From Santiago to Shams: Journeys Across the Desert and Divine

All journeys end where they begin; for the traveller to experience that the odyssey had never been outward, but within.

~ Adnan Qaiser ~

In my lifetime of (internal) introspection and (external) reflection, I have come to believe there are two great doorways to the Divine — that timeless yearning to touch the Eternal and the Infinite — one paved with prayer; the other with compassion.

Both can lead to the same Light — though the journey changes the traveler in very different ways.

The first is the way of Religion:

To love God by honoring His commandments, reciting the holy scripture, standing before Him in prayer, guarding the heart against vice, following the traditional faith-based practices, and walking in constant self-scrutiny. This path shapes the soul through obedience, discipline, and the sacred rhythms of rituals.

The second is through Spirituality:

To love the Creator by loving His creation, to ease another’s burden, to heal with compassion, and to be a shelter in the storm for every living being. This path shapes the soul through service, mercy, and the quiet art of kindness.

Though different in expression, both are rivers flowing to the same ocean, where the lover meets the Beloved and the seeker finds what was never lost.

My transformative spiritual journey began after reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafaq in 2017.

The two perceptively profound books not only left indelible marks on my life but inspired me to give their book reviews at YouTube.

Book Reviews of ‘The Alchemist’ and ‘The Forty Rules of Love” by Adnan Qaiser (https://youtu.be/ixqtmjo22RU)

Today, I wish to revisit the two books by analysing their fundamental thought and underline message from the perspective of spirituality, mysticism, fate/destiny, and the transformative journeys — both ethereal and transcendent, as well as human and physical — that shape our lives.

The Bridge Between the Two Books

At their heart, both The Alchemist and The Forty Rules of Love are meditations on the soul’s pilgrimage — across deserts of sand and deserts of the heart — towards a truth that is at once personal, as well as, universal.

The Alchemist follows Santiago, a shepherd boy from Andalusia, whose dream of finding treasure near the Egyptian pyramids draws him into a journey of love, loss, and discovery.

Along the way, he learns that real “alchemy” is not merely about turning metal into gold, but about the transformation of the self — guided by perseverance, encounters with strangers, and an unwavering belief in one’s “Personal Legend.”

The book stirs reflections on the tension between love and ambition, the inescapable role of fate, and the price of following or abandoning one’s dreams.

The Forty Rules of Love unfolds across two parallel timelines — modern-day America and 13^th century Konya (Türkiye) — interweaving the lives of Ella, a disenchanted housewife and a mother who encounters a modern-day Sufi through a manuscript, and the legendary companionship of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi with his mentor, Shams Tabriz.

Shafak bridges Ishq-e-Majazi (earthly love) and Ishq-e-Haqiqi (divine love), showing how itinerant mystics (Darwesh) use love, detachment, and ascetic practice to awaken spiritual consciousness.

Shams’s mentorship transforms Rumi from an esteemed scholar into a poet and compassionate seeker, urging him to shed prestige for humility, orthodoxy for spiritual openness.

The book illuminates the philosophy of Sufism, the ritual of the whirling dervishes, and the symbolism of anti-clockwise spiritual motion as a way of unwinding life’s strains and shackles.

Message in the Books

Both works converge on the following central themes:

• The interplay of destiny and free will in shaping our life’s path
• The parallels between divine and human love as catalysts for transformation
• The ascetic and itinerant spirit of those who wander in search of truth
• The necessity of pursuing one’s inner calling — paying its price — and reaping its rewards

• People who are not humble, get humbled. Destroying one’s ego, a person has to die before his death only to be born anew with truer self
• Anything taken must be earned. If it is not earned, the reward becomes damnation — a cost to pay
• Wisdom is life’s knowledge with experience. “Unearned wisdom” is as detrimental as “unearned rewards;” for without undergoing the “process,” anything you receive is neither deserving, nor valued

• Our hidden treasure, in the end, is not what we get, but who we become
• It is a privilege of a lifetime to become who you were really meant to be
• Destinations do not matter; what matters is the journey and its experience
• There is a Divine order of “reciprocity” in this world — named karma, fate or destiny, divine balance, or cosmic justice

Though set in different times and styles, both books chart the arc from seeker to knower. Santiago learns that the treasure lies where his journey began; Rumi discovers that the Divine was always present in his own heart.

Both remind us that life’s true alchemy is the transformation of the soul — where dreams, love, and destiny weave into a single fabric of meaning.

