictional characters that leaders can learn from

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12 fictional characters that leaders can learn from - Real Business

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Movies, TV programs and books have played a part in our lives for decades. So, from Darth Vader and Walter White to Iron Man and James T. Kirk, here are 12 fictional characters from which every leader can learn valuable lessons from.

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Jordan Peterson On Importance Of Reading

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Jordan Peterson On Importance Of Reading

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Culture and Leadership | Joseph Trimble | TEDxWWU

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Culture and Leadership | Joseph Trimble | TEDxWWU

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The Inmate, The Student, And Tolstoy |Andrew Kaufman

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The Inmate, The Student, And Tolstoy | Andrew Kaufman | TEDxCharlottesville

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The Leadership Game -- creating cultures of leadership

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The leadership game -- creating cultures of leadership | Drew Dudley | TEDxAnchorage

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Mark Twain: Father of American Literature - Fast Facts | History

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Mark Twain: Father of American Literature - Fast Facts | History

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Follow the leader  Suli Breaks

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Follow the leader | Suli Breaks | TEDxHousesofParliament

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Can A Children's Book Change the World?  Linda Sue Park

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Can A Children's Book Change the World? | Linda Sue Park | TEDxBeaconStreet

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Leo Tolstoy

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Count ( Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy[note 1] (/ˈ t oʊ l s t ɔɪ , ˈ t ɒ l -/ ;[1] Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой,[note 2] tr. Lev Nikoláyevich Tolstóy; [lʲef nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ tɐlˈstoj] listen ); 9 September [ O.S. 28 August] 1828 - 20 November [ O.S. 7 November] 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.[2] He received multiple nominations for Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906, and nominations for Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1910, and his miss of the prize is a major Nobel prize controversy.[3][4][5][6]

Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, , , and (1852-1856), and Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. Tolstoy's fiction includes dozens of short stories and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Family Happiness (1859), and Hadji Murad (1912). He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays.

In the 1870s Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his non-fiction work A Confession (1882). His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. Tolstoy's ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894), were to have a profound impact on such pivotal 20th-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Tolstoy also became a dedicated advocate of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George, which he incorporated into his writing, particularly Resurrection (1899).

The Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility who traced their ancestry to a mythical nobleman named Indris described by Pyotr Tolstoy as arriving "from Nemec, from the lands of Caesar" to Chernigov in 1353 along with his two sons Litvinos (or Litvonis) and Zimonten (or Zigmont) and a druzhina of 3000 people. While the word "Nemec" has been long used to describe Germans only, at that time it was applied to any foreigner who didn't speak Russian (from the word nemoy meaning mute). Indris was then converted to Eastern Orthodoxy under the name of Leonty and his sons - as Konstantin and Feodor, respectively. Konstantin's grandson Andrei Kharitonovich was nicknamed Tolstiy (translated as fat) by Vasily II of Moscow after he moved from Chernigov to Moscow.

Because of the pagan names and the fact that Chernigov at the time was ruled by Demetrius I Starshy some researches concluded that they were Lithuanians who arrived from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the same time, no mention of Indris was ever found in the 14th - 16th-century documents, while the Chernigov Chronicles used by Pyotr Tolstoy as a reference were lost. The first documented members of the Tolstoy family also lived during the 17th century, thus Pyotr Tolstoy himself is generally considered the founder of the noble house, being granted the title of count by Peter the Great.

Life and career

Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) southwest of Tula, Russia, and 200 kilometers (120 mi) south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy (1794-1837), a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Countess Mariya Tolstaya (née Volkonskaya; 1790-1830). After his mother died when he was two and his father when he was nine, Tolstoy and his siblings were brought up by relatives. In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University, where teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn." Tolstoy left the university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much of his time in Moscow, Tula and Saint Petersburg, leading a lax and leisurely lifestyle. He began writing during this period, including his first novel , a fictitious account of his own youth, which was published in 1852. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. Tolstoy served as a young artillery officer during the Crimean War and was in Sevastopol during the 11-month-long siege of Sevastopol in 1854-55, including the Battle of the Chernaya. During the war he was recognised for his bravery and courage and promoted to lieutenant. He was appalled by the number of deaths involved in warfare, and left the army after the end of the Crimean War.

His conversion from a dissolute and privileged society author to the non-violent and spiritual anarchist of his latter days was brought about by his experience in the army as well as two trips around Europe in 1857 and 1860-61. Others who followed the same path were Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. During his 1857 visit, Tolstoy witnessed a public execution in Paris, a traumatic experience that would mark the rest of his life. Writing in a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin: "The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere." Tolstoy's concept of non-violence or Ahimsa was bolstered when he read a German version of the Tirukkural. He later instilled the concept in Mahatma Gandhi through his A Letter to a Hindu when young Gandhi corresponded with him seeking his advice.

His European trip in 1860-61 shaped both his political and literary development when he met Victor Hugo, whose literary talents Tolstoy praised after reading Hugo's newly finished Les Misérables. The similar evocation of battle scenes in Hugo's novel and Tolstoy's War and Peace indicates this influence. Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels. Apart from reviewing Proudhon's forthcoming publication, La Guerre et la Paix ( War and Peace in French), whose title Tolstoy would borrow for his masterpiece, the two men discussed education, as Tolstoy wrote in his educational notebooks: "If I recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who understood the significance of education and of the printing press in our time."

Fired by enthusiasm, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana and founded 13 schools for the children of Russia's peasants, who had just been emancipated from serfdom in 1861. Tolstoy described the school's principles in his 1862 essay "The School at Yasnaya Polyana". Tolstoy's educational experiments were short-lived, partly due to harassment by the Tsarist secret police. However, as a direct forerunner to A.S. Neill's Summerhill School, the school at Yasnaya Polyana can justifiably be claimed the first example of a coherent theory of democratic education.

Personal life

The death of his brother Nikolay in 1860 had an impact on Tolstoy, and led him to a desire to marry. On 23 September 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, who was 16 years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofia, by her family and friends. They had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood:

The marriage was marked from the outset by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity when Tolstoy, on the eve of their marriage, gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past and the fact that one of the serfs on his estate had borne him a son. Even so, their early married life was happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom and the support system to compose War and Peace and Anna Karenina with Sonya acting as his secretary, editor, and financial manager. Sonya was copying and handwriting his epic works time after time. Tolstoy would continue editing War and Peace and had to have clean final drafts to be delivered to the publisher.

However, their later life together has been described by A.N. Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history. Tolstoy's relationship with his wife deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical. This saw him seeking to reject his inherited and earned wealth, including the renunciation of the copyrights on his earlier works.

Some of the members of the Tolstoy family left Russia in the aftermath of the 1905 Russian Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union, and many of Leo Tolstoy's relatives and descendants today live in Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Among them are Swedish jazz singer Viktoria Tolstoy and the Swedish landowner Christopher Paus, whose family owns the major estate Herresta outside Stockholm.

One of his great-great-grandsons, Vladimir Tolstoy (born 1962), is a director of the Yasnaya Polyana museum since 1994 and an adviser to the President of Russia on cultural affairs since 2012. Ilya Tolstoy's great-grandson, Pyotr Tolstoy, is a well-known Russian journalist and TV presenter as well as a State Duma deputy since 2016. His cousin Fyokla Tolstaya (born Anna Tolstaya in 1971), daughter of the acclaimed Soviet Slavist Nikita Tolstoy ( ru) (1923-1996), is also a Russian journalist, TV and radio host.

Novels and fictional works

Tolstoy is considered one of the giants of Russian literature; his works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as Hadji Murad and The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Tolstoy's earliest works, the autobiographical novels Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856), tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the chasm between himself and his peasants. Though he later rejected them as sentimental, a great deal of Tolstoy's own life is revealed. They retain their relevance as accounts of the universal story of growing up.

Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, recounted in his Sevastopol Sketches. His experiences in battle helped stir his subsequent pacifism and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his later work.

His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian society in which he lived. The Cossacks (1863) describes the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. Anna Karenina (1877) tells parallel stories of an adulterous woman trapped by the conventions and falsities of society and of a philosophical landowner (much like Tolstoy), who works alongside the peasants in the fields and seeks to reform their lives. Tolstoy not only drew from his own life experiences but also created characters in his own image, such as Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei in War and Peace, Levin in Anna Karenina and to some extent, Prince Nekhlyudov in Resurrection.

War and Peace is generally thought to be one of the greatest novels ever written, remarkable for its dramatic breadth and unity. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical with others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander I of Russia to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. Tolstoy's original idea for the novel was to investigate the causes of the Decembrist revolt, to which it refers only in the last chapters, from which can be deduced that Andrei Bolkonsky's son will become one of the Decembrists. The novel explores Tolstoy's theory of history, and in particular the insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander. Somewhat surprisingly, Tolstoy did not consider War and Peace to be a novel (nor did he consider many of the great Russian fictions written at that time to be novels). This view becomes less surprising if one considers that Tolstoy was a novelist of the realist school who considered the novel to be a framework for the examination of social and political issues in nineteenth-century life. War and Peace (which is to Tolstoy really an epic in prose) therefore did not qualify. Tolstoy thought that Anna Karenina was his first true novel.

After Anna Karenina, Tolstoy concentrated on Christian themes, and his later novels such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is to Be Done? develop a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. For all the praise showered on Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Tolstoy rejected the two works later in his life as something not as true of reality.

In his novel Resurrection, Tolstoy attempts to expose the injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church. Tolstoy also explores and explains the economic philosophy of Georgism, of which he had become a very strong advocate towards the end of his life.

Tolstoy also tried himself in poetry with several soldier songs written during his military service and fairy tales in verse such as Volga-bogatyr and Oaf stylized as national folk songs. They were written between 1871 and 1874 for his Russian Book for Reading, a collection of short stories in four volumes (total of 629 stories in various genres) published along with the New Azbuka textbook and addressed to schoolchildren. Nevertheless, he was skeptical about poetry as a genre. As he famously said, "Writing poetry is like ploughing and dancing at the same time". According to Valentin Bulgakov, he criticised poets, including Alexander Pushkin, for their "false" epithets used "simply to make it rhyme".

Critical appraisal by other authors

Tolstoy's contemporaries paid him lofty tributes. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who died thirty years before Tolstoy's death, thought him the greatest of all living novelists. Gustave Flaubert, on reading a translation of War and Peace, exclaimed, "What an artist and what a psychologist!" Anton Chekhov, who often visited Tolstoy at his country estate, wrote, "When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone. What he does serves to justify all the hopes and aspirations invested in literature." The 19th-century British poet and critic Matthew Arnold opined that "A novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life."

Later novelists continued to appreciate Tolstoy's art, but sometimes also expressed criticism. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote "I am attracted by his earnestness and by his power of detail, but I am repelled by his looseness of construction and by his unreasonable and impracticable mysticism." Virginia Woolf declared him "the greatest of all novelists." James Joyce noted that "He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!" Thomas Mann wrote of Tolstoy's seemingly guileless artistry: "Seldom did art work so much like nature." Vladimir Nabokov heaped superlatives upon The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina; he questioned, however, the reputation of War and Peace, and sharply criticized Resurrection and The Kreutzer Sonata.

Religious and political beliefs

After reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, Tolstoy gradually became converted to the ascetic morality upheld in that work as the proper spiritual path for the upper classes: "Do you know what this summer has meant for me? Constant raptures over Schopenhauer and a whole series of spiritual delights which I've never experienced before. ... no student has ever studied so much on his course, and learned so much, as I have this summer"

In Chapter VI of A Confession, Tolstoy quoted the final paragraph of Schopenhauer's work. It explained how the nothingness that results from complete denial of self is only a relative nothingness, and is not to be feared. The novelist was struck by the description of Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu ascetic renunciation as being the path to holiness. After reading passages such as the following, which abound in Schopenhauer's ethical chapters, the Russian nobleman chose poverty and formal denial of the will:

But this very necessity of involuntary suffering (by poor people) for eternal salvation is also expressed by that utterance of the Savior ( Matthew 19:24): "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore, those who were greatly in earnest about their eternal salvation, chose voluntary poverty when fate had denied this to them and they had been born in wealth. Thus Buddha Sakyamuni was born a prince, but voluntarily took to the mendicant's staff; and Francis of Assisi, the founder of the mendicant orders who, as a youngster at a ball, where the daughters of all the notabilities were sitting together, was asked: "Now Francis, will you not soon make your choice from these beauties?" and who replied: "I have made a far more beautiful choice!" "Whom?" " La povertà (poverty)": whereupon he abandoned every thing shortly afterwards and wandered through the land as a mendicant.

In 1884, Tolstoy wrote a book called What I Believe, in which he openly confessed his Christian beliefs. He affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ's teachings and was particularly influenced by the Sermon on the Mount, and the injunction to turn the other cheek, which he understood as a "commandment of non-resistance to evil by force" and a doctrine of pacifism and nonviolence. In his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You, he explains that he considered mistaken the Church's doctrine because they had made a "perversion" of Christ's teachings. Tolstoy also received letters from American Quakers who introduced him to the non-violence writings of Quaker Christians such as George Fox, William Penn and Jonathan Dymond. Tolstoy believed being a Christian required him to be a pacifist; the consequences of being a pacifist, and the apparently inevitable waging of war by government, are the reason why he is considered a philosophical anarchist.

Later, various versions of "Tolstoy's Bible" would be published, indicating the passages Tolstoy most relied on, specifically, the reported words of Jesus himself.

Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner self-perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God rather than looking outward to the Church or state for guidance. His belief in nonresistance when faced by conflict is another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings. By directly influencing Mahatma Gandhi with this idea through his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You (full text of English translation available on Wikisource), Tolstoy's profound influence on the nonviolent resistance movement reverberates to this day. He believed that the aristocracy were a burden on the poor, and that the only solution to how we live together is through anarchism.[citation needed ]

He also opposed private property in land ownership and the institution of marriage and valued the ideals of chastity and sexual abstinence (discussed in Father Sergius and his preface to The Kreutzer Sonata), ideals also held by the young Gandhi. Tolstoy's later work derives a passion and verve from the depth of his austere moral views. The sequence of the temptation of Sergius in Father Sergius, for example, is among his later triumphs. Gorky relates how Tolstoy once read this passage before himself and Chekhov and that Tolstoy was moved to tears by the end of the reading. Other later passages of rare power include the personal crises that were faced by the protagonists of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and of Master and Man, where the main character in the former or the reader in the latter are made aware of the foolishness of the protagonists' lives.

Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist thought. The Tolstoyans were a small Christian anarchist group formed by Tolstoy's companion, Vladimir Chertkov (1854-1936), to spread Tolstoy's religious teachings. Philosopher Peter Kropotkin wrote of Tolstoy in the article on anarchism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the 15th and 16th centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of Jesus and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent, Tolstoy made (especially in The Kingdom of God Is Within You) a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state, and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of Jesus he deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.

During the Boxer Rebellion in China, Tolstoy praised the Boxers. He was harshly critical of the atrocities committed by the Russians, Germans, Americans, Japanese, and other western troops. He accused them of engaging in slaughter when he heard about the lootings, rapes, and murders, in what he saw as Christian brutality. Tolstoy also named the two monarchs most responsible for the atrocities; Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany. Tolstoy, a famous sinophile, also read the works of Chinese thinker and philosopher, Confucius. Tolstoy corresponded with the Chinese intellectual Gu Hongming and recommended that China remain an agrarian nation and warned against reform like what Japan implemented.

The Eight-Nation Alliance intervention in the Boxer Rebellion was denounced by Tolstoy as were the Philippine-American War and the Second Boer War between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics. The words "terrible for its injustice and cruelty" were used to describe the Czarist intervention in China by Tolstoy. Confucius's works were studied by Tolstoy. The attack on China in the Boxer Rebellion was railed against by Tolstoy. The war against China was criticized by Leonid Andreev and Gorkey. To the Chinese people, an epistle, was written by Tolstoy as part of the criticism of the war by intellectuals in Russia. The activities of Russia in China by Nicholas II were described in an open letter where they were slammed and denounced by Leo Tolstoy in 1902. Tolstoy corresponded with Gu Hongming and they both opposed the Hundred Day's Reform by Kang Youwei and agreed that the reform movement was perilous. Tolstoys' ideology on non violence shaped the anarchist thought of the Society for the Study of Socialism in China. Lao Zi and Confucius's teachings were studied by Tolstoy. Chinese Wisdom was a text written by Tolstoy. The Boxer Rebellion stirred Tolstoy's interest in Chinese philosophy. The Boxer and Boxer wars were denounced by Tolstoy.

In hundreds of essays over the last 20 years of his life, Tolstoy reiterated the anarchist critique of the state and recommended books by Kropotkin and Proudhon to his readers, whilst rejecting anarchism's espousal of violent revolutionary means. In the 1900 essay, "On Anarchy", he wrote; "The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution-a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man." Despite his misgivings about anarchist violence, Tolstoy took risks to circulate the prohibited publications of anarchist thinkers in Russia, and corrected the proofs of Kropotkin's "Words of a Rebel", illegally published in St Petersburg in 1906.

Tolstoy was enthused by the economic thinking of Henry George, incorporating it approvingly into later works such as Resurrection (1899), the book that played a major factor in his excommunication.

In 1908, Tolstoy wrote A Letter to a Hindu outlining his belief in non-violence as a means for India to gain independence from British colonial rule. In 1909, a copy of the letter was read by Gandhi, who was working as a lawyer in South Africa at the time and just becoming an activist. Tolstoy's letter was significant for Gandhi, who wrote Tolstoy seeking proof that he was the real author, leading to further correspondence between them.

Reading Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You also convinced Gandhi to avoid violence and espouse nonviolent resistance, a debt Gandhi acknowledged in his autobiography, calling Tolstoy "the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced". The correspondence between Tolstoy and Gandhi would only last a year, from October 1909 until Tolstoy's death in November 1910, but led Gandhi to give the name Tolstoy Colony to his second ashram in South Africa. Besides nonviolent resistance, the two men shared a common belief in the merits of vegetarianism, the subject of several of Tolstoy's essays.

Tolstoy also became a major supporter of the Esperanto movement. Tolstoy was impressed by the pacifist beliefs of the Doukhobors and brought their persecution to the attention of the international community, after they burned their weapons in peaceful protest in 1895. He aided the Doukhobors in migrating to Canada. In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Tolstoy condemned the war and wrote to the Japanese Buddhist priest Soyen Shaku in a failed attempt to make a joint pacifist statement.

Towards the end of his life, Tolstoy become more and more occupied with the economic theory and social philosophy of Georgism. He spoke of great admiration of Henry George, stating once that "People do not argue with the teaching of George; they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree." He also wrote a preface to George's Social Problems. Tolstoy and George both rejected private property in land (the most important source of income of the passive Russian aristocracy that Tolstoy so heavily criticized) whilst simultaneously both rejecting a centrally planned socialist economy. Some assume that this development in Tolstoy's thinking was a move away from his anarchist views, since Georgism requires a central administration to collect land rent and spend it on infrastructure. However, anarchist versions of Georgism have also been proposed since. Tolstoy's 1899 novel Resurrection explores his thoughts on Georgism in more detail and hints that Tolstoy indeed had such a view. It suggests the possibility of small communities with some form of local governance to manage the collective land rents for common goods; whilst still heavily criticising institutions of the state such as the justice system.

Tolstoy died in 1910, at the age of 82. Just prior to his death, his health had been a concern of his family, who were actively engaged in his care on a daily basis. During his last few days, he had spoken and written about dying. Renouncing his aristocratic lifestyle, he had finally gathered the nerve to separate from his wife, and left home in the middle of winter, in the dead of night. His secretive departure was an apparent attempt to escape unannounced from Sophia's jealous tirades. She was outspokenly opposed to many of his teachings, and in recent years had grown envious of the attention which it seemed to her Tolstoy lavished upon his Tolstoyan "disciples".

Tolstoy died of pneumonia at Astapovo train station, after a day's rail journey south. The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, and his personal doctors were called to the scene. He was given injections of morphine and camphor.

The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets. Still, some were heard to say that, other than knowing that "some nobleman had died", they knew little else about Tolstoy.

According to some sources, Tolstoy spent the last hours of his life preaching love, nonviolence, and Georgism to his fellow passengers on the train.

A 2009 film about Tolstoy's final year, The Last Station, based on the novel by Jay Parini, was made by director Michael Hoffman with Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoya. Both performers were nominated for Oscars for their roles. There have been other films about the writer, including Departure of a Grand Old Man, made in 1912 just two years after his death, How Fine, How Fresh the Roses Were (1913), and Leo Tolstoy, directed by and starring Sergei Gerasimov in 1984.

There is also a famous lost film of Tolstoy made a decade before he died. In 1901, the American travel lecturer Burton Holmes visited Yasnaya Polyana with Albert J. Beveridge, the U.S. senator and historian. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm movie camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that documentary evidence of a meeting with the Russian author might hurt Beveridge's chances of running for the U.S. presidency.

Bibliography

References

1. ^ Martin E. Hellman, Resist Not Evil in World Without Violence (Arun Gandhi ed.), M.K. Gandhi Institute, 1994, retrieved on 14 December 2006

2. ^ Vitold Rummel, Vladimir Golubtsov (1886). Genealogical Collection of Russian Noble Families in 2 Volumes. Volume 2 // The Tolstoys, Counts and Noblemen. Saint Petersburg: A.S. Suvorin Publishing House, p. 487

3. ^ Ivan Bunin, The Liberation of Tolstoy: A Tale of Two Writers, p. 100

4. ^ Nemoy/Немой word meaning from the Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary (in Russian)

5. ^ Tolstoy coat of arms by All-Russian Armorials of Noble Houses of the Russian Empire. Part 2, 30 June 1798 (in Russian)

6. ^ The Tolstoys article from Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1890-1907 (in Russian)

7. ^ "Author Data Sheet, Macmillan Readers" (PDF). Macmillan Publishers Limited.

8. ^ "Ten Things You Didn't Know About Tolstoy". BBC.

9. ^ Rajaram, M. (2009). Thirukkural: Pearls of Inspiration. New Delhi: Rupa Publications. pp. xviii-xxi.

10. ^ Tolstoy, Leo (14 December 1908). "A Letter to A Hindu: The Subjection of India-Its Cause and Cure". The Literature Network. The Hindu Kural

11. ^ Parel, Anthony J. (2002), "Gandhi and Tolstoy", in M.P. Mathai; M.S. John; Siby K. Joseph (eds.), Meditations on Gandhi: a Ravindra Varma festschrift, New Delhi: Concept, pp. 96-112

12. ^ Tolstoy, Lev N.; Leo Wiener; translator and editor (1904). The School at Yasnaya Polyana - The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy: Pedagogical Articles. Linen-Measurer, Volume IV. Dana Estes & Company. p. 227.

13. ^ Susan Jacoby, "The Wife of the Genius" (19 April 1981) The New York Times

14. Feuer, Kathryn B. ^ Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace, Cornell University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8014-1902-6

15. ^ Valentin Bulgakov (2017). Diary of Leo Tolstoy's Secretary. Moscow: Zakharov, 352 pages, p. 29 ISBN 978-5-8159-1435-3

16. ^ editor on (8 September 2009). "Sommers, Aaron (2009) Why Leo Tolstoy Wouldn't Supersize It". Coastlinejournal.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2017.

17. ^ Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre (2009). The Contemporary Relevance of Leo Tolstoy's Late Political Thought. International Political Science Association. Tolstoy articulated his Christian anarchist political thought between 1880 and 1910, yet its continuing relevance should have become fairly self-evident already.

18. ^ Kropotkin, Peter (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. New York : Encyclopaedia Britannica. p. 918. Anarchism

19. ^ William Henry Chamberlin, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Ohio State University (1960). Michael Karpovich, Dimitri Sergius Von Mohrenschildt (ed.). The Russian review, Volume 19. Blackwell. p. 115.(Original from the University of Michigan)

20. ^ Wenzer, Kenneth C. (1997). "Tolstoy's Georgist Spiritual Political Economy (1897-1910): Anarchism and Land Reform". The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 56 (4, Oct): 639-667. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1997.tb02664.x. JSTOR 3487337.

21. ^ Parel, Anthony J. (2002), "Gandhi and Tolstoy", in M. P. Mathai; M.S. John; Siby K. Joseph (eds.), Meditations on Gandhi : a Ravindra Varma festschrift, New Delhi: Concept, pp. 96-112

22. ^ Tolstoy, Leo (1892). "The First Step". ... if [a man] be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ... its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing. Preface to the Russian translation of Howard William's The Ethics of Diet

23. ^ Mays, H.G. "Resurrection:Tolstoy and Canada's Doukhobors." The Beaver 79.October/November 1999:38-44

24. ^ Tolstoy: Principles For A New World Order, David Redfearn

Further reading

Craraft, James. Two Shining Souls: Jane Addams, Leo Tolstoy, and the Quest for Global Peace (Lanham: Lexington, 2012). 179 pp.

Lednicki, Waclaw (April 1947). "Tolstoy through American eyes". The Slavonic and East European Review. 25 (65).

Trotsky's 1908 tribute to Leo Tolstoy Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).

The Life of Tolstoy: Later years by Aylmer Maude, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1911 at Internet Archive

Why We Fail as Christians by Robert Hunter, The Macmillan Company, 1919 at Wikiquote

Why we fail as Christians by Robert Hunter, The Macmillan Company, 1919 at Google Books

External links

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Count ( Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy [note 1] (/ˈ t oʊ l s t ɔɪ , ˈ t ɒ l -/ ;[1] Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой,[note 2] tr. Lev Nikoláyevich Tolstóy; [lʲef nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ tɐlˈstoj] listen ); 9 September [ O.S. 28 August] 1828 - 20 November [ O.S.

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Rumi

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( Persian: جلال‌الدین مُحمّد رُومی ), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 - 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.[8][9]

Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish,[10] Arabic[11] and Greek[12][13][14] in his verse. His Masnavi ( Mathnawi), composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language.[15][16] Rumi's influence has transcended national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Kurds, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Central Asian Muslims, as well as Muslims of South Asia have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries.[17][18] His poetry influenced not only Persian literature, but also the literary traditions of the Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Pashto, Kurdish, Urdu, and Bengali languages.[17][19][20]

Rumi's works are widely read today in their original language across Greater Iran and the Persian-speaking world.[21][22] His poems have subsequently been translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet",[23] is very popular in Turkey, Azerbaijan and South Asia,[24] and has become the "best selling poet" in the United States.[25][26]

Name

He is most commonly called Rumi in English. His full name is given by his contemporary Sipahsalar as Muhammad bin Muhammad bin al-Husayn al-Khatibi al-Balkhi al-Bakri ( Arabic: محمد بن محمد بن الحسين الخطيبي البلخي البكري).[27] He is more commonly known as Molānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد رومی ). Jalal ad-Din is an Arabic name meaning "Glory of the Faith". Balkhī and Rūmī are his nisbas, meaning, respectively, "from Balkh" and "from Rûm" ('Roman,' what European history now calls Byzantine Anatolia[28]).

