In her anguish, I heard my own.

The boy was right, he thought, putting the pages back in his pocket. Poems are what we make of them.

A Note of Thanks.

As one who's never studied Islam or been close to Iran-and is of Hindu origin to boot-I was especially grateful, in pursuing this project, for whatever wisdom I could glean from others. To learn a little about Sufism and Rumi, I turned above all to the great Annemarie Schimmel and to Franklin Lewis; for a more general understanding of Islam and its place in the modern world, I was helped most by the writings of Akbar Ahmed, Malise Ruthven, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr; and for renderings of Sufi poetry, like many I was much inspired by Coleman Barks.

Among the many, many books on Iran that I consulted, I was most grateful for the fair-minded, open-eyed travel accounts of Christiane Bird, Robin Wright, V. S. Naipaul, Paul William Roberts, and the author of the heroic 1992 Lonely Planet guide to the country, David St. Vincent; for a more intimate sense of Iranian culture, I was especially helped by the novels of Shusha Guppy and Gina Nahai. One day in London, I picked up a new novel set in Isfahan, and found it to be written by an old schoolmate of mine, James Buchan; clearly, more than one student was dreaming of romantic Persia in our fifteenth-century Berkshire classroom. Most of all, I learned about the human side of Iran through the wise counsel of my new friend, Jasmin Saidi, my old friends Manou and Fariba Eskandari, Professor Abbas Amanat, and Sharon Rawlinson.

In bringing this book into print, I was buoyed beyond measure, as always, by the inspired wisdom and kindness of Lynn Nesbit- who, presented out of the blue with a manuscript about Sufism, was able to advise me on mysticism, tell me about her own trip to Rumi's tomb in Konya, and introduce me to an Iranian friend with whom she'd gone shopping for manuscripts in Damascus; and helped, too, by the legendary readers at Knopf, especially Sonny Mehta, Marty Asher, Robin Desser, and in particular my editor, Dan Frank, who threw himself into this book as passionately as if it were his own. Terry Zaroff-Evans copyedited the manuscript seamlessly, and Ayako Harvie and Rahel Lerner tended to my every need with grace. Nicholas Latimer, Pam Henstell, and Dave Hyde, among others, took wonderful care of me on the rare occasions when I emerged from my seclusion.

On a more private level, Peter MacLeod dug up fascinating background material in Toronto, and Mark Salzman and Steve Carlson read an early draft with responsive sympathy. Poor Michael Hofmann, my unpaid reader-in-chief, brought to every sentence his elegant, wise sense of when to speak and when to stay silent.

In certain invisible but essential ways this book is the product of the weeks and months I have spent at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in California for more than a dozen years now, and I owe the brothers and fathers of that Benedictine order more than I can ever say. Inspiration at home came from my mother, Nandini Iyer, a lifelong student and teacher of mysticism, and from my friend Patrick O'Donnell, who emptied his shelves to assist me. And in my tiny apartment in the middle of a Japanese nowhere, I was deeply grateful for such inspiration as came from far away, whether publicly, in the work of James Nachtwey, Peter Brook, U2, and Leonard Cohen, among others, or privately, in the warm and supportive messages of Tony Cohan, Mark Muro, and Susanna Kaysen. It seems only right to me that a book about love should be written in the company of my talisman, Hiroko Takeuchi, and of her equally radiant and thoughtful children Sachi and Takashi.

Permissions Acknowledgments.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: Coleman Barks: Excerpts adapted from The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks. Copyright by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Continuum Publishing Company: Excerpts adapted from My Soul Is a Woman by Annemarie Schimmel. English translation copyright 1997 by The Continuum Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of the Continuum Publishing Company.

University of Wisconsin Press: Excerpts adapted from Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi. Copyright 1990. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.

ALSO BY PICO IYER.

The Global Soul.

Tropical Classical.

Cuba and the Night.

Falling Off the Map.

The Lady and the Monk.

Video Night in Kathmandu.