We learn about Jalalud-Din Rumi as a preacher who accepts people of all faiths, and "even women," as his followers, which leads to much gossip about the propriety of his tolerance and his unorthodox views. In fact, Rumi's second wife Kerra, whom we meet in this novel, was Christian. In the story Rumi is revered as Maulana. His own words, expressing the heart of his teaching are

"Love for the Creator is latent in all men."

Rumi’s and Kimya’s life converge when Kimya's parents, after much heart-wrenching contemplation, take the precocious young girl to Konya, where she can be taught by nuns in a convent. Instead, it is Kimya's fate to cross paths with Rumi, who invites her to live in his home with his wife and children. When they meet physically for the first time they exchanged the following remarks

"We have already walked a long way together,"

Approximately the last two thirds of the book follow Kimya as she matures beyond her years both psychologically and spiritually in a very short time. Shams's wondrous entry into Rumi's life and the jealousy that ensued among Rumi's followers and Shams's heartbreaking disappearance forever only four years later. , Rumi was challenged by Shams. Shams asked Rumi one question, just one! On answering it, he become over himself with an air which left him unconscious. Kimya is barely fifteen when she enters into a marriage with Shams, her senior by at least three decades, who evokes emotions that are both exciting and shocking for anyone, let alone a child her age. Shams neglects her most of the time, instead spending his time with Rumi, locked in a room, without even food, for days and nights on end, lost in mystical conversation. The entire town of Konya was in despair of losing their Rumi: the teacher, the leader, just Rumi was no more.

Much of this caused Shams to leave Konya, he continued with his journey of the empire. Shams was gone, and as a child loses his mother, Rumi was in grief. The historical Kimya was much pitied for having been neglected and for dying of loneliness and despair. Leaving home, Rumi followed him, tried to find every path he crossed in hope of finding him again. Lonely, hopeless, Rumi lost everything of reality. Returning home, he wasn’t the same. All along, the author indicates that too often our perceptions distort what really happens. We do not see reality; we interpret it according to our conditioning. This is particularly noticeable in Kimya's relationship with Shams. We witness Kimya's burning and her mystical transformation, as Shams allows her "almost at will to enter the place where her heart [is] content." The discrepancy between perception and reality is equally demonstrated in the parallel relationship between Rumi and Shams. But the main theme in the novel is first of all the Sufi theme of love and separation and as mentioned earlier in novel

"Love's task is to take us beyond the realm of separation. It has nothing to do with happiness here"

A statement which actually foretells Kimya's, and later on Rumi's story itself, as well as the very foundation of his teaching.