Dukhtar-i-Rumi (Rumi’s Daughter)
By Muriel Maufroy
Translated by Inaam Nadeem
Book Corner
ISBN: 978-969-662-509-4
256pp.

Kimya Khatoon has been made famous to the West, due to the information provided in Rumi’s Untold Story by Shahram Shiva. Her name was intentionally left out from almost all biographies of Rumi. Even the late former head of Mideast Studies at Harvard Prof Annemarie Schimmel, not wanting to muddy Rumi’s story in her otherwise fine book Rumi’s World, wiped Kimya out.

According to Shahram Shiva, Rumi, after the passing of his first wife took on a second wife, who was a widow and had a very young daughter named Kimya Khatoon. Beautiful Kimya was brought up in a very cultured, respected and wealthy household.

But the author of Dukhtar-i-Rumi, Muriel Maufroy, believed otherwise. Maufroy created Jalaluddin Rumi’s daughter Kimya’s character using a different perspective.

As claimed by Muriel Maufroy, the author of the novel Rumi’s Daughter, of which Dukhtar-i-Rumi is an Urdu translation, Kimya Khatoon was adopted, raised and educated by Rumi and finally given in marriage to Shams of Tabraiz, a dear friend of Rumi. While growing up with her family in the village, everyone noticed how Kimya was different from other children of her age.

An Urdu translation of an English novel about a tempestuous love affair between Shams Tabraiz and Rumi’s adopted daughter combines all the themes and passions of Rumi’s own verse

Not only was she intelligent enough to learn how to read and write but she also could sense the future. What troubled her mother Evdokia most is when Kimya always found a way to suddenly hide from people’s eyes and vanish into oblivion from her surroundings, and when asked where she was, she couldn’t explain her absence.

Kimya’s birth-father Farokh valued his daughter a lot and had a difficult time accepting the fact that Kimya’s path was quite different from her peers. Finally, to honour and fulfil the dying wish of a visiting priest in their village, Farokh takes Kimya to Konya to receive education from the conformist nuns. But fate had different plans for Kimya.

As the father and daughter are resting on their way, they run into the renowned scholar of Konya, Jalaluddin Rumi, surrounded by his students. Impressed by Kimya’s alterity, Rumi not only takes her on as a student, but adopts her too. For eight years Kimya is educated by Rumi, until the emergence of a wandering whirling dervish named Shams (Tabraiz).

Unlike other people who hated Shams, Kimya liked Shams’ unorthodox ways to find the Almighty. But after marrying Shams, the couple lived like strangers till Kimya found the purpose of her own life.

She learned that her goal was to understand the real meaning of love and for that Allah had made her in such a way that she could bear Shams’ mood swings and his strict behaviour, so she learned to love and to be loved. While understanding Shams, she learned that love has nothing to do with keeping those you love around you.

All of Kimya’s friends believed that her marriage with Shams was killing her but only she valued Shams, who showed her how she can learn the ways to be with her loved one. He always told her that she was very blessed.

Rumi’s Daughter tells Kimya’s story with great charm and tenderness. Well-written and thought-provoking, it is sure to draw comparisons with Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, while also adding something new to what is already known about Rumi.

Set against the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the Mongol invasions, this tale of a tempestuous love affair combines all the timeless themes and passions of Rumi’s own verse.

Besides the triangle of Rumi, Shams and Kimya, there are also several other interesting characters in the book and mystical dialogues that enhance the transcendental importance of this novel.

Inaam Nadeem, the translator of this originally English novel, is a poet-writer, critic and translator. An exponent of the modern Urdu ghazal, his first collection of Urdu ghazals entitled, Dar-i-Khwaab [Gateway of Dreams] was published in 2003. His other translations from English to Urdu include Rabisankar Bal’s novel Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell.

He has a Master’s degree in Urdu (Literature) and Economics from the University of Sindh, Jamshoro. Hailing from Shahdadpur, a small town of Sindh, he is currently stationed in Karachi and is an assistant professor at Habib University.

There is no question that English is a widely spoken language. But the many speakers of English are also those for whom it is a second language. Most people simply prefer their native language. It is what they are most comfortable with. And this is why we need translations, as they allow people to understand and enjoy literary works more effectively.

Inaam Nadeem has used the method of dynamic equivalence translation for Rumi’s Daughter. This is a type of literary translation, with the primary goal of conveying the same message and tone as of the original work. Translators using this method strive to maintain accuracy while ensuring that the target language readership easily understands their translations.

The approach often relies heavily on word-for-word translations, as well as idiomatic expressions, cultural references and other details specific to each language. As a result, dynamic equivalence translations can be more successful at conveying literal and connotative meanings that may have gotten lost in formal equivalence or free translations.

Although the aspect of translation doesn’t necessarily have a place in every review, regardless, a line-by-line comparison is rarely the best or most enlightening way to raise the reader’s awareness of translation. At worst, these types of comparisons can often lead to misunderstandings and ill-placed criticism from readers who mistakenly look for literal match-ups.

The reviewer writes short fiction in Urdu and is currently working on her first novel

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 7th, 2024