Dr. Amer Latif introduces us to the Persian poet Rumi, who, though born in Konya, Turkey, more than than 800 years ago, remains one of the world’s most beloved and inspiring poets. Dr. Latif talks about Rumi ’s surprising connections to Brattleboro, reads a bit of his work in English and in Persian, and plays the sacred Sufi flute - the ney - to accompany this story. He shares the story of how Brattleboro's Threshold Publishing played a pivotal role in introducing the Rumi to America and a larger world. Latif, a professor of cross cultural studies at Emerson College, says: "Scriptures vary, cultures vary; The book of nature is what we have in common, and Rumi helps us read that book." He talks about the Threshold Society and Kabir and Camile Helminsky's bringing musicians and whirling dervishes from Rumi's Sufi order to Brattelboro and on US tours which popularized Rumi and Sufism, and describes how these traditions remain in this area.
This episode was written and narrated by Amer Latif, who also played the ney. Producer and editor was Lissa Weinmann. Guilford Sound mastered the Words Trail content and Alec Pombriant did post-podcast production.
Dr. Amer Latif is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in comparative religion and Islamic studies. His research revolves around the translation of cultures. Having grown up in Pakistan and with an undergraduate degree in Physics, Dr. Latif thrives on studying and creating containers that are capacious enough to hold seeming contradictions such as science and religion. Dr. Latif lives in the Brattleboro area, having tought at Marlboro College, just next to Brattleboro. That college closed in 2020 but lives on as the Marlboro Institute at Emerson College in Boston where Dr. Latif teaches today.
The Sama is ritual of Sufi whirling or whirling dervishes, a mystical practice within Sufism, a branch of Islam, that involves spinning and whirling while chanting and praying, a form of worship, or prayer through movement, to connect with the divine and achieve a state of spiritual unity.
We honor the special gifts all cultures bring to the world, and hope you enjoy how this segment sheds particular light on the rich artistic traditions around Islam and Sufism's reverence for nature, and humans place within nature.
For a current online class on Rumi recommended by Dr. Latif:
https://www.suficorner.org/events/masnavi
For more info on Threshold Publishing/Kabir and Camile Helminsky
Rumi in Vermont Podcast April 2025 Transcript
Host: Welcome to the Brattleboro Words Trail Podcast
In this month’s Brattleboro Words Trail podcast, we are lucky to have Dr. Amer Latif introduce us to the Persian poet Rumi, who, though born in Konya, Turkey, more than than 800 years ago, remains one of the world’s most beloved and inspiring poets. Dr. Latif will talk about Rumi and his family’s surprising connections to Brattleboro, read a bit of his work in English and in Persian, and play the sacred Sufi flute - the ney - to accompany this story. Dr. Latif is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in comparative religion and Islamic studies. His research revolves around the translation of cultures. Having grown up in Pakistan and with an undergraduate degree in Physics, Dr. Latif thrives on studying and creating containers that are capacious enough to hold seeming contradictions such as science and religion. We met at Marlboro College, just next to Brattleboro, which closed in 2020 but lives on as the Marlboro Institute at Emerson College in Boston where Dr. Latif teaches today. We honor the special gifts all cultures bring to the world, and hope you enjoy how this segment sheds particular light on the rich artistic traditions around Islam and Sufism, especially their true reverence for nature, and humans place within nature.
AMER LATIF NARRATES: It is astonishing to think that one of the most beloved poets in the United States today is a Muslim scholar and saint who lived almost 800 years ago in Turkey. His name was Jalaluddin Rumi and is often referred to as simply Rumi. How did this come to be?
I think there's two ways one can think about it. One is related to who Rumi was and what he had to offer. And the other one directly related to Brattleboro is the role that a small publishing house in Brattleboro played in popularizing Rumi for the American public. In terms of who Rumi was. Rumi was the son and heir to a house of scholarship whose father was considered a saint by many. And he became what we might call a powerhouse scholar in his own right.
He mastered all the sciences, leading from grammar to prosody, studied classical literature. He studied the science of his day and specialized as a jurist. So he really brought together what we would call the liberal arts education of his day and was just a renowned person just for that. He also was a contemplative somebody who cultivated the inner part and slowly turned into a human being who was seen as a living embodiment of the reality and the spirit of revelation that was given to Muhammad and as somebody who inherits from the line of all the prophets that have been sent.