According to the authoritative Rumi biographer Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago, "[t]he Anatolian peninsula which had belonged to the Byzantine, or eastern Roman empire, had only relatively recently been conquered by Muslims and even when it came to be controlled by Turkish Muslim rulers, it was still known to Arabs, Persians and Turks as the geographical area of Rum. As such, there are a number of historical personages born in or associated with Anatolia known as Rumi, a word borrowed from Arabic literally meaning 'Roman,' in which context Roman refers to subjects of the Byzantine Empire or simply to people living in or things associated with Anatolia."[29] He was also known as "Mullah of Rum" (ملای روم mullā-yi Rūm or ملای رومی mullā-yi Rūmī).[30]

Rumi is widely known by the sobriquet Mawlānā/ Molānā[1][31] ( Persian: مولانا Persian pronunciation: Iran and popularly known as [moulɒːnɒ]) in Mawlānā ( Mevlânâ in Turkey. مولانا ) is a term of Arabic origin, meaning "our master". The term مولوی Mawlawī/ Mowlavi (Persian) and [32]Mevlevi (Turkish), also of Arabic origin, meaning "my master", is also frequently used for him.

Life

Jalal ad-Din Rumi gathers Sufi mystics

Overview

Rumi was born to Persian parents,[33][10][11][34] in Balkh,[35] modern-day Afghanistan or Wakhsh,[3] a village on the East bank of the Wakhsh River known as Sangtuda in present-day Tajikistan.[3] The area, culturally adjacent to Balkh, is where Mawlânâ's father, Bahâ' uddîn Walad, was a preacher and jurist.[3] He lived and worked there until 1212, when Rumi was aged around five and the family moved to Samarkand.[3]

Greater Balkh was at that time a major centre of Persian culture[16][34][36] and Sufism had developed there for several centuries. The most important influences upon Rumi, besides his father, were the Persian poets Attar and Sanai.[37] Rumi expresses his appreciation: "Attar was the spirit, Sanai his eyes twain, And in time thereafter, Came we in their train"[38] and mentions in another poem: "Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love, We are still at the turn of one street".[39] His father was also connected to the spiritual lineage of Najm al-Din Kubra.[18]

Rumi lived most of his life under the Persianate[40][41][42] Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, where he produced his works[43] and died in 1273AD. He was buried in Konya, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage.[44] Upon his death, his followers and his son Sultan Walad founded the Mevlevi Order, also known as the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for the Sufi dance known as the Sama ceremony. He was laid to rest beside his father, and over his remains a shrine was erected. A hagiographical account of him is described in Shams ud-Din Ahmad Aflāki's Manāqib ul-Ārifīn (written between 1318 and 1353). This biography needs to be treated with care as it contains both legends and facts about Rumi.[45] For example, Professor Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago, author of the most complete biography on Rumi, has separate sections for the hagiographical biography of Rumi and the actual biography about him.[46]

Childhood and emigration

Rumi's father was Bahā ud-Dīn Walad, a theologian, jurist and a mystic from Wakhsh,[3] who was also known by the followers of Rumi as Sultan al-Ulama or "Sultan of the Scholars". According to Sultan Walad's Ibadetname and Shamsuddin Aflaki (c.1286 to 1291), Rumi was a descendant of Abu Bakr.[47] Some modern scholars, however, reject this claim and state it does not hold on closer examination. The claim of maternal descent from the Khwarazmshah for Rumi or his father is also seen as a non-historical hagiographical tradition designed to connect the family with royalty, but this claim is rejected for chronological and historical reasons. The most complete genealogy offered for the family stretches back to six or seven generations to famous Hanafi jurists.[46][48][49]

We do not learn the name of Baha al-Din's mother in the sources, only that he referred to her as "Māmi" (colloquial Persian for Māma),[50] and that she was a simple woman who lived to the 1200s. The mother of Rumi was Mu'mina Khātūn. The profession of the family for several generations was that of Islamic preachers of the relatively liberal Hanafi Maturidi school, and this family tradition was continued by Rumi (see his Fihi Ma Fih and Seven Sermons) and Sultan Walad (see Ma'rif Waladi for examples of his everyday sermons and lectures).

When the Mongols invaded Central Asia sometime between 1215 and 1220, Baha ud-Din Walad, with his whole family and a group of disciples, set out westwards. According to hagiographical account which is not agreed upon by all Rumi scholars, Rumi encountered one of the most famous mystic Persian poets, Attar, in the Iranian city of Nishapur, located in the province of Khorāsān. Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea followed by an ocean."[51][52] Attar gave the boy his Asrārnāma, a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on the eighteen-year-old Rumi and later on became the inspiration for his works.

From Nishapur, Walad and his entourage set out for Baghdad, meeting many of the scholars and Sufis of the city.[citation needed ] From Baghdad they went to Hejaz and performed the pilgrimage at Mecca. The migrating caravan then passed through Damascus, Malatya, Erzincan, Sivas, Kayseri and Nigde. They finally settled in Karaman for seven years; Rumi's mother and brother both died there. In 1225, Rumi married Gowhar Khatun in Karaman. They had two sons: Sultan Walad and Ala-eddin Chalabi. When his wife died, Rumi married again and had a son, Amir Alim Chalabi, and a daughter, Malakeh Khatun.

On 1 May 1228, most likely as a result of the insistent invitation of 'Alā' ud-Dīn Key-Qobād, ruler of Anatolia, Baha' ud-Din came and finally settled in Konya in Anatolia within the westernmost territories of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm.

Education and encounters with Shams-e Tabrizi

A page of a copy c. 1503 of the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i. See Rumi ghazal 163.

Baha' ud-Din became the head of a madrassa (religious school) and when he died, Rumi, aged twenty-five, inherited his position as the Islamic molvi. 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.

Shams had travelled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice said to him, "What will you give in return?" Shams replied, "My head!" The voice then said, "The one you seek is Jalal ud-Din of Konya." 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. It is rumoured that Shams was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.[53]

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. There, he realised:

Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself![54]

Later life and death

Double-page illuminated frontispiece, 1st book (Persian: دفتر, "daftar") of the Collection of poems (Masnavi-i ma'navi), 1461 manuscript

Mewlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals (Persian poems), and these had been collected in the Divan-i Kabir or Diwan Shams Tabrizi. 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. One day, the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside Konya when Hussam described to Rumi an idea he had had: "If you were to write a book like the Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the Mantiq ut-Tayr of 'Attar, it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it." Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written the opening eighteen lines of his Masnavi, beginning with:

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
How it sings of separation...[55]

Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.

In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal, which begins with the verse:

How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as companion?
Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have iron legs.[56]

Tomb shrine of Rumi, Konya

Rumi died on 17 December 1273 in Konya. His death was mourned by the diverse community of Konya, with local Christians and Jews joining the crowd that converged to bid farewell as his body was carried through the city.[57] Rumi's body was interred beside that of his father, and a splendid shrine, the "Green Tomb" ( Turkish: Yeşil Türbe, Arabic: قبة الخضراء; today the Mevlâna Museum), was erected over his place of burial. His epitaph reads:

When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.[58]

Georgian princess and Seljuq queen Gurju Khatun was a close friend of Rumi. She was the one who sponsored the construction of his tomb in Konya.[59] The 13th century Mevlâna Mausoleum, with its mosque, dance hall, schools and living quarters for dervishes, remains a destination of pilgrimage to this day, and is probably the most popular pilgrimage site to be regularly visited by adherents of every major religion.[57]

Teachings

Maṭnawīye Ma'nawī, Mevlana Museum, Konya, Turkey

Like other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, Rumi's poetry speaks of love which infuses the world. Rumi's teachings also express the tenets summarized in the Quranic verse which Shams-e Tabrizi cited as the essence of prophetic guidance: "Know that 'There is no god but He,' and ask forgiveness for your sin" (Q. 47:19).

In the interpretation attributed to Shams, the first part of the verse commands the humanity to seek knowledge of tawhid (oneness of God), while the second instructs them to negate their own existence. In Rumi's terms, tawhid is lived most fully through love, with the connection being made explicit in his verse that describes love as "that flame which, when it blazes up, burns away everything except the Everlasting Beloved."[60]

Rumi's longing and desire to attain this ideal is evident in the following poem from his book the Masnavi:[61]

از جمادی مُردم و نامی شدم
وز نما مُردم به حیوان برزدم
مُردم از حیوانی و آدم شدم
پس چه ترسم کی ز مردن کم شدم؟
حملهٔ دیگر بمیرم از بشر
تا برآرم از ملائک بال و پر
وز ملک هم بایدم جستن ز جو
کل شیء هالک الا وجهه
بار دیگر از ملک پران شوم
آنچ اندر وهم ناید آن شوم
پس عدم گردم عدم چون ارغنون
گویدم که انا الیه راجعون

I died to the mineral state and became a plant,
I died to the vegetal state and reached animality,
I died to the animal state and became a man,
Then what should I fear? I have never become less from dying.
At the next charge (forward) I will die to human nature,
So that I may lift up (my) head and wings (and soar) among the angels,
And I must (also) jump from the river of (the state of) the angel,
Everything perishes except His Face,
Once again I will become sacrificed from (the state of) the angel,
I will become that which cannot come into the imagination,
Then I will become non-existent; non-existence says to me (in tones) like an organ,
Truly, to Him is our return.

The Masnavi weaves fables, scenes from everyday life, Qur'anic revelations and exegesis, and metaphysics into a vast and intricate tapestry.

Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these ideas that the practice of whirling Dervishes developed into a ritual form. His teachings became the base for the order of the Mevlevi, which his son Sultan Walad organised. Rumi encouraged Sama, listening to music and turning or doing the sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, samāʿ represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes and nations.[citation needed ]

In other verses in the Masnavi, Rumi describes in detail the universal message of love:

The lover's cause is separate from all other causes
Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.[62]

Rumi's favourite musical instrument was the ney (reed flute).[23]

Major works

An Ottoman era manuscript depicting Rumi and Shams-e Tabrizi.

Rumi's poetry is often divided into various categories: the quatrains (rubayāt) and odes (ghazal) of the Divan, the six books of the Masnavi. The prose works are divided into The Discourses, The Letters, and the Seven Sermons.

Poetic works

Bowl of Reflections with Rumi's poetry, early 13th century; Brooklyn Museum

Rumi's best-known work is the Maṭnawīye Ma'nawī (Spiritual Couplets; مثنوی معنوی ). The six-volume poem holds a distinguished place within the rich tradition of Persian Sufi literature, and has been commonly called "the Quran in Persian".[63][64] Many commentators have regarded it as the greatest mystical poem in world literature.[65] It contains approximately 27,000 lines,[66] each consisting of a couplet with an internal rhyme.[57] While the mathnawi genre of poetry may use a variety of different metres, after Rumi composed his poem, the metre he used became the mathnawi metre par excellence. The first recorded use of this metre for a mathnawi poem took place at the Nizari Ismaili fortress of Girdkuh between 1131-1139. It likely set the stage for later poetry in this style by mystics such as Attar and Rumi.[67]

Rumi's other major work is the Dīwān-e Kabīr (Great Work) or Dīwān-e Shams-e Tabrīzī (The Works of Shams of Tabriz; دیوان شمس تبریزی ), named in honour of Rumi's master Shams. Besides approximately 35000 Persian couplets and 2000 Persian quatrains,[68] the Divan contains 90 Ghazals and 19 quatrains in Arabic,[69] a couple of dozen or so couplets in Turkish (mainly macaronic poems of mixed Persian and Turkish)[70][71] and 14 couplets in Greek (all of them in three macaronic poems of Greek-Persian).[12][72][73]

Prose works

Fihi Ma Fihi (In It What's in It, Persian: فیه ما فیه ) provides a record of seventy-one talks and lectures given by Rumi on various occasions to his disciples. It was compiled from the notes of his various disciples, so Rumi did not author the work directly.[74] An English translation from the Persian was first published by A.J. Arberry as Discourses of Rumi (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972), and a translation of the second book by Wheeler Thackston, Sign of the Unseen (Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1994). The style of the Fihi ma fihi is colloquial and meant for middle-class men and women, and lack the sophisticated wordplay.[75]

Majāles-e Sab'a (Seven Sessions, Persian: مجالس سبعه ) contains seven Persian sermons (as the name implies) or lectures given in seven different assemblies. The sermons themselves give a commentary on the deeper meaning of Qur'an and Hadith. The sermons also include quotations from poems of Sana'i, 'Attar, and other poets, including Rumi himself. As Aflakī relates, after Shams-e Tabrīzī, Rumi gave sermons at the request of notables, especially Salāh al-Dīn Zarkūb. The style of Persian is rather simple, but quotation of Arabic and knowledge of history and the Hadith show Rumi's knowledge in the Islamic sciences. His style is typical of the genre of lectures given by Sufis and spiritual teachers.[76]

Makatib (The Letters, Persian: مکاتیب ) or Maktubat (مکتوبات ) is the collection of letters written in Persian by Rumi to his disciples, family members, and men of state and of influence. The letters testify that Rumi kept very busy helping family members and administering a community of disciples that had grown up around them. Unlike the Persian style of the previous two mentioned works (which are lectures and sermons), the letters are consciously sophisticated and epistolary in style, which is in conformity with the expectations of correspondence directed to nobles, statesmen and kings.[77]

