Paradoxical: earthly and spiritual, simple yet subtle, these poems of a 13th century Sufi mystic are strikingly contemporary in their spontaneous outburst of faith and disbelief, ecstatic yearning and melancholy despair. Like his predecessor Omar Khayyam, Yunus was obsessed with the transience of life and like his contemporary Rumi he sought the obliteration of self in union with the Beloved. At times he speaks in riddles, at times in moving prayer.

Edouard Roditi's translations catch the vernacular speech of this poet, first to compose in Turkish rather than the courtly Persian; his long afterword, published in Alif, journal of the American University in Cairo, and a foreword by Güzin Dino of the Ecole des Langues Orientales of Paris, illuminate Yunus' unique place in Islamic literature.