So Rumi, even in his time was considered a saint, was praised as such and his words were memorialized. They were saved. So Rumi was aware of the value of what had been given to him, what he had to share. And he prayed to God that this be broadcast into the rest of the world.
Now this is where the second part of our story begins. How did he become such a popular poet in the United States? And that's where Brattleboro comes in. Kabir and Camille Helminsky in 1988 founded a non for profit organization called Threshold Society, and they also founded a publishing house associated with it called Threshold Books.
Rumi had been translated into English for over 150 years, starting with some scholars at Oxford and Cambridge. And yet it was the books that were published by threshold from Putney and Brattleboro that really made Rumi a household name and one of the most popular poets in the United States.
Threshold Books was founded in Putney in 1980, and it moved to the Hooker Dunham Building on Main Street in Brattleboro in 1987. Threshold Books such as Open Secret, translated by Coleman Barks in 1984; Rumi Daylight, which Kabir and Camille Minsky, translated and published in 1990; and The Rumi Collection, which Kabir Helminsky edited in 1998, were the vanguard of the explosion of Rumi. Translations, which started in the late 1990s.
Open Secret in particular, has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, making it one of the most popular books of poetry in the 20th century. Some of the most well-known and popular Rumi poems are to be found in these books. Here's a taste of Rumi's words taken from OpenSecret
Today / Like every day / we wake up empty and frightened / Don't open the door to the study and begin reading / Take down a musical instrument / Let the beauty we love be what we do / There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
The Persian version of this quatrain goes like this (translation unavailable).
So Rumi really is, for me, a fruit on the tree of Islam. There's a verse of the Koran in which God says, “I will show them. We shall show them our signs in the horizons and in their own souls, until they know that it is the real.”
So (chuckling a bit) I think it's strange in some way that Rumi really is MOST Muslim and it's his Islamic part, which is a Koranic vision of nature, that really appeals, I think, because that's a book we have in common. Scriptures vary cultures vary. Our own poets or whatever vary. But the Book of Nature is in common. So Rumi brings us to read that book. He helps us read that book.
(The Threshold Society and whirling dervishes in US)
So along with the publishing done by Threshold Books Kabir and Camille Helminsky also founded and directed a nonprofit organization called The Threshold Society, whose purpose was to help spread spiritual values and to enrich culture through intercultural exchange. And to this end, the Helminsky’'s made connections with members of Rumi’s, family and spiritual order called the Mevlevi in Turkey. Over the years, three generations of roomies descendants have visited the Brattleboro area as guests of the Helminsky's and the Threshold Society.
With this partnership, between 1994 and 2000, they organized multiple U.S. tours of the members of the (Mevlevi) whirling dervishes to audiences across the US. New York City City Hall was packed. Boston auditoriums in Harvard were packed. Houston, Texas, California, major cities in the US and Canada, all the cities people had to be turned away. In fact, these dervishes have gone through Brattleboro as well. They were present here as well.
So packed audiences across the US experienced Rumi's poetry sung during the Sama which is a ceremony of remembrance and prayer, which takes as its archetype the circumambulation, the turning of the pilgrim about around the Kaaba, and the dervishes were there in their striking tall woolen hats and billowing white skirts creating space for contemplation and spirituality in those moments. It's also worth mentioning that the musicians who are part of this, where some of the most amazing musicians in Turkey and just the musical side of it was quite remarkable.
The Helminsy’s moved to California, so the Threshold Society moved to California in the late 1990s, I think 99. But there still are folks who are associated with that who trained with them, studied with them and there is a group of friends even in the area to this day who won Rumi's death anniversary in December after the ceremony of turning in remembrance of Rumi's life. So the tradition stays alive in this area.
This episode of the Brattleboro Words Trail Podcst was written and narrated by Dr. Amer Latif. The editor and producer was me, Lissa Weinmann. Mastering was by Guilford Sound and post production podcast editing was by Alec Pombriant. Dr. Latif played the ney, a long flute used in Sufi sacred music. Thanks to the Vermont Arts Council’s Digital Capacities Grant, which helped bring this podcast to light. Thanks for listening and we will see you next month on, the Brattleboro Words Trail Podcast.