The journey of Santiago in The Alchemist is a modern allegory of this same inward voyage to the Divine. His “treasure” is not simply the gold he imagines buried under the Egyptian pyramids — it is the transformation of his own being through hardship, loss, and unexpected love.

Likewise, in The Forty Rules of Love, Rumi’s companionship with Shams is less about acquiring new knowledge than about awakening to a dimension of reality that was already within him, waiting to be stirred.

1. Spirituality — The Inward Journey Beyond Dogma

“The purest and truest temples are the ones we build and carry within.”

You see, ladies and gentlemen, many people confuse spirituality with religion, and though they may meet in some higher realm, they do travel on their own distinct paths.

Religion is often about individual or collective worship, recitation of sacred scripts, practicing inherited rituals, and belonging to a set of defined faith, belief, and tradition.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is about the solitary pilgrimage within — that quiet but insistent urge to know who you truly are when all titles, identities, and worldly ornaments are stripped away.

It is about listening to the subtle vibrations of the soul, and aligning yourself with what we may call nature or Qudrat, universe or cosmos, God or divinity, or simply that higher power which breathes life into us, regulates our Karmas, and charts our destiny.

In Sufi parlance, this is not a philosophy you read in a book, but an unveiling of truth “Kashf” that happens when you cleanse your soul or Nafs, polish the mirror of your heart until it reflects the Beloved — only to be bestowed with miraculous powers called “Karamat.”

True spirituality is not a rejection of faith but a deepening of it — a shift from form to essence. To put in another way, spirituality means the practical application of religious theory.

It begins when one’s search is no longer for the approval of fellow human beings, but for the gaze of God upon their soul. Tenets and Dogma may set the boundary lines, but spirituality teaches us to walk beyond them, into the uncharted lands of eternity and infinity to find — the Ultimate Truth.

Spirituality, as reflected in the narratives of the two books, is not bound to creed or ritual, but to the act of turning inward and listening to the silent compass of the soul.

Santiago’s journey mirrors the Sufi path — seeking an outer treasure that ultimately reveals an inner one.

Rumi’s transformation under Shams embodies the mystic’s conviction that one must “unlearn” the chains of inherited thought to awaken to the living pulse of divine reality.

In both stories, the landscape — whether desert, divine or dervish lodge — becomes a mirror to the self, stripping away illusions until only one’s essence remains.

2. Mysticism – The Art of Seeing with the Heart

“To the mystic, light is not what the eye sees; it is the ember in which the soul burns.”

Mysticism is about transcending the physical world through meditation and spiritual practices to achieve a higher state of consciousness and enlightenment.

The mystic sees the world not as it appears, but as it truly is — lit by the hidden lamp of the Divine.

It is the art of perceiving the unseen, and reading the whispers between God and His creation, and finding in them the meaning and purpose of our own existence.

Mysticism is the dimension of human experience where reason bows its head to love, and the eyes of the heart see what the eyes of the body cannot.

The mystics do not merely believe in God; they experience the Divine as an ever-present intimacy — as near as one’s own Nafs (soul) or breath.

The mystic path often appears irrational to the ordinary mind because it inverts the logic and reasoning of the world, where: losing is gaining, silence is speech, and absence is presence.

Mystics often live in the world which Rumi defined as “the Void” — the “fifth element of the universe” — among fire, wind, earth, and water. Void is the inexplicable and uncontrollable divine element that we as human beings cannot comprehend owing to its nature of “present through absence.”

Santiago speaks to the desert, the wind, and the sun — not because Coelho wants to be whimsical, but because the mystic understands that all creations are alive and in conversation with each other — if we only knew how to feel, and listen.

In Shafak’s narrative, Shams teaches Rumi to meet God not in the high pulpit or the scholarly library, but in the dusty marketplace, in the broken-hearted harlot, and in the drunkard stumbling tavern.

The mystical insight here is profound: Divinity is not confined to the “pure” but concealed in every piece of ordinary and mundane existence. To love God is to love His creation without distinction, or discrimination.

3. Destiny —Between the Script and the Choice

“Fate writes the script; you only choose how to speak and perform.”

Destiny is perhaps one of the most misunderstood words in our vocabulary. Some see it as a rigid script written before our birth, leaving us no room for choice. Others reject it altogether, claiming absolute free will. I find both extremes incomplete.

From my own reflections — and from these two books — destiny appears more like a dance between the path laid before us and the courage we have to walk it.

Read my thoughts, for instance, here, here, here, and here.