Religious outlook

It is undeniable that Rumi was a Muslim scholar and took Islam seriously. Nonetheless, the depth of his spiritual vision extended beyond narrow understanding sectarian concerns. One quatrain reads:

در راه طلب عاقل و دیوانه یکی است
در شیوه‌ی عشق خویش و بیگانه یکی است
آن را که شراب وصل جانان دادند
در مذهب او کعبه و بتخانه یکی است

On the seeker's path, the wise and crazed are one.
In the way of love, kin and strangers are one.
The one who they gave the wine of the beloved's union,
in his path, the Kaaba and house of idols are one.[78]

-Quatrain 305

According to the Quran, Muhammad is a mercy sent by God.[79] In regards to this, Rumi states:

"The Light of Muhammad does not abandon a Zoroastrian or Jew in the world. May the shade of his good fortune shine upon everyone! He brings all of those who are led astray into the Way out of the desert."[80]

Rumi, however, asserts the supremacy of Islam by stating:

"The Light of Muhammad has become a thousand branches (of knowledge), a thousand, so that both this world and the next have been seized from end to end. If Muhammad rips the veil open from a single such branch, thousands of monks and priests will tear the string of false belief from around their waists."[81]

Many of Rumi's poems suggest the importance of outward religious observance and the primacy of the Qur'an.[82]

Flee to God's Qur'an, take refuge in it
there with the spirits of the prophets merge.
The Book conveys the prophets' circumstances
those fish of the pure sea of Majesty.[83]

Rumi states:

I am the servant of the Qur'an as long as I have life.
I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen one.
If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,
I am quit of him and outraged by these words.[84]

Rumi also states:

I "sewed" my two eyes shut from [desires for] this world and the next - this I learned from Muhammad.[85]

On the first page of the Masnavi, Rumi states:

"Hadha kitâbu 'l- mathnawîy wa huwa uSûlu uSûli uSûli 'd-dîn wa kashshâfu 'l-qur'ân."
"This is the book of the Masnavi, and it is the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion and it is the Explainer of the Qur'ân."[86]

Hadi Sabzavari, one of Iran's most important 19th-century philosophers, makes the following connection between the Masnavi and Islam, in the introduction to his philosophical commentary on the book:

It is a commentary on the versified exegesis [of the Qur'ān] and its occult mystery, since all of it [all of the Mathnawī] is, as you will see, an elucidation of the clear verses [of the Qur'ān], a clarification of prophetic utterances, a glimmer of the light of the luminous Qur'ān, and burning embers irradiating their rays from its shining lamp. As respects to hunting through the treasure-trove of the Qur'ān, one can find in it [the Mathnawī] all [the Qur'ān's] ancient philosophical wisdom; it [the Mathnawī] is all entirely eloquent philosophy. In truth, the pearly verse of the poem combines the Canon Law of Islam ( sharīʿa) with the Sufi Path ( ṭarīqa) and the Divine Reality ( ḥaqīqa); the author's [Rūmī] achievement belongs to God in his bringing together of the Law (sharīʿa), the Path, and the Truth in a way that includes critical intellect, profound thought, a brilliant natural temperament, and integrity of character that is endowed with power, insight, inspiration, and illumination.[87]

Seyyed Hossein Nasr states:

One of the greatest living authorities on Rûmî in Persia today, Hâdî Hâ'irî, has shown in an unpublished work that some 6,000 verses of the Dîwân and the Mathnawî are practically direct translations of Qur'ânic verses into Persian poetry.[88]

Rumi states in his Dīwān:

The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr.[89]

Legacy

Universality

Rumi's work has been translated into many of the world's languages, including Russian, German, Urdu, Turkish, Arabic, Bengali, French, Italian, and Spanish, and is being presented in a growing number of formats, including concerts, workshops, readings, dance performances, and other artistic creations.[90] The English interpretations of Rumi's poetry by Coleman Barks have sold more than half a million copies worldwide,[91] and Rumi is one of the most widely read poets in the United States.[92]

Iranian world

پارسی گو گرچه تازی خوشتر است - عشق را خود صد زبان دیگر است

Say it in Persian although in Arabic sounds better-Love, however, has its own many other dialects

These cultural, historical and linguistic ties between Rumi and Iran have made Rumi an iconic Iranian poet, and some of the most important Rumi scholars including Foruzanfar, Naini, Sabzewari, etc., have come from modern Iran.[93] Rumi's poetry is displayed on the walls of many cities across Iran, sung in Persian music,[93] and read in school books.[94]

Rumi's poetry forms the basis of much classical Iranian and Afghan music.[95][96] Contemporary classical interpretations of his poetry are made by Muhammad Reza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, Davood Azad (the three from Iran) and Ustad Mohammad Hashem Cheshti (Afghanistan).

Mewlewī Sufi Order; Rumi and Turkey

The Mewlewī Sufi order was founded in 1273 by Rumi's followers after his death.[97] His first successor could have been Salah-eddin Zarkoub who served Rumi for a decade and Rumi revered him highly in his poets. Zarkoub was illiterate and uttered some words incorrectly. Rumi used some of these incorrect words in his poems to express his support and humility towards Zarkoub. Rumi named him his successor but Zarkoub died sooner than him.[98] So Rumi's first successor in the rectorship of the order was " Husam Chalabi" and, after Chalabi's death in 1284, Rumi's younger and only surviving son, Sultan Walad (d. 1312), popularly known as author of the mystical Maṭnawī Rabābnāma, or the Book of the Rabab was installed as grand master of the order.[99] The leadership of the order has been kept within Rumi's family in Konya uninterruptedly since then.[100] The Mewlewī Sufis, also known as Whirling Dervishes, believe in performing theirdhikr in the form of Sama. During the time of Rumi (as attested in the Manāqib ul-Ārefīn of Aflākī), his followers gathered for musical and "turning" practices.

According to tradition, Rumi was himself a notable musician who played the robāb, although his favourite instrument was the ney or reed flute.[101] The music accompanying the samāʿ consists of settings of poems from the Maṭnawī and Dīwān-e Kabīr, or of Sultan Walad's poems.[101] The Mawlawīyah was a well-established Sufi order in the Ottoman Empire, and many of the members of the order served in various official positions of the Caliphate. The centre for the Mevlevi was in Konya. There is also a Mewlewī monastery (درگاه , dargāh) in Istanbul near the Galata Tower in which the samāʿ is performed and accessible to the public. The Mewlewī order issues an invitation to people of all backgrounds:

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.[102]

Rumi's tomb in Konya, Turkey

During Ottoman times, the Mevlevi produced a number of notable poets and musicians, including Sheikh Ghalib, Ismail Rusuhi Dede of Ankara, Esrar Dede, Halet Efendi, and Gavsi Dede, who are all buried at the Galata Mewlewī Khāna (Turkish: Mevlevi-Hane) in Istanbul.[103] Music, especially that of the ney, plays an important part in the Mevlevi.

With the foundation of the modern, secular Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk removed religion from the sphere of public policy and restricted it exclusively to that of personal morals, behaviour and faith. On 13 December 1925, a law was passed closing all the tekkes (dervish lodges) and zāwiyas (chief dervish lodges), and the centres of veneration to which visits ( ziyārat) were made. Istanbul alone had more than 250 tekkes as well as small centres for gatherings of various fraternities; this law dissolved the Sufi Orders, prohibited the use of mystical names, titles and costumes pertaining to their titles, impounded the Orders' assets, and banned their ceremonies and meetings. The law also provided penalties for those who tried to re-establish the Orders. Two years later, in 1927, the Mausoleum of Mevlâna in Konya was allowed to reopen as a Museum.[104]

In the 1950s, the Turkish government began allowing the Whirling Dervishes to perform once a year in Konya. The Mewlānā festival is held over two weeks in December; its culmination is on 17 December, the Urs of Mewlānā (anniversary of Rumi's death), called Šab-e Arūs ( Persian: شبِ عُرس) (Persian meaning "nuptial night"), the night of Rumi's union with God.[105] In 1974, the Whirling Dervishes were permitted to travel to the West for the first time. In 2005, UNESCO proclaimed "The Mevlevi Sama Ceremony" of Turkey as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.[106]

Rumi and his mausoleum on the reverse of the 5000 Turkish lira banknotes of 1981-1994

Rumi and his mausoleum were depicted on the reverse of the 5000 Turkish lira banknotes of 1981-1994.[107]

Religious denomination

As Edward G. Browne noted, the three most prominent mystical Persian poets, Rumi, Sanai and Attar, were all Sunni Muslims and their poetry abounds with praise for the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattāb.[108] According to Annemarie Schimmel, the tendency among Shia authors to anachronistically include leading mystical poets such as Rumi and Attar among their own ranks, became stronger after the introduction of Twelver Shia as the state religion in the Safavid Empire in 1501.[109]

Eight hundredth anniversary celebrations

Rumi in Stamp of Afghanistan, 1968

In Afghanistan, Rumi is known as Mawlānā, in Turkey as Mevlâna, and in Iran as Molavī.

At the proposal of the Permanent Delegations of Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey, and as approved by its executive board and General Conference in conformity with its mission of "constructing in the minds of men the defences of peace", UNESCO was associated with the celebration, in 2007, of the eight hundredth anniversary of Rumi's birth.[110] The commemoration at UNESCO itself took place on 6 September 2007;[111] UNESCO issued a medal in Rumi's name in the hope that it would prove an encouragement to those who are engaged in research on and dissemination of Rumi's ideas and ideals, which would, in turn, enhance the diffusion of the ideals of UNESCO.[112]

On 30 September 2007, Iranian school bells were rung throughout the country in honour of Mewlana.[113] Also in that year, Iran held a Rumi Week from 26 October to 2 November. An international ceremony and conference were held in Tehran; the event was opened by the Iranian president and the chairman of the Iranian parliament. Scholars from twenty-nine countries attended the events, and 450 articles were presented at the conference.[114] Iranian musician Shahram Nazeri was awarded the Légion d'honneur and Iran's House of Music Award in 2007 for his renowned works on Rumi masterpieces.[115] 2007 was declared as the "International Rumi Year" by UNESCO.[116][117]

Also on 30 September 2007, Turkey celebrated Rumi's eight-hundredth birthday with a giant Whirling Dervish ritual performance of the samāʿ, which was televised using forty-eight cameras and broadcast live in eight countries. Ertugrul Gunay, of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, stated, "Three hundred dervishes are scheduled to take part in this ritual, making it the largest performance of sema in history."[118]

Mawlana Rumi Review

The Mawlana Rumi Review[119] is published annually by The Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Exeter in collaboration with The Rumi Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Archetype Books[120] in Cambridge.[120] The first volume was published in 2010, and it has come out annually since then. According to the principal editor of the journal, Leonard Lewisohn: "Although a number of major Islamic poets easily rival the likes of Dante, Shakespeare and Milton in importance and output, they still enjoy only a marginal literary fame in the West because the works of Arabic and Persian thinkers, writers and poets are considered as negligible, frivolous, tawdry sideshows beside the grand narrative of the Western Canon. It is the aim of the Mawlana Rumi Review to redress this carelessly inattentive approach to world literature, which is something far more serious than a minor faux pas committed by the Western literary imagination."[121]

See also

General

Poems by Rumi

On Persian culture

Rumi scholars and writers

English translators of Rumi poetry

References

1. ^ Annemarie Schimmel, "I Am Wind, You Are Fire," p. 11. She refers to a 1989 article by Fritz Meier:

Tajiks and Persian admirers still prefer to call Jalaluddin 'Balkhi' because his family lived in Balkh, current day in Afghanistan before migrating westward. However, their home was not in the actual city of Balkh, since the mid-eighth century a center of Muslim culture in (Greater) Khorasan (Iran and Central Asia). Rather, as Meier has shown, it was in the small town of Wakhsh north of the Oxus that Baha'uddin Walad, Jalaluddin's father, lived and worked as a jurist and preacher with mystical inclinations. Franklin Lewis, Rumi : Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalâl al-Din Rumi, 2000, pp. 47-49.

Lewis has devoted two pages of his book to the topic of Wakhsh, which he states has been identified with the medieval town of Lêwkand (or Lâvakand) or Sangtude, which is about 65 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe, the capital of present-day Tajikistan. He says it is on the east bank of the Vakhshâb river, a major tributary that joins the Amu Daryâ river (also called Jayhun, and named the Oxus by the Greeks). He further states: "Bahâ al-Din may have been born in Balkh, but at least between June 1204 and 1210 (Shavvâl 600 and 607), during which time Rumi was born, Bahâ al-Din resided in a house in Vakhsh (Bah 2:143 [= Bahâ' uddîn Walad's] book, "Ma`ârif."). Vakhsh, rather than Balkh was the permanent base of Bahâ al-Din and his family until Rumi was around five years old (mei 16-35) [= from a book in German by the scholar Fritz Meier-note inserted here]. At that time, in about the year 1212 (A.H. 608-609), the Valads moved to Samarqand (Fih 333; Mei 29-30, 36) [= reference to Rumi's "Discourses" and to Fritz Meier's book-note inserted here], leaving behind Baâ al-Din's mother, who must have been at least seventy-five years old."

2. ^ Lewis, Franklin D. (2014). Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The life, Teaching and poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi. Simon and Schuster. pp. 15-16, 52, 60, 89.

