Rarely has a Sufi master been more properly named that Cemalnur: Jamal-Nur. Within the Sufi tradition, names are a bridge to the inner reality. Her commentary is so powerful that it is bound to be of interest to all students of the Qur’an, of women’s spirituality, of contemporary Islamic thought, and of Sufism. Her Qur’anic commentary is so extraordinarily voluminous and ever-flowing that it is a reminder of how this is not a work of authorship in the mere human sense, but an opening up of the heart, emptying the ego, and standing back as the al-Qahhar overwhelms and opens up the floodgates.

And thanks to Victoria Holbrook who has done the almost impossible of weaving together the often ornate expression of texts from the thousand years’ network of the modern and Ottoman Turkish, Persian and Arabic Islamic tradition. All of us are indebted to Fons Vitae for sharing the luminous insights of this powerful and original transmission. There is little doubt that if her writings had been in Arabic (or English!) rather than Turkish, we would have already had many dissertations on her. She is increasingly being featured on the global scene of leading Sufi teachers. “Cemalnur’s popularity in Turkey easily ranks her as the most prominent female religious figure in contemporary Turkey, one that is frequently and accurately compared with that of Oprah in the recent American landscape. The concept of time that consists of the present moment, the concept of time that is “Kun fayakūn,” became comprehensible only by tasting the pleasure of the Quran.” I want to say that we experienced the most vibrant time of our lives during these happy years when we struggled to transform what we learned into a spiritual state. “We worked with the hope that, in Hazret Mevlana’s phrase, the Mighty Quran would raise its veil for us like a bride if we paid the price for that vision out of our own selves. “This effort, which opened incredibly vast horizons in our hearts and minds, drawing our study group from the realm of density to the realm of subtlety and conveying us from the unseen world to the here and now, moved us to share our work with you, beyond our capacity though it may be.

“For five years we have been working to reflect upon the divine gift of chapter Ya-Sin through the commentaries of perfect human beings who are without doubt heirs to the Messenger and through the interpretations of scholars who devoted their lives to understanding the Gracious Quran.

Surah yasin full text rumi