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Shams rejects Kimya and she dies. Why doesn't he comfort her, explain why he doesn't want to make love to her, or in some other way acknowledge her love? I expected them to have some kind of heart-to-heart. I don't understand why he doesn't make love to her if he does have the desire to.

Why didn't Shams reciprocate Kimya's love?

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  • Possible duplicate: Why did Shams refuse to sleep with Kimya? (although I didn't get a satisfactory answer to that one yet)
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Oct 1, 2021 at 9:46
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    Finding fault with how literary characters behave is understandable but in the context of literature the more pertinent question is what the character's behaviour says about the novel's theme, message, world view or view on humanity. The author may have the same objections to the character's behaviour that you have but still decided to shape it that way for literary reasons (for lack of a better term). Have you thought about that?
    – Tsundoku
    Oct 1, 2021 at 13:31

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That's probably because he views love beyond the physical measures which is one of the core components evidently found in the book. That doesn't mean it's not important for him. It is. But to him it was probably to read books together while lying on each other's laps. To educate one another to be better versions of themselves. The love making comes later after enough spiritual awakening between the couple. A good example of that would be the incident on their wedding night as he wanted to make love to her as soon as he saw her but he controlled his urges. For his core belief is love begins with spiritual connectedness first. Then, it is possible that Kimya's impatience and strong urges of making love to him turned him off altogether, where he expected to educate her on the matter first in accordance with his character traits of an enlightener in the book.

Even though it can be counted as unfair or even a lapse of judgement from Shams' end for Kimya, it was refreshing how he's also shown as a round character possessing much unpredictability and complexity.

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  • Is there any evidence in the text for this interpretation? I don't remember him encouraging her to read books together or create spiritual connectedness, but it's been a few years since I read the story.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Aug 27 at 7:06
  • "Then all day long I wait for him with bated breath, hoping and praying that this time our marriage will be consummated. But when he finally knocks on my door, all he wants to do is sit and talk. He also enjoys reading together. We have read Layla and Majnun, Farhad and Shirin, Yusuf and Zuleikha, The Rose and the Nightingale—stories of lovers who have loved each other against all odds...." —Kimya, (Chapter- Kimya, Konya, December 1247) Pg no. 311, para 3. Due to a limitation of words I'm unable to add the entire statement here. However, reading the following para will offer much insight.
    – rifat alam
    Aug 29 at 16:20
  • Ah, thanks! You can edit your answer to add this quote and as much more as you need - the length limit for answers is like 30,000 characters or something, much more than for comments (and useful information like this should anyway be added to the answer itself, since comments may disappear at any time).
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Aug 29 at 17:14

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