3. ^ Zarrinkoob, Abdolhossein (2005). Serr-e Ney. Vol. 1. Instisharat-i Ilmi. p. 447.

4. ^ Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred : A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought, ABC-CLIO (2010), p. 141

5. ^ Lewis, Franklin D. (2008). Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The life, Teaching and poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi. Oneworld Publication. p. 9. How is that a Persian boy born almost eight hundred years ago in Khorasan, the northeastern province of greater Iran, in a region that we identify today as in Central Asia, but was considered in those days as part of the greater Persian cultural sphere, wound up in central Anatolia on the receding edge of the Byzantine cultural sphere, in what is now Turkey, some 1,500 miles to the west?

6. ^ Schimmel, Annemarie (7 April 1994). The Mystery of Numbers. Oxford University Press. p. 51. These examples are taken from the Persian mystic Rumi's work, not from Chinese, but they express the yang-yin [sic] relationship with perfect lucidity.

7. Franklin Lewis: "On the question of Rumi's multilingualism (pp. 315-317), we may still say that he spoke and wrote in Persian as a native language, wrote and conversed in Arabic as a learned "foreign" language and could at least get by at the market in Turkish and Greek (although some wildly extravagant claims have been made about his command of Attic Greek, or his native tongue being Turkish) (Lewis 2008:xxi). (Franklin Lewis, "Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi," One World Publication Limited, 2008). Franklin also points out that: "Living among Turks, Rumi also picked up some colloquial Turkish."(Franklin Lewis, "Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi," One World Publication Limited, 2008, p. 315). He also mentions Rumi composed thirteen lines in Greek (Franklin Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, One World Publication Limited, 2008, p. 316). On Rumi's son, Sultan Walad, Franklin mentions: "Sultan Walad elsewhere admits that he has little knowledge of Turkish" (Sultan Walad): Franklin Lewis, Rumi, "Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, One World Publication Limited, 2008, p. 239) and "Sultan Valad did not feel confident about his command of Turkish" (Franklin Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld Publications, 2000, p. 240)

8. Δέδες, Δ. (1993). "Ποιήματα του Μαυλανά Ρουμή" [Poems by Mowlānā Rūmī]. Τα Ιστορικά. 10 (18-19): 3-22.

9. ^ Meyer, Gustav (1895). "Die griechischen Verse im Rabâbnâma". Byzantinische Zeitschrift. 4 (3). doi:10.1515/byzs.1895.4.3.401. S2CID 191615267.

10. ^ Gardet, Louis (1977). "Religion and Culture". In Holt, P.M.; Lambton, Ann K.S.; Lewis, Bernard (eds.). The Cambridge History of Islam, Part VIII: Islamic Society and Civilization. Cambridge University Press. p. 586. It is sufficient to mention 'Aziz al-Din Nasafi, Farid al-Din 'Attar and Sa'adi, and above all Jalal al-Din Rumi, whose Mathnawi remains one of the purest literary glories of Persia

11. "Rumi work translated into Kurdish". 30 January 2015.

12. Seyyed, Hossein Nasr (1987). Islamic Art and Spirituality. Suny Press. p. 115. Jalal al-Din was born in a major center of Persian culture, Balkh, from Persian speaking parents, and is the product of that Islamic Persian culture which in the 7th/13th century dominated the 'whole of the eastern lands of Islam and to which present day Persians as well as Turks, Afghans, Central Asian Muslims and the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent are heir. It is precisely in this world that the sun of his spiritual legacy has shone most brillianty during the past seven centuries. The father of Jalal al-Din, Muhammad ibn Husayn Khatibi, known as Baha al-Din Walad and entitled Sultan al-'ulama', was an outstanding Sufi in Balkh connected to the spiritual lineage of Najm al-Din Kubra.

13. ^ Rahman, Aziz (27 August 2015). "Nazrul: The rebel and the romantic". Daily Sun. Archived from the original on 17 April 2017.

14. ^ "Interview: 'Many Americans Love Rumi...But They Prefer He Not Be Muslim'". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 9 August 2010.

15. ^ "Interview: A mystical journey with Rumi". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 16 August 2010.

16. Charles Haviland (30 September 2007). "The roar of Rumi-800 years on". BBC News.

17. ^ "Dîvân-i Kebîr Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī". OMI - Old Manuscripts & Incunabula.

18. ^ Ciabattari, Jane (21 October 2014). "Why is Rumi the best-selling poet in the US?". BBC News.

19. ^ Tompkins, Ptolemy (29 October 2002). "Rumi Rules!". Time. ISSN 0040-781X.

20. ^ Sipahsalar, Faridun bin Ahmad (1946). Sa'id Nafisi (ed.). Risala-yi Ahwal-i Mawlana. Tehran. p. 5.

21. ^ Franklin Lewis (2008). Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi. One World Publication Limited. p. 9.

22. ^ "ملای روم" in Dehkhoda Dictionary

23. H. Ritter, 1991, ^ DJALĀL al-DĪN RŪMĪ, The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Volume II: C-G), 393.

24. ^ Yalman, Suzan (7 July 2016), "Badr al-Dīn Tabrīzī", Encyclopaedia of Islam THREE, Brill, Badr al-Dīn Tabrīzī was the architect of the original tomb built for Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273, in Konya), the great Persian mystic and poet.

25. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality, SUNY Press, 1987. p. 115: "Jalal al-Din was born in a major center of Persian culture, Balkh, from Persian speaking parents, and is the product of that Islamic Persian culture which in the 7th/13th century dominated the 'whole of the eastern lands of Islam and to which present day Persians as well as Turks, Afghans, Central Asian Muslims and the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistani and the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent are heir. It is precisely in this world that the sun of his spiritual legacy has shone most brilliantly during the past seven centuries. The father of Jalal al-Din, Muhammad ibn Husayn Khatibi, known as Baha al-Din Walad and entitled Sultan al-'ulama', was an outstanding Sufi in Balkh connected to the spiritual lineage of Najm al-Din Kubra."

26. ^ Barks, Coleman, Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing, HarperCollins, 2005, p. xxv, ISBN 978-0-06-075050-3

27. Franklin Lewis, ^ Rumi: Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld Publications, 2000.

How is it that a Persian boy born almost eight hundred years ago in Khorasan, the northeastern province of greater Iran, in a region that we identify today as Central Asia, but was considered in those days as part of the Greater Persian cultural sphere, wound up in Central Anatolia on the receding edge of the Byzantine cultural sphere, in which is now Turkey

28. H. Algar, ^ "BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD WALAD", Encyclopedia Iranica. There is no reference to such descent in the works of Bahāʾ-e Walad and Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn or in the inscriptions on their sarcophagi. The attribution may have arisen from confusion between the caliph and another Abū Bakr, Šams-al-Aʾemma Abū Bakr Saraḵsī (d. 483/1090), the well-known Hanafite jurist, whose daughter, Ferdows Ḵātūn, was the mother of Aḥmad Ḵaṭīb, Bahāʾ-e Walad's grandfather (see Forūzānfar, Resāla, p. 6). Tradition also links Bahāʾ-e Walad's lineage to the Ḵᵛārazmšāh[check spelling ] dynasty. His mother is said to have been the daughter of ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Moḥammad Ḵārazmšāh[check spelling ] (d. 596/1200), but this appears to be excluded for chronological reasons (Forūzānfar, Resāla, p. 7)

29. Franklin Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld Publications, 2008 (revised edition). p. 44:"Baha al-Din's father, Hosayn, had been a religious scholar with a bent for asceticism, occupied like his own father before him, Ahmad, with the family profession of preacher (khatib). Of the four canonical schools of Sunni Islam, the family adhered to the relatively liberal ^ Hanafi fiqh. Hosayn-e Khatibi enjoyed such renown in his youth-so says Aflaki with characteristic exaggeration-that Razi al-Din Nayshapuri and other famous scholars came to study with him (Af 9; for the legend about Baha al-Din, see below, "The Mythical Baha al-Din"). Another report indicates that Baha al-Din's grandfather, Ahmad al-Khatibi, was born to Ferdows Khatun, a daughter of the reputed Hanafite jurist and author Shams al-A'emma Abu Bakr of Sarakhs, who died circa 1088 (Af 75; FB 6 n.4; Mei 74 n. 17). This is far from implausible and, if true, would tend to suggest that Ahmad al-Khatabi had studied under Shams al-A'emma. Prior to that the family could supposedly trace its roots back to Isfahan. We do not learn the name of Baha al-Din's mother in the sources, only that he referred to her as "Mama" (Mami), and that she lived to the 1200s." (p. 44)

30. ^ Ahmed, Akbar (2011). Suspended Somewhere Between: A Book of Verse. PM Press. pp. i. ISBN 978-1-60486-485-4.

31. ^ El-Fers, Mohamed (2009). Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. MokumTV. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-4092-9291-3.

32. ^ Jawid Mojaddedi (2004). "Introduction". Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Masnavi, Book One. Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition). p. xix.

33. ^ Crane, H. (1993). "Notes on Saldjūq Architectural Patronage in Thirteenth Century Anatolia". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 36 (1): 1-57. doi:10.1163/156852093X00010. JSTOR 3632470. ProQuest 1304344524.

34. ^ Ibrahim Gamard (with gratitude for R.A. Nicholson's 1930 British translation). The Mathnawî-yé Ma'nawî - Rhymed Couplets of Deep Spiritual Meaning of Jalaluddin Rumi.

35. ^ Jawid Mojaddedi (2004). "Introduction". Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Masnavi, Book One. Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition). p. xix. Rumi's Masnavi holds an exalted status in the rich canon of Persian Sufi literature as the greatest mystical poem ever written. It is even referred to commonly as 'the Koran in Persian'.

36. Abdul Rahman ^ Jami notes:

من چه گویم وصف آن عالی‌جناب - نیست پیغمبر ولی دارد کتاب

مثنویّ معنویّ مولوی - هست قرآن در زبان پهلوی

What can I say in praise of that great one?
He is not a Prophet but has come with a book;
The Spiritual Masnavi of Mowlavi
Is the Qur'an in the language of Pahlavi (Persian).

(Khawaja Abdul Hamid Irfani, "The Sayings of Rumi and Iqbal", Bazm-e-Rumi, 1976.)

37. ^ Jawid Mojaddedi (2004). "Introduction". Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Masnavi, Book One. Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition). pp. xii-xiii. Towards the end of his life he presented the fruit of his experience of Sufism in the form of the Masnavi, which has been judged by many commentators, both within the Sufi tradition and outside it, to be the greatest mystical poem ever written.

38. ^ Virani, Shafique N. (January 2019). "Persian Poetry, Sufism and Ismailism: The Testimony of Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī's Recognizing God". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 29 (1): 17-49. doi:10.1017/S1356186318000494. S2CID 165288246. ProQuest 2300038453.

39. ^ "Untitled Document".

40. ^ Tasbihi, Eliza (2016). "Sabzawārī's Sharḥ-i Asrār: A Philosophical Commentary on Rūmīʾs 'Mathnawī'". Mawlana Rumi Review. 7: 175-196. doi:10.1163/25898566-00701009. JSTOR 45236376.

41. Curiel, Jonathan, ^ San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer, Islamic verses: The influence of Muslim literature in the United States has grown stronger since the 11 Sep attacks (6 February 2005), Available online (Retrieved Aug 2006)

42. See for example 4th grade Iranian school book where the story of the Parrot and Merchant from the Mathnawi is taught to students^ [verification needed ]

43. ^ Hiro, Dilip (1 November 2011). Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz stan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Iran. The Overlook Press. ISBN 978-1-59020-378-1.[page needed ]

44. ^ Uyar, Yaprak Melike; Beşiroğlu, Ş. Şehvar (2014). "Recent representations of the music of the Mevlevi Order of Sufism". Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies. 6 (2): 137-150. doi:10.4407/jims.2014.02.002.

45. ^ "Rumi's Special Companion Salah-eddin Zarkoub".

46. ^ "Mevlâna Celâleddin Rumi". Archived from the original on 6 May 2007.

47. Mango, Andrew, ^ Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey, (2002), ISBN 978-1-58567-011-6.

48. ^ The Mevlevi Sema Ceremony UNESCO.

49. Banknote Museum: 7. Emission Group-Five Thousand Turkish Lira-^ I. Series Archived 2 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine, II. Series Archived 2 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine & III. Series. Retrieved on 20 April 2009. Archived 3 June 2009 at WebCite

50. ^ Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia from the Earliest Times Until Firdawsh, 543 pp., Adamant Media Corporation, 2002, ISBN 978-1-4021-6045-5, 978-1-4021-6045-5 (see p. 437)

51. ^ Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God, 302 pp., SUNY Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-7914-1982-3, 978-0-7914-1982-3 (see p. 210)

52. ^ "UNESCO: 800th Anniversary of the Birth of Mawlana Jalal-ud-Din Balkhi-Rumi". UNESCO. 6 September 2007. Archived from the original on 29 June 2009. The prominent Persian language poet, thinker and spiritual master, Mevlana Celaleddin Belhi-Rumi was born in 1207 in Balkh, presently Afghanistan.

53. ^ "UNESCO. Executive Board; 175th; UNESCO Medal in honour of Mawlana Jalal-ud-Din Balkhi-Rumi; 2006" (PDF). UNESDOC - UNESCO Documents and Publications. October 2006.

54. ^ Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 10/03/06 Archived 13 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine

55. ^ "Mawlana Rumi Review". ISSN 2042-3357.

