The ''Masnavi'', or ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی), also written ''Mathnawi'', or ''Mathnavi'', is an extensive poem written in
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, also known as
Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلالالدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...
. The ''Masnavi'' is one of the most influential works of
Sufism
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...
, ascribed to be like a "Quran in Persian". It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature. The ''Masnavi'' is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines.
[Allamah Mohamad Taghi Jafari, ''Tafsir Masnavi''][Karim Zamani, ''Tafsir Masnavi Ma'navi''] It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God.
General description
The title ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی) means "The Spiritual
Couplets
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
". The Masnavi is a poetic collection of anecdotes and stories derived from the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
,
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
sources, and everyday tales. Stories are told to illustrate a point and each moral is discussed in detail. It incorporates a variety of Islamic wisdom but primarily focuses on emphasizing inward personal Sufi interpretation. In contrast to Rumi's Diwan, the Masnavi is a relatively "sober" text. It explains the various dimensions of spiritual life and practice to Sufi disciples and anyone who wishes to ponder the meaning of life.
Creation
The ''Masnavi'' was started by the Rumi during the final years of his life. He began dictating the first book around the age of 54 around the year 1258 and continued composing verses until his death in 1273. The sixth and final book would remain incomplete.
It is documented that Rumi began dictating the verses of the ''Masnavi'' at the request of his favourite disciple,
Husam al-Din Chalabi
Husam al-Din Chalabi, Ebn Akhi Tork ( fa, حسام الدین چلبی, ku, حوسامەدین چەلەبی, tr, Hüsameddin Çelebi) was a Muslim Sufi and a prominent disciple of Rumi. He encouraged Rumi to create his famous work Masnavi and con ...
, who observed that many of Rumi's followers dutifully read the works of
Sana'i
Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi ( fa, ), more commonly known as Sanai, was a Persians, Persian poet from Ghazni who lived his life in the Ghaznavid Empire which is now located in Afghanistan. He was born in 1080 and died be ...
and
'Attar. Thus, Rumi began creating a work in the didactic style of Sana'i and 'Attar to complement his other poetry. These men are said to have met regularly in meetings where Rumi would deliver the verses and Chalabi would write them down and recite them back to him.
Each book consists of about 4,000 verses and contains its own prose introduction and prologue. The inconclusive ending of the sixth volume has given rise to suggestions that the work was not complete at the time of Rumi's death and claims about existence of another volume.
Themes and narrative devices
The six books of the Masnavi can be divided into three groups of two because each pair is linked by a common theme:
* Books 1 and 2: They "are principally concerned with the ''nafs'', the lower carnal self, and its self-deception and evil tendencies."
* Books 3 and 4: These books share the principal themes of Reason and Knowledge. These two themes are personified by Rumi in the Biblical and Quranic figure of the Prophet Moses.
* Books 5 and 6: These last two books are joined by the universal ideal that man must deny his physical earthly existence to understand God's existence.
In addition to the recurring themes presented in each book, Rumi includes multiple points of view or voices inviting the reader to fall into "imaginative enchantment." There are seven principal voices that Rumi uses in his writing:
# The Authorial Voice – Conveys the authority of a Sufi teacher and generally appears in verses addressed to ''You, God,'' or ''you, of all humankind.''
# The Story-telling Voice – May be interrupted by side stories that help clarify a statement, sometime taking hundreds of lines to make a point.
# The Analogical Voice – Interruptions to the flow of narration in order to explain a statement by use of analogy.
# The Voice of Speech and Dialogue of Characters – Many of the stories are told through dialogue between characters.
# The Moral Reflection – Supported by quotations from the Quran and
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
# The Spiritual Discourse – Similar to analogical and model reflections.
# Hiatus – Rumi occasionally questions his own verses and writes that he cannot say more because the reader would not be capable of understanding.
The Masnavi has no framed plot and includes a variety of scenes, from popular stories and scenes of the local bazaar to fables and tales from Rumi's time. It also includes quotations from the Qur'an and from hadith, accounts from the time of Mohammed.
Although there is no constant frame, style, or plot, Rumi generally follows a certain writing pattern that flows in the following order:
[Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and Alan Williams. Spiritual Verses: the First Book of the Masnavi-ye Manavi. London: Penguin, 2006. Print. Pgs xvii-xix]
Problem/Theme → Complication → Resolution
English versions
Direct translations from Persian
* Mathnawi Rumi, translation with commentary by
M. G. Gupta
M. G. Gupta, known as Bekas Akbarabadi (1925-2011), was an Indian Urdu poet and research scholar. He wrote several books including ''Indian mysticism'', Sikh Gurus, Saint Kabir, Hindu epics and others. He received the Bharat Jyoti Award for his ...
with Rajeev, in six volumes Hardbound edition, M.G. Publishers, Agra, Paperback edition, Huma Books, 34 Hirabagh Colony, Agra 282005, India. Source material is the Farsi Dari text circulated by the Department of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi.
