Ibrahim Ozdemir is the rector of Gazikent University in Gaziantep, Turkey. He has traveled widely in the Muslim world and lectured on the philosophy of religion, Sufism, environmental philosophy, sustainable development, interfaith dialogue, and Islamic studies. The material in this slim paperback has been taken from a speech he gave in South Korea in 2006. Ozdemir is keenly interested in the bridges of understanding that can be built between different cultures. Here he finds connections between the teachings of the Sufi mystic Rumi and the philosophy of the Chinese sage Confucius.
The author agrees with Huston Smith that Confucius (551-479 BCE) was a one-man university who taught a diversity of subjects. Some Chinese admirers of this thinker even go so far as to call him "the greatest intellectual force" in history.
In his own special way, Rumi (1209-1271) shines with a special light that has made him a bestselling poet in contemporary America. Erich Fromm commends him not only for his talents as a poet, a mystic, and a founder of a religious order, but also as a gifted explorer of human nature, the instincts, and the unconscious. Ozdemir closes with his reflections on the similarities and the differences between Confucius and Rumi. The appendix contains helpful quotations from these two extraordinary thinkers.