56. ^ Rumi, Jalaloddin. "Rumi on fire". translated by Shahriar Shahriari.

Further reading

English translations

Ma-Aarif-E-Mathnavi A commentary of the Mathnavi of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi (R.A.), by Hazrat Maulana Hakim Muhammad Akhtar Saheb (D.B.), 1997.

The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, by William Chittick, Albany: SUNY Press, 1983.

The Mysteries of the Universe and Rumi's Discoveries on the Majestic Path of Love, by Majid M. Naini, Universal Vision & Research, 2002 ISBN 978-0-9714600-0-3 www.naini.net

The Mesnevi of Mevlâna Jelālu'd-dīn er-Rūmī. Book first, together with some account of the life and acts of the Author, of his ancestors, and of his descendants, illustrated by a selection of characteristic anecdotes, as collected by their historian, Mevlâna Shemsu'd-dīn Ahmed el-Eflākī el-'Arifī, translated and the poetry versified by James W. Redhouse, London: 1881. Contains the translation of the first book only.

Masnaví-i Ma'naví, the Spiritual Couplets of Mauláná Jalálu'd-din Muhammad Rúmí, translated and abridged by E.H. Whinfield, London: 1887; 1989. Abridged version from the complete poem. On-line editions at sacred-texts.com, archive.org and on wikisource.

The Masnavī by Jalālu'd-din Rūmī. Book II, translated for the first time from the Persian into prose, with a Commentary, by C.E. Wilson, London: 1910.

The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, edited from the oldest manuscripts available, with critical notes, translation and commentary by Reynold A. Nicholson, in 8 volumes, London: Messrs Luzac & Co., 1925-1940. Contains the text in Persian. First complete English translation of the Mathnawí.

The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A.J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996 ISBN 978-0-06-250959-8; Edison (NJ) and New York: Castle Books, 1997 ISBN 978-0-7858-0871-8. Selections. Description of 2010 expanded edition. A much-cited poem therein is "The Guest House found in, for example, Mark Williams and Danny Penman (2011), Mindfulness, pp. 165-167. The poem is also at The Guest House by Rumi.

The Illuminated Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, Michael Green contributor, New York: Broadway Books, 1997 ISBN 978-0-7679-0002-7.

The Rubai'yat of Jalal Al-Din Rumi: Select Translations Into English Verse, Translated by A.J. Arberry, (Emery Walker, London, 1949)

Mystical Poems of Rumi, Translated by A.J. Arberry, (University of Chicago Press, 2009)

The quatrains of Rumi: Complete translation with Persian text, Islamic mystical commentary, manual of terms, and concordance, translated by Ibrahim W. Gamard and A.G. Rawan Farhadi, 2008.

The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems, translations by Coleman Barks, Harper One, 2002.

The Hundred Tales of Wisdom, a translation by Idries Shah of the Manāqib ul-Ārefīn of Aflākī, Octagon Press 1978. Episodes from the life of Rumi and some of his teaching stories.

Life and work

RUMI, JALĀL-AL-DIN. Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2014.

Dr Khalifa Abdul Hakim, "The metaphysics of Rumi: A critical and historical sketch", Lahore: The Institute of Islamic Culture, 1959. ISBN 978-81-7435-475-4

Afzal Iqbal, The Life and thought of Mohammad Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, Lahore: Bazm-i-Iqbal, 1959 (latest edition, The life and work of Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2014). Endorsed by the famous Rumi scholar, A.J. Arberry, who penned the foreword.

Abdol Reza Arasteh, Rumi the Persian: Rebirth in Creativity and Love, Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1963 (latest edition, Rumi the Persian, the Sufi, New York: Routledge, 2013). The author was a US-trained Iranian psychiatrist influenced by Erich Fromm and C.G. Jung.

Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi, Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.

Fatemeh Keshavarz, "Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi", University of South Carolina Press, 1998. ISBN 978-1-57003-180-9.

Mawlana Rumi Review mawlanarumireview.com. An annual review devoted to Rumi. Archetype, 2010. ISBN 978-1-901383-38-6.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality, Albany: SUNY Press, 1987, chapters 7 and 8.

Majid M. Naini, The Mysteries of the Universe and Rumi's Discoveries on the Majestic Path of Love, Universal Vision & Research, 2002, ISBN 978-0-9714600-0-3

Lewis, Franklin (2000). Rumi: Past and Present, East and West. One World (UK). ISBN 978-1-85168-214-0.

Rumi's Thoughts, edited by Seyed G Safavi, London: London Academy of Iranian Studies, 2003.

William Chittick, The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi: Illustrated Edition, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2005.

Rumi's Tasawwuf and Vedanta by R.M. Chopra in Indo Iranica Vol. 60

Athanasios Sideris, "Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi", an entry on Rumi's connections to the Greek element in Asia Minor, in the Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World - Asia Minor, 2003.

Waley, Muhammad Isa (2017). The Stanzaic Poems (Tarjī'āt) of Rumi. Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary, with Additional Chapters on Aspects of His Divan. (School of Oriental and African Studies, London.)

Persian literature

External links

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( Persian: جلال‌الدین مُحمّد رُومی ), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 - 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.[8] [9] Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish,[10] Arabic [11] and Greek [12] [13] [14] in his verse.

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J. K. Rowling

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Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, film producer, television producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history. The books are the basis of a popular film series, over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and was a producer on the final films. She also writes crime fiction under the name Robert Galbraith.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. There were six sequels, of which the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released in 2007. Since then, Rowling has written five books for adult readers: The Casual Vacancy (2012) and-under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith-the crime fiction Cormoran Strike series, which consists of The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015), and Lethal White (2018).

Rowling has lived a " rags to riches" life in which she progressed from living on benefits to being the world's first billionaire author. She lost her billionaire status after giving away much of her earnings to charity but remains one of the wealthiest people in the world. She is the UK's best-selling living author, with sales in excess of £238 million. The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK. Time named her a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October 2010, Rowling was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors. She has supported multiple charities, including Comic Relief, One Parent Families, and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, as well as launching her own charity, Lumos.

Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, her name, before her remarriage, was Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers asked that she use two initials rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K (for Kathleen) as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother. She calls herself Jo. Following her remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling and her entry in lists her name also as Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

Life and career

Birth and family

Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, the daughter of science technician Anne (née Volant) and Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer Peter James Rowling. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. One of Rowling's maternal great-grandfathers, Dugald Campbell, was a Scottish man from Lamlash. Her mother's French paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the War Cross for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during World War I. Rowling originally believed Volant had won the Legion of Honour during the war, as she said when she received it herself in 2009. She later discovered the truth when featured in an episode of the UK genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? in which she found out it was a different Louis Volant who won the Legion of Honour. When she heard her grandfather's story of bravery and discovered that the War Cross was for "ordinary" soldiers like her grandfather, who had been a waiter, she stated the War Cross was "better" to her than the Legion of Honour.

Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories which she frequently read to her sister. Aged nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling read all of her books.

Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms. Rowling later said that she based the character of Hermione Granger on herself when she was eleven. Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth, owned a turquoise Ford Anglia which she says inspired a flying version that appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Like many teenagers, she became interested in rock music, listening to the Clash, the Smiths, and Siouxsie Sioux, adopting the look of the latter with back-combed hair and black eyeliner, a look that she would still sport when beginning university.

As a child, Rowling attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department. Steve Eddy, her first secondary school English teacher, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English". Rowling took A-levels in English, French and German, achieving two As and a B and was head girl.

In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not accepted and earned a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. Martin Sorrell, a French professor at Exeter, remembers "a quietly competent student, with a denim jacket and dark hair, who, in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary". Rowling recalls doing little work, preferring to read Dickens and Tolkien. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986. In 1988, Rowling wrote a short essay about her time studying Classics titled "What was the Name of that Nymph Again? or Greek and Roman Studies Recalled"; it was published by the University of Exeter's journal Pegasus.

Inspiration and mother's death

After working as a researcher and bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International, Rowling moved with her then boyfriend to Manchester, where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce. In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind.

When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December, Rowling's mother, Anne, died after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis. Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it. Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing, and she channelled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry's own feelings of loss in greater detail in the first book.

Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood

An advertisement in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language. She taught at night and began writing in the day while listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. After 18 months in Porto, she met Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar and found they shared an interest in Jane Austen. They married on 16 October 1992 and their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. Rowling had previously suffered a miscarriage. The couple separated on 17 November 1993. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, although the extent is unknown. In December 1993, Rowling and her then infant daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near Rowling's sister with three chapters of what would become Harry Potter in her suitcase.

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating and allowing her to focus on writing. During this period, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. Her illness inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book. Rowling signed up for welfare benefits, describing her economic status as being "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless."

Rowling was left in despair after her estranged husband arrived in Scotland, seeking both her and her daughter. She obtained an Order of Restraint, and Arantes returned to Portugal, with Rowling filing for divorce in August 1994. She began a teacher training course in August 1995 at the Moray House School of Education, at Edinburgh University, after completing her first novel while living on state benefits. She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café (owned by her brother-in-law), and the Elephant House, wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. In a 2001 BBC interview, Rowling denied the rumour that she wrote in local cafés to escape from her unheated flat, pointing out that it had heating. One of the reasons she wrote in cafés was that taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.

In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which was typed on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, a reader who had been asked to review the book's first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1,500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London. The decision to publish Rowling's book owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children's books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8,000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing.

In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year, and later, the Children's Book Award. In early 1998, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for US$105,000. Rowling said that she "nearly died" when she heard the news. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher's Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a change Rowling says she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time. Rowling moved from her flat with the money from the Scholastic sale, into 19 Hazelbank Terrace in Edinburgh.

Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and again Rowling won the Smarties Prize. In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney's translation of .

The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000 and broke sales records in both countries. 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all records. Rowling said that she had had a crisis while writing the novel and had to rewrite one chapter many times to fix a problem with the plot. Rowling was named Author of the Year in the 2000 British Book Awards.

A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she denied. Rowling later said that writing the book was a chore, that it could have been shorter, and that she ran out of time and energy as she tried to finish it.

The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.

The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was announced on 21 December 2006 as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In February 2007 it was reported that Rowling wrote on a bust in her hotel room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh that she had finished the seventh book in that room on 11 January 2007. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007 (0:01 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. The book's last chapter was one of the earliest things she wrote in the entire series.

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated US$15 billion, and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.

The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although it is reported that despite the huge uptake of the books, adolescent reading has continued to decline.

In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels for a seven-figure sum. A film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on 16 November 2001, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on 15 November 2002. Both films were directed by Chris Columbus. The film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was released on 4 June 2004, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by Mike Newell, and released on 18 November 2005. The film of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released on 11 July 2007. David Yates directed, and Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay, having taken over the position from Steve Kloves. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released on 15 July 2009. David Yates directed again, and Kloves returned to write the script. Warner Bros. filmed the final instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in two segments, with part one being released on 19 November 2010 and part two being released on 15 July 2011. Yates directed both films.

Warner Bros. took considerable notice of Rowling's desires when drafting her contract. One of her principal stipulations was the films be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has been generally adhered to. Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the winner in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate US$18 million to the American charity Reading Is Fundamental, as well as several community charity programs.

Steve Kloves wrote the screenplays for all but the fifth film; Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future books in the series. She told Alan Rickman ( Severus Snape) and Robbie Coltrane ( Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters before they were revealed in the books. Daniel Radcliffe ( Harry Potter) asked her if Harry died at any point in the series; Rowling answered him by saying, "You have a death scene", thereby not explicitly answering the question. Director Steven Spielberg was approached to direct the first film, but dropped out. The press has repeatedly claimed that Rowling played a role in his departure, but Rowling stated that she had no say in who directed the films and would not have vetoed Spielberg. Rowling's first choice for the director had been Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, but Warner Bros. wanted a family-friendly film and chose Columbus.

Rowling had gained some creative control over the films, reviewing all the scripts as well as acting as a producer on the final two-part instalment, Deathly Hallows.

Rowling, producers David Heyman and David Barron, along with directors David Yates, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuarón collected the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in honour of the Harry Potter film franchise.

In September 2013, Warner Bros. announced an "expanded creative partnership" with Rowling, based on a planned series of films about her character Newt Scamander, author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first film was released in November 2016 and is set roughly 70 years before the events of the main series. In 2016, it was announced that the series would consist of five films. The second, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, was released in November 2018. Rowling scripted and co-produced both films.

Financial success

In 2004, named Rowling as the first person to become a US-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK. In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list, claiming that her US$160 million in charitable donations and the high tax rate in the UK meant she was no longer a billionaire. In February 2013 she was assessed as the 13th most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.

Rowling acquired the courtesy title of Laird of Killiechassie in 2001 when she purchased the historic Killiechassie House, and its surrounding estate situated on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross. Rowling also owns a £4.5 million Georgian house in Kensington, west London, on a street with 24-hour security.

In 2017, Rowling was worth an estimated £650 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List. She was named the most highly paid author in the world with earnings of £72 million ($95 million) a year by Forbes in 2017.

Remarriage and family

On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Murray (born 30 June 1971), a Scottish doctor, in a private ceremony at her home, Killiechassie House in Scotland. Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24 March 2003. Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she ceased working on the novel to care for David in his early infancy.

Rowling is a friend of Sarah Brown, wife of former prime minister Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project. When Sarah Brown's son Fraser was born in 2003, Rowling was one of the first to visit her in hospital. Rowling's youngest child, daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was born on 23 January 2005.