Life unfolds between what is written and what we choose to write. Destiny is not the iron chain we are bound by, nor the blank page of unlimited will — it is the dialogue between fate and freedom.

To live authentically one must accept the script’s constraints while making every line of our role worth performing.

Destiny, in these books, is not a rigid narrative but a dialogue between longing and life’s unfolding. Coelho’s “Personal Legend” echoes the Sufi idea that each soul carries a divine assignment. Yet fate is not passive — both Santiago and Rumi must choose, risk, and sacrifice to meet it.

Santiago’s legend is thus not imposed on him; it is whispered to him through his recurring dreams, confirmed by encounters, and tested by trials. He is free to ignore it — as the bandit leader at the end of the book confesses — but in doing so, he would betray something essential within himself.

Similarly, Rumi’s destiny was to meet Shams. But what followed — the unlearning of learned; the abandonment of prestige; the embrace of poetry; the defiance of hierarchal societal norms — required conscious choice, sacrifice, and risk.

Thus, destiny is not the opposite of “free will;” perhaps it is its most intimate and integral part. But here lies the paradox: we are free to walk away from our calling, yet in doing so, we betray our deepest self.

Destiny, therefore, remains less about inevitability, and more about alignment — when our inner yearning meets outer circumstance, every atom of the earth begins to conspire — to assist.

This idea replicates Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret” — built on the philosophy of the Law of Attraction. The concept posits that our thoughts — negative or positive — attract corresponding experiences into one’s life.

Byrne suggests that since our thoughts create our reality, we can manifest desired outcomes by maintaining positive assumptions with deep desired emotions. Under the cosmic Law of Attraction, the universe responds to your thoughts and feelings, provided they are: (i) intense; (ii) focussed; (iii) filled with gratitude; (iv) visualize the result; and (v) are detached from the outcome.

4. Love — The Bridge Between the Human and the Divine

“Every finite act of love is an effort to meet the infinite eternal”

Love is the alchemy that dissolves the walls between the finite and the Infinite. It softens the heart, clears the sight, and makes the soul restless for the One it longs for.

The lover of God loves without bargaining, without fear — for love is both the journey, as well as, the destination.

In both books, love appears in two forms: Ishq-e-Majazi (earthly, or virtual love between man and woman) and Ishq-e-Haqiqi (love for the Divine).

Shafak’s parallel narratives delicately reveal that earthly love and divine love are not opposites but synonymous reflections. A beloved’s face can be a ‘veil that conceals,’ or a ‘crevice that reveals’ the Divine.

An earthly beloved could be a distraction — a comfortable harbour where the seeker may be tempted to anchor and abandon the voyage. But that same beloved can also be a doorway, a reminder, a mirror reflecting the face of the Divine, ushering you toward your destiny.

Ella’s Sufi companion and Santiago’s tribal girl both stand as thresholds: they could anchor the seeker to comfort — or propel them deeper into the unknowns.

Santiago’s tribal girl understands this truth; she encourages the Boy to continue his journey rather than holding him back.

Rumi’s love for Shams is of another higher dimension entirely — a love that is at once human and transcendent, fierce yet liberating. Such love does not possess; it transforms. It demands the breaking of the self so that something larger may pour in. And whether it comes to us through a person, a place, or a moment, this love — when genuine — always leaves us closer to the Source.

Love, in both its form and essence, thus, remains a fire — warming, if approached with wisdom; consuming, if clung to with egotistical possessiveness.

5. The Price of Choice — Deny to Regret, or Sacrifice to be Rewarded

“A surrender may seem capitulation; yet it remains doorway to triumph”

One cannot speak of these journeys without acknowledging the cost, or the price to be paid. To follow a calling, a pilgrim needs to leave behind ease and comfort, loved ones and relationships, status and prestige, even longings and desires. There are long nights of doubt, deep moments of regret, and eternal seasons of loneliness and solitude.

Yet, in the hidden economy of the soul, nothing is truly lost. For what is surrendered in the marketplace of the world is returned in the currency of peace, liberation, profundity, and connectivity with the Divine.

Santiago loses his sheep, his savings, and nearly his life. Rumi loses his public stature, faces gossip, and ultimately loses Shams to death.

Yet the alternative — to ignore the call — is its own form of death. The unfulfilled dream, the regret of road not taken, can haunt a person more than any failure.

As I once reflected, “failure may be an orphan, but regret remains a lifelong widow.”

The Sufi accepts this price not as a burden, but as the necessary toll for crossing the bridge from the present to the future. For in the end, the treasure — whether found beneath the pyramids or in the chambers of the heart — has never been gold, but self realization, forged in the will to seek it, and rewarded through surrender.

