The Forty Rules of Love

Water is emphasized again and again throughout the text. In order to seduce her husband, Kimya descends into scented water as a way of cleansing and preparing herself for her marital bed. Discussing the ways that life can be lived, Shams imagines different currents flowing through the same stream, each unique but working in harmony with one another, weaving and bending in order to accommodate. Just before Shams’s death, he summons a mighty rain to fall on his soon-to-be murderers, showing control of the elements. Further, Shams’s body is thrown in a well, submerged in water. For Rumi, raindrops are a reminder of Shams, and one of the many ways that Shams reappears to Rumi. Water is used again and again as a mode of cleansing and preparing, whether it is cleansing and preparing for a lover or for death.

Magic appears again and again to emphasize the purity and power of characters in the text, especially in moments of vulnerability. In her flashback to her childhood, Kimya remembers the pivotal moment she is able to meet Rumi and request his tutelage and the way that the ghost of his first wife appeared to her.