In October 2012, a magazine article stated that the Rowling family lived in a seventeenth-century Edinburgh house, concealed at the front by tall conifer hedges. Prior to October 2012, Rowling lived near the author Ian Rankin, who later said she was quiet and introspective, and that she seemed in her element with children. As of June 2014, the family resides in Scotland.

In July 2011, Rowling parted company with her agent, Christopher Little, moving to a new agency founded by one of his staff, Neil Blair. On 23 February 2012, his agency, the Blair Partnership, announced on its website that Rowling was set to publish a new book targeted at adults. In a press release, Rowling said that her new book would be quite different from Harry Potter. In April 2012, Little, Brown and Company announced that the book was titled The Casual Vacancy and would be released on 27 September 2012. Rowling gave several interviews and made appearances to promote The Casual Vacancy, including at the London Southbank Centre, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Charlie Rose and the Lennoxlove Book Festival. In its first three weeks of release, The Casual Vacancy sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

On 3 December 2012, it was announced that the BBC would be adapting The Casual Vacancy into a television drama miniseries. Rowling's agent, Neil Blair acted as producer, through his independent production company and with Rick Senat serving as executive producer. Rowling collaborated on the adaptation, serving as an executive producer for the series. The series aired in three parts from 15 February to 1 March 2015.

Cormoran Strike

In 2007, during the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ian Rankin claimed that his wife spotted Rowling "scribbling away" at a detective novel in a café. Rankin later retracted the story, claiming it was a joke, but the rumour persisted, with a report in 2012 in The Guardian speculating that Rowling's next book would be a crime novel. In an interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling claimed that she would much prefer to write any subsequent books under a pseudonym, but she conceded to Jeremy Paxman in 2003 that if she did, the press would probably "find out in seconds".

In April 2013, Little Brown published The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported début novel of author Robert Galbraith, whom the publisher described as "a former plainclothes Royal Military Police investigator who had left in 2003 to work in the civilian security industry". The novel, a detective story in which private investigator Cormoran Strike unravels the supposed suicide of a supermodel, sold 1,500 copies in hardback (although the matter was not resolved as of 21 July 2013; later reports stated that this number is the number of copies that were printed for the first run, while the sales total was closer to 500) and received acclaim from other crime writers and critics-a Publishers Weekly review called the book a "stellar debut", while the Library Journal's mystery section pronounced the novel "the debut of the month".

India Knight, a novelist and columnist for The Sunday Times, tweeted on 9 July 2013 that she had been reading The Cuckoo's Calling and thought it was good for a début novel. In response, a tweeter called Jude Callegari said that the author was Rowling. Knight queried this but got no further reply. Knight notified Richard Brooks, arts editor of the Sunday Times, who began his own investigation. After discovering that Rowling and Galbraith had the same agent and editor, he sent the books for linguistic analysis which found similarities, and subsequently contacted Rowling's agent who confirmed it was Rowling's pseudonym. Within days of Rowling being revealed as the author, sales of the book rose by 4,000%, and Little Brown printed another 140,000 copies to meet the increase in demand. As of 18 July 2013, a signed copy of the first edition sold for US$4,453 (£2,950), while an unsold signed first-edition copy was being offered for $6,188 (£3,950).

Rowling said that she had enjoyed working under a pseudonym. On her Robert Galbraith website, Rowling explained that she took the name from one of her personal heroes, Robert Kennedy, and a childhood fantasy name she had invented for herself, Ella Galbraith.

Soon after the revelation, Brooks pondered whether Jude Callegari could have been Rowling as part of wider speculation that the entire affair had been a publicity stunt. Some also noted that many of the writers who had initially praised the book, such as Alex Gray or Val McDermid, were within Rowling's circle of acquaintances; both vociferously denied any foreknowledge of Rowling's authorship. Judith "Jude" Callegari was the best friend of the wife of Chris Gossage, a partner within Russells Solicitors, Rowling's legal representatives. Rowling released a statement saying she was disappointed and angry; Russells apologised for the leak, confirming it was not part of a marketing stunt and that "the disclosure was made in confidence to someone he [Gossage] trusted implicitly". Russells made a donation to the Soldiers' Charity on Rowling's behalf and reimbursed her for her legal fees. On 26 November 2013 the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) issued Gossage a written rebuke and £1,000 fine for breaching privacy rules.

On 17 February 2014, Rowling announced that the second Cormoran Strike novel, named The Silkworm, would be released in June 2014. It sees Strike investigating the disappearance of a writer hated by many of his old friends for insulting them in his new novel.

In 2015, Rowling stated on Galbraith's website that the third Cormoran Strike novel would include "an insane amount of planning, the most I have done for any book I have written so far. I have colour-coded spreadsheets so I can keep a track of where I am going." On 24 April 2015, Rowling announced that work on the third book was completed. Titled Career of Evil, it was released on 20 October 2015 in the United States, and on 22 October 2015 in the United Kingdom.

In 2017, the BBC released a Cormoran Strike television series, starring Tom Burke as Cormoran Strike, it was picked up by HBO for distribution in the United States and Canada.

In March 2017, Rowling revealed the fourth novel's title via Twitter in a game of "Hangman" with her followers. After many failed attempts, followers finally guessed correctly. Rowling confirmed that the next novel's title is Lethal White. While intended for a 2017 release, Rowling tweeted the book was taking longer than expected and would be the longest book in the series thus far. The book was released 18 September 2018.

Subsequent Harry Potter publications

Rowling has said it is unlikely she will write any more books in the Harry Potter series. In October 2007 she stated that her future work was unlikely to be in the fantasy genre. On 1 October 2010, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling stated a new book on the saga might happen.

In 2007, Rowling stated that she planned to write an encyclopaedia of Harry Potter's wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. During a news conference at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre in 2007, Rowling, when asked how the encyclopaedia was coming along, said, "It's not coming along, and I haven't started writing it. I never said it was the next thing I'd do." At the end of 2007, Rowling said that the encyclopaedia could take up to ten years to complete.

In June 2011, Rowling announced that future Harry Potter projects, and all electronic downloads, would be concentrated in a new website, called Pottermore. The site includes 18,000 words of information on characters, places and objects in the Harry Potter universe.

In October 2015, Rowling announced via Pottermore that a two-part play she had co-authored with playwrights Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was the "eighth Harry Potter story" and that it would focus on the life of Harry Potter's youngest son Albus after the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. On 28 October 2015, the first round of tickets went on sale and sold out in several hours.

Philanthropy

In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget of £5.1 million to combat poverty and social inequality. The fund also gives to organisations that aid children, one-parent families, and multiple sclerosis research.

Anti-poverty and children's welfare

Rowling, once a single parent, is now president of the charity Gingerbread (originally One Parent Families), having become their first Ambassador in 2000. Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families.

In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three best-selling British authors - cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling - to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication. Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts library. Since going on sale in March 2001, the books have raised £15.7 million for the fund. The £10.8 million they have raised outside the UK have been channelled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis. In 2002, Rowling contributed a foreword to Magic, an anthology of fiction published by Bloomsbury Publishing, helping to raise money for the National Council for One Parent Families.

In 2005, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level Group (now Lumos). In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in mental institutions for children. To further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for £1.95 million by online bookseller Amazon.com on 13 December 2007, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction. Rowling gave away the remaining six copies to those who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books. In 2008, Rowling agreed to publish the book with the proceeds going to Lumos. On 1 June 2010 ( International Children's Day), Lumos launched an annual initiative - Light a Birthday Candle for Lumos. In November 2013, Rowling handed over all earnings from the sale of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, totalling nearly £19 million.

In July 2012, Rowling was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, where she read a few lines from J. M. Barrie's as part of a tribute to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. An inflatable representation of Lord Voldemort and other children's literary characters accompanied her reading.

Multiple sclerosis

Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis, from which her mother suffered before her death in 1990. In 2006, Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, later named the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. In 2010, she donated another £10 million to the centre, and in 2019 a further £15 million. For unknown reasons, Scotland, Rowling's country of adoption, has the highest rate of multiple sclerosis in the world. In 2003, Rowling took part in a campaign to establish a national standard of care for MS sufferers. In April 2009, she announced that she was withdrawing her support for Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, citing her inability to resolve an ongoing feud between the organisation's northern and southern branches that had sapped morale and led to several resignations.

Other philanthropic work

In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers ( Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Child, Sebastian Faulks, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Doris Lessing, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh) to compose a short piece of their own choosing on a single A5 card, which would then be sold at auction in aid of the charities Dyslexia Action and English PEN. Rowling's contribution was an 800-word Harry Potter prequel that concerns Harry's father, James Potter, and godfather, Sirius Black, and takes place three years before Harry was born. The cards were collated and sold for charity in book form in August 2008.

On 1 and 2 August 2006, she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières. In May 2007, Rowling pledged a donation reported as over £250,000 to a reward fund started by the tabloid News of the World for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal. Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the proceeds of which were donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory. After her exposure as the true author of The Cuckoo's Calling led to a massive increase in sales, Rowling announced she would donate all her royalties to the Army Benevolent Fund, claiming she had always intended to but never expected the book to be a best-seller.

Rowling is a member of both English PEN and Scottish PEN. She was one of 50 authors to contribute to First Editions, Second Thoughts, a charity auction for English PEN. Each author hand annotated a first-edition copy of one of their books, in Rowling's case, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The book was the highest-selling lot of the event and fetched £150,000 ($228,600).

Rowling is a supporter of the Shannon Trust, which runs the Toe by Toe Reading Plan and the Shannon Reading Plan in prisons across Britain, helping and giving tutoring to prisoners who cannot read.

Influences

Rowling has named communist and civil rights activist Jessica Mitford as her greatest influence. She said "Jessica Mitford has been my heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing how Mitford had run away at the age of 19 to fight with the Reds in the Spanish Civil War", and claims what inspired her about Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent, she liked nothing better than a good fight, preferably against a pompous and hypocritical target". Rowling has described Jane Austen as her favourite author, calling her favourite book in O, The Oprah Magazine. As a child, Rowling has said her early influences included The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, and by Paul Gallico.

Rowling is known for her centre-left political views. In September 2008, on the eve of the Labour Party Conference, Rowling announced that she had donated £1 million to the Labour Party, and publicly endorsed Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown over Conservative challenger David Cameron, praising Labour's policies on child poverty. Rowling is a close friend of Sarah Brown, wife of Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project for One Parent Families.

Rowling discussed the 2008 United States presidential election with the Spanish-language newspaper in February 2008, stating that the election would have a profound effect on the rest of the world. She also said that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be "extraordinary" in the White House. In the same interview, Rowling identified Robert F. Kennedy as her hero.

In April 2010, Rowling published an article in , in which she criticised Cameron's plan to encourage married couples to stay together by offering them a £150 annual tax credit: "Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say 'it's not the money, it's the message'. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money."

As a resident of Scotland, Rowling was eligible to vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, and campaigned for the "No" vote. She donated £1 million to the Better Together anti-independence campaign (run by her former neighbour Alistair Darling), the largest donation it had received at the time. In a blog post, Rowling explained that an open letter from Scottish medical professionals raised problems with First Minister Alex Salmond's plans for a common research funding. Rowling compared some Scottish Nationalists with the Death Eaters, characters from Harry Potter who are scornful of those without pure blood.

On 22 October 2015 a letter was published in The Guardian signed by Rowling (along with over 150 other figures from arts and politics) opposing the cultural boycott of Israel, and announcing the creation of a network for dialogue, called Culture for Coexistence. Rowling later explained her position in more detail, saying that although she opposed most of Benjamin Netanyahu's actions she did not think the cultural boycott would bring about the removal of Israel's leader or help improve the situation in Israel and Palestine.

In June 2016, Rowling campaigned for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union, in the run up to the Referendum to leave the European Union, stating on her website that, "I'm the mongrel product of this European continent and I'm an internationalist. I was raised by a Francophile mother whose family was proud of their part-French heritage ... My values are not contained or proscribed by borders. The absence of a visa when I cross the channel has symbolic value to me. I might not be in my house, but I'm still in my hometown." Rowling expressed concern that "racists and bigots" were directing parts of the Leave campaign. In a blog post, she added: "How can a retreat into selfish and insecure individualism be the right response when Europe faces genuine threats, when the bonds that tie us are so powerful, when we have come so far together? How can we hope to conquer the enormous challenges of terrorism and climate change without cooperation and collaboration?"

Over the years, some religious people, particularly Christians, have decried Rowling's books for supposedly promoting witchcraft. Rowling identifies as a Christian. She once said, "I believe in God, not magic." Early on she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs they would be able to predict plot lines of characters in her books.

In 2007, Rowling said she was the only one in her family who went regularly to church; she was an adherent of the Church of England. As a student she became annoyed at the "smugness of religious people" and attended less often. Later, she started to attend a Church of Scotland congregation at the time she was writing Harry Potter. Her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.

In a 2006 interview with magazine, Rowling noted that, "like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me." She has said that she has struggled with doubt, that she believes in an afterlife, and that her faith plays a part in her books. In a 2012 radio interview, she said that she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.

In 2015, following the referendum on same-sex marriage in Ireland, Rowling joked that if Ireland legalised same-sex marriage, Dumbledore and Gandalf could get married there. The Westboro Baptist Church, in response, stated that if the two got married, they would picket. Rowling responded by saying "Alas, the sheer awesomeness of such a union in such a place would blow your tiny bigoted minds out of your thick sloping skulls."