Remember, the prize of our toil is not in the treasure we get — but what we ultimately become.

6. The Way of the Darwesh — Itinerancy and Asceticism

“All wanderings are not losing your course; some travels are meant for self-attainment, soul-fulfillment, spiritual awakening, psychic enlightenment, and divine connectivity”

The Darwesh is a traveller not merely of lands, but of geography of his soul. Seen by the onlookers as a stranger, a Darwesh walks the world with ownership and carries the wealth of knowledge of his surroundings — including the universe, and its people.

Owning little, yet possessing everything, he moves lightly upon the earth — unattached to gold, unafraid of loss. His treasure lies in moments, not in possessions; his faith remains his fortitude, and beacon.

A soul free from worldly encumbrances, a Darwesh walks with lighter footsteps. His wealth remains his emptiness; his security lies in his trust and detachment. The itinerant mystic learns not from books alone but from the road, the faces of strangers, the unpredictable hospitality, and hostility, of the world.

In relinquishing status, certainty, and attachment, the Darwesh strips away the rust of the ego, until what remains is a polished mirror reflecting only his Beloved. These practices are not escapism, but engagement — owning the world without being possessed by it.

Santiago’s odyssey across the desert is his spiritual transformation, central to the pursuit of his Personal Legend. His belief and conviction in his recurring dream impels him to venture into the unknown, face hardships and near-death, and learn to listen to the omens.

Shams’s wandering from Baghdad to Konya, on the other hand, carrying nothing but his knowledge and presence, is a living embodiment of this path. His transformation of Rumi was not achieved through lectures but through example — sharing bread with beggars, speaking gently to women scorned by society, giving small tokens (a mirror, a handkerchief, an ointment) that restored dignity to broken lives.

The wanderings and whirling dance of the Dervishes at Sufi shrines and the anti-clockwise Tawaf (circulation) around the Holy Kaaba (at Mecca) — all speak of a metaphor where one’s vice and sins, lofty ambitions, hidden fears, inflated ego, selfish conceit, brutal opportunism, and greed for possessions get “unwinded” under ascetic and mystic practices.

The Darwesh unwinds in the opposite direction — shedding millstone of sins and false identity of selfhood until nothing remains but the soul’s still point — and an audience with God.

7. Silence — The Language of the Soul

“Silence is not the lack of noise; it’s the medium when we begin to actually hear”

Silence is not the hollow emptiness, or the absence of sound; it is rather the presence of a deeper voice — the one we have forgotten to hear. In stillness, the heart begins to speak in a language that has no idiom, phrases or expressions, no alphabets or dialects, and no speech or tongue — yet each heartbeat is understood and responded by the Divine.

The mystics have long known that the most sacred conversations happen without words.

In the quiet, the world’s noise fades away, and what remains is the raw presence of God. Silence becomes the prayer without posture, the worship without ritual. It is here that one learns the difference between hearing and listening, between looking and seeing.

Silence is not an escape from life, but a union with embracing arms, a sight with clearer vision, and an understanding with better comprehension.

The Darwesh walks in the marketplace with the same stillness he carries in the wilderness — unshaken, unhurried, untouched. For when the soul is fluent in silence, every breath becomes a verse in the melodious hymn of existence. Every thought becomes purified — unblemished with contamination.

Santiago’s several contemplations in solitude — often thinking to abandon his journey in angst, despair and frustration — Sham’s nomadic and restless wanderings, and Rumi’s silent sobs and wails at Sham’s murder, all highlight the significance of quietude.

Rumi’s revelation still leaves me spellbound, when he said:

“Over time, pain turns into grief

Grief turns into silence, and

Silence turns into lonesomeness,

As vast and bottomless as the dark oceans …”

Divinity, thus, converses with us in silence, ladies and gentlemen. All we need is to sit still — and listen.

Concluding Thoughts

In the end, the Divine asks for neither grand gestures nor flawless lives — only a heart turned towards Him, whether in the “language of prayer — or in the language of love.”

Thus, while some search for God in the holy scriptures; others find Him in the destitution of the hungry, they feed.

One path bows the head, the other extends the hand — but both, if walked with sincerity and purity of heart — arrive at the same threshold of Light.

Remember: Every dream is a cosmic yearning, a divine counsel, or a destined redirection. With purity of Nafs, as we synchronize our lives with the Creator, our kismet begins to deliver our hidden treasures and Godsend fortunes.