Rowling has had a difficult relationship with the press. She admits to being "thin-skinned" and dislikes the fickle nature of reporting. Rowling disputes that she is a recluse who hates to be interviewed.

By 2011, Rowling had taken more than 50 actions against the press. In 2001, the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Rowling over a series of unauthorised photographs of her with her daughter on the beach in Mauritius published in magazine. In 2007, Rowling's young son, David, assisted by Rowling and her husband, lost a court fight to ban publication of a photograph of David. The photo which was taken by a photographer using a long-range lens, was then published in a Sunday Express article featuring Rowling's family life and motherhood. The judgement was overturned in David's favour in May 2008.

Rowling particularly dislikes the British tabloid the , which has conducted interviews with her estranged ex-husband. As one journalist noted, "Harry's Uncle Vernon is a grotesque philistine of violent tendencies and remarkably little brain. It is not difficult to guess which newspaper Rowling gives him to read [in Goblet of Fire]." As of January 2014, she was seeking damages from the Mail for libel over an article about her time as a single mother. Some have speculated that Rowling's fraught relationship with the press was the inspiration behind the character Rita Skeeter, a gossipy celebrity journalist who first appears in Goblet of Fire, but Rowling noted in 2000 that the character predates her rise to fame.

In September 2011, Rowling was named a "core participant" in the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press, as one of dozens of celebrities who may have been the victim of phone hacking. On 24 November 2011, Rowling gave evidence before the inquiry; although she was not suspected to have been the victim of phone hacking, her testimony included accounts of photographers camping on her doorstep, her fiancé being duped into giving his home address to a journalist masquerading as a tax official, her chasing a journalist a week after giving birth, a journalist leaving a note inside her then-five-year-old daughter's schoolbag, and an attempt by to "blackmail" her into a photo opportunity in exchange for the return of a stolen manuscript. Rowling claimed she had to leave her former home in Merchiston because of press intrusion. In November 2012, Rowling wrote an article for The Guardian in reaction to David Cameron's decision not to implement the full recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, saying she felt "duped and angry".

In 2014, Rowling reaffirmed her support for " Hacked Off" and its campaign towards press self-regulation by co-signing with other British celebrities a declaration to "[safeguard] the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable."

Legal disputes

Rowling, her publishers, and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyright. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the appearance of a number of locally produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, sparking efforts to ban or contain them.

Another area of legal dispute involves a series of injunctions obtained by Rowling and her publishers to prohibit anyone from reading her books before their official release date. The injunction drew fire from civil liberties and free speech campaigners and sparked debates over the "right to read".

Awards and honours

Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Exeter (which she attended), the University of Aberdeen, and Harvard University, where she spoke at the 2008 commencement ceremony. In 2009 Rowling was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2002, Rowling became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (HonFRSE) as well a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). She was furthermore recognized as Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE) in 2011 for services to Literature and Philanthropy.

Other awards include:

1997: Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

1998: Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

1998: British Children's Book of the Year, winner Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

1999: Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

1999: National Book Awards Children's Book of the Year, winner Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

1999: Whitbread Children's Book of the Year, winner Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2000: British Book Awards, Author of the Year

2000: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), for services to Children's Literature

2000: Locus Award, winner Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2001: Hugo Award for Best Novel, winner Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2003: Premio Príncipe de Asturias, Concord

2003: Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers, winner Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2006: British Book of the Year, winner for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2007: Blue Peter Badge, Gold

2007: Named Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating Person of the year

2008: British Book Awards, Outstanding Achievement

2008: The Edinburgh Award

2010: Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, inaugural award winner.

2011: British Academy Film Awards, Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema for the Harry Potter film series, shared with David Heyman, cast and crew.

2012: Freedom of the City of London

2012: Rowling was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork - the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover - to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life.

2017: Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) at the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to literature and philanthropy.

2019: For their first match of March 2019, the women of the United States women's national soccer team each wore a jersey with the name of a woman they were honoring on the back; Rose Lavelle chose the name of Rowling.

Publications

Young adults

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997)

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)

6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007)

Related works

Short stories

Cormoran Strike series (as Robert Galbraith)

Non-fiction

McNeil, Gil and Brown, Sarah, editors (2002). Foreword to the anthology Magic. Bloomsbury.

Brown, Gordon (2006). Introduction to "Ending Child Poverty" in Moving Britain Forward. Selected Speeches 1997-2006. Bloomsbury.

Sussman, Peter Y., editor (26 July 2006). "The First It Girl: J. K. Rowling reviews Decca: the Letters by Jessica Mitford". The Daily Telegraph.

Anelli, Melissa (2008). Foreword to Harry, A History. Pocket Books.

Rowling, J. K. (5 June 2008). "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination". Harvard Magazine.
J. K. Rowling, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and Importance of Imagination, illustrated by Joel Holland, Sphere, 14 April 2015, 80 pages (ISBN 978-1-4087-0678-7).

Rowling, J. K. (30 April 2009). "Gordon Brown - The 2009 Time 100". Time magazine.

Rowling, J. K. (14 April 2010). "The Single Mother's Manifesto". The Times.

Rowling, J. K. (30 November 2012). "I feel duped and angry at David Cameron's reaction to Leveson". The Guardian.

Rowling, J. K. (17 December 2014). Isn't it time we left orphanages to fairytales? The Guardian.

Rowling, J. K. (guest editor) (28 April 2014). "Woman's Hour Takeover". Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4.

Rowling J.K. (contributor) (forthcoming 31 October 2019) A Love Letter to Europe.

Filmography

References

1. ^ "Warner Bros. Pictures Worldwide Satellite Trailer Debut: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1". Businesswire. 2010. Archived from the original on 27 December 2010.

2. "Sir Arnold Clark 'first billionaire car dealer'". BBC News. 24 April 2016. Archived from the original on 4 July 2016.

3. ^ "Jo Rowling Interview on Oprah". The Oprah Winfrey Show. 1 October 2010. Event occurs at 1:50. Archived from the original on 19 December 2011.

4. Shelagh, Rogers (23 October 2000). "Interview: J.K. Rowling". ^ This Morning. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Reprint Archived 15 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). 28 July 2007. Retrieved 24 December 2013.

5. ^ "Witness statement of Joanne Kathleen Rowling" (PDF). The Leveson Inquiry. November 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 January 2014.

6. (subscription or ^ "Rowling, Joanne Kathleen". . ukwhoswho.com. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. UK public library membership required) (subscription required)

7. Smith, Sean (2003), J.K. Rowling: A Biography (Michael O'Mara, London), p. 55.

8. ^ McGinty, Stephen (16 June 2003). "The J.K. Rowling Story". The Scotsman. Retrieved 9 April 2006.

9. ^ Colleen A. Sexton (2008). J. K. Rowling. Brookfield, Conn: Twenty-First Century Books. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8225-7949-6. Archived from the original on 26 January 2017.

10. Fraser, Lindsey (2 November 2002). "Harry Potter - Harry and me". The Scotsman. Interview with Rowling, edited excerpt from Conversations with J.K. Rowling.
Reprint Archived 5 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). 31 May 2003; last updated 12 February 2007. Retrieved 6 December 2014.

11. Feldman, Roxanne (September 1999). "The Truth about Harry". ^ School Library Journal.
Reprint Archived 17 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). Retrieved 2014-12-06.

12. Fraser, Lindsey. ^ Conversations with J.K. Rowling, pp. 19-20. Scholastic.

13. Fraser, Lindsey. ^ Conversations with J.K. Rowling, p. 29. Scholastic.

14. ^ Kirk, Connie Ann (2003). J. K. Rowling: a biography. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-313-32205-1. Archived from the original on 26 January 2017.

15. Fraser, Lindsey. ^ Conversations with J.K. Rowling, p. 34. Scholastic.

16. Norman-Culp, Sheila (23 November 1998). "British author rides up the charts on a wizard's tale". Associated Press Newswires. ^
Reprint Archived 14 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). 24 February 2007. Retrieved 6 December 2007.

17. Loer, Stephanie (18 October 1999). "All about Harry Potter from quidditch to the future of the Sorting Hat". ^ The Boston Globe.
Reprint Archived 10 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). No date. Retrieved 10 October 2007.

18. "Harry Potter and Me". BBC Christmas Special. 2001. ^ A&E Biography (American edition), 13 November 2002.
Reprint Archived 17 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine (part 1 of 5) at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). Retrieved 25 February 2007.

19. ^ Kirk, Connie Ann (2003). J.K. Rowling: A Biography. United States: Greenwood Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-313-32205-1. Soon, by many eyewitness accounts and even some versions of Jorge's own story, domestic violence became a painful reality in Jo's life.

20. ^ Melissa Anelli (2008). Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon. New York: Pocket. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-4165-5495-0. Archived from the original on 26 January 2017.

21. Kirk, Connie Ann (2003). J.K. Rowling: A Biography. United States: Greenwood Press.

22. Cornwell, Tim.^ Finish or bust - JK Rowling's unlikely message in an Edinburgh hotel room. The Scotsman. 3 February 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2007.

23. Pauli, Michelle. "^ June date for Harry Potter 5 Archived 28 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine". The Guardian (London); "Potter 'is fastest-selling book ever Archived 29 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine". BBC News. Retrieved 4 August 2007.

24. Spelling, Ian. ^ Yates Confirmed For Potter VI. Sci Fi Wire. 3 May 2007.

25. "Warner Bros. Announces Expanded Creative Partnership with J.K. Rowling". Warner Bros. Pictures. Business Wire. 22 September 2010. Archived from the original on 15 September 2013.

26. ^ #1062 Joanne (JK) Rowling Archived 29 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Forbes.com. Retrieved 16 March 2008; Oprah is Richest Female Entertainer Archived 21 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Contact Music. Retrieved 20 January 2007.

27. ^ "Scottish homes market view 2008: Perthshire". The Times UK. 28 September 2008. Their best-known owner, JK Rowling, "The Laird of Killiechassie", purchased her strip of premium Perthshire from Jackson for about £600,000 in 2001 - a bargain by today's standards.

28. Nichols, Michelle. ^ Hogwarts hideaway for Potter author. The Scotsman. 22 November 2001. Retrieved 25 October 2007.

29. ^ Watts, Robert (7 May 2017). "Brexit brings bonanza for billionaires". The Sunday Times. p. 1. The Harry Potter author JK Rowling is now valued at £650m and the singer Adele enters the main list for the first time with a fortune of £125m after a phenomenal year of touring since the release of her album 25.

30. Richard Brooks (14 July 2013). "Whodunnit? J. K. Rowling's Secret Life As A Wizard Crime Writer Revealed". The Sunday Times. p. 1.

31. ^ Maxine Frith (16 July 2013). "Harry Plotter?". London Evening Standard. pp. 20-21.

32. ^ Nick Clark (14 July 2013). "'I turned down 'Robert Galbraith': Editor admits rejecting JK Rowling's secret novel". The Independent. Archived from the original on 6 April 2016.

33. Goldsmith, Belinda. "Real-life mystery of JK Rowling's 'secret' novel uncovered". trust.org. Reuters. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013.

34. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (26 October 2016). "HBO Picks Up 'Cormoran Strike' Drama Based on J.K. Rowling's Crime Novels". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 12 January 2017.

35. ^ Transcript of J. K. Rowling interview on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross Archived 16 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine. 6 July 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2007.

36. ^ David L. Ulin. "J.K. Rowling brings magic touch to U.S." Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 19 October 2007. 16 October 2007. Retrieved 30 October 2007.

37. ^ "Pottermore - Cursed Child is the 'eighth Potter story'". Pottermore. Archived from the original on 23 December 2016.

38. Philanthropy Impact, Sophie Radice. ^ JK Rowling OBE. "Women and Philanthropy". Archived from the original on 10 November 2013.

39. Matilda Battersby: ^ JK Rowling wins 'substantial donation' to charity from law firm behind Robert Galbraith confidentiality leak. The Independent, 31 July 2013

40. ^ Aitkenhead, Decca (22 September 2012). "JK Rowling: 'The worst that can happen is that everyone says, That's shockingly bad'". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 21 December 2013.

41. ^ "JK Rowling donates £1m to Scottish independence 'No' campaign and calls some nationalists 'Death Eaters'". The Independent. London. 12 June 2014. Archived from the original on 11 June 2014.

42. ^ "New Interview with J.K. Rowling for Release of Dutch Edition of "Deathly Hallows"". The Leaky Cauldron. 2007. Archived from the original on 20 November 2007.

43. ^ Presenter: Mark Lawson (27 September 2012). "J. K. Rowling". Front Row. Event occurs at 17:45. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 1 October 2012.

44. ^ David Murray (by his litigation friends Neil Murray and Joanne Murray) v Big Pictures (UK) Limited [2008] EWCA Civ 446 (7 May 2008).

45. ^ O'Carroll, Lisa (14 September 2011). "Leveson phone-hacking inquiry: JK Rowling among 'core participants'". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 4 June 2014.

46. ^ "Rowling seeks 'Grotter' ban". BBC News Archived 21 April 1999 at the Wayback Machine, 13 March 2003. Retrieved 21 March 2006."

47. ^ "'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling receives Honorary Degree". University of Aberdeen. 2006. Archived from the original on 12 December 2008. Retrieved 6 June 2008.

48. ^ "College Fellows and Members recognised in Queen's Birthday Honours". Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. RCPE.

49. ^ "A Thrilling New Adventure in J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World is Underway". Warner Bros. Pictures. Business Wire. 3 July 2017.

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, film producer, television producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history.