* ''The Mesnevi of Mevlānā Jelālu'd-dīn er-Rūmī. Book first, together with some account of the life and acts of the Author, of his ancestors, and of his descendants, illustrated by a selection of characteristic anedocts, as collected by their historian, Mevlānā Shemsu'd-dīn Ahmed el-Eflākī el-'Arifī'', translated and the poetry versified by James W. Redhouse, London: 1881. Contains the translation of the first book only.
* ''Masnaví-i Ma'naví, the Spiritual Couplets of Mauláná Jalálu'd-din Muhammad balkhi'', translated and abridged by
E. H. Whinfield, London: 1887; 1989. Abridged version from the complete poem. On-line editions a
Sacred Textsand on
wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...
.
* ''The Masnavī by Jalālu'd-din balkhi or Rūmī. Book II'', translated for the first time from the Persian into prose, with a Commentary, by C.E. Wilson, London: 1910.
*
The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín balkhi', edited from the oldest manuscripts available, with critical notes, translation and commentary by
Reynold A. Nicholson, in 8 volumes, London: Messrs Luzac & Co., 1925–1940. Contains the text in Persian. First complete English translation of the ''Mathnawí''.
* ''The Masnavi: Book One'', translated by
Jawid Mojaddedi
Jawid Mojaddedi is an Afghan researcher and professor.
Early life
Mojaddedi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. At age five, along with his mother and brother, he moved to Great Britain.
During the 1990s, Jawid Mojaddedi attended University of Ma ...
, Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2004. . Translated for the first time from the Persian edition prepared by Mohammad Estelami, with an introduction and explanatory notes. Awarded the 2004 Lois Roth Prize for excellence in translation of Persian literature by the American Institute of Iranian Studies.
* balkhi, ''Spiritual Verses'', The First Book of the ''Masnavi-ye Ma'navi'', newly translated from the latest Persian edition of M. Este'lami, with an Introduction on a reader's approach to balkhi's writing, and with explanatory Notes, by Alan Williams, London and New York, Penguin Classics, Penguin, xxxv + 422 pp. 2006 .
* ''The Masnavi: Book Two'', translated by Jawid Mojaddedi, Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2007. . The first ever verse translation of the unabridged text of Book Two, with an introduction and explanatory notes.
* ''The Masnavi: Book Three'', translated by Jawid Mojaddedi, Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2013. . The first ever verse translation of the unabridged text of Book Three, with an introduction and explanatory notes.
* ''The Masnavi: Book Four'', translated by Jawid Mojaddedi, Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2017. .
* ''The Masnavi: Book Five'', translated by Jawid Mojaddedi, Oxford World's Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Paraphrases of English translations
* ''The Essential balkhi'', translated by
Coleman Barks
Coleman Barks (born April 23, 1937) is an American poet, and former literature faculty at the University of Georgia. Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian, he is a popular interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English ...
with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996 ; Edison (NJ) and New York: Castle Books, 1997 . Selections.
* ''The Illuminated balkhi'', translated by
Coleman Barks
Coleman Barks (born April 23, 1937) is an American poet, and former literature faculty at the University of Georgia. Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian, he is a popular interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English ...
, Michael Green contributor, New York: Broadway Books, 1997 .
Urdu and Persian interpretations
* ''Keys of Masnavi *'' (Kelid Masnavi), Volume 1 and 2, Ashrafali Thanvi, interpreter: Samira Gilani, Asra Institute and Rashedin Publication, Tehran: 2018.
See also
*
List of stories in the Masnavi {{short description, None
The below list gives an overview of the stories in Rumi's Masnavi, as it appears in Reynold A. Nicholson's translation.
Book I
*Preface (in prose)
*Proem
*The King and the Handmaiden
*The Greengrocer and the Parrot
*The ...
*
Mathnawi
Mathnawi ( ar, مثنوي ''mathnawī'') or masnavi ( fa, مثنوی) is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawī poems follow a meter of eleven, or oc ...
References
Further reading
*
RUMI, JALĀL-AL-DIN'.
Encyclopædia Iranica
''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times.
Scope
The ''Encycl ...
, online edition, 2014.
* Mahmoud Ordudari. ''Proverbs in the Masnavi: A collection of poems and proverbs from the Masnavi'', 2016.
External links
Farsi Dari version is available at www.RumiSite.comGuardian series of blogs on the Masnavi by Franklin Lewis, 2009An abridged version translated by E.H. Whinfield, (1898)Dar al MasnaviTreasure of National Library of Turkey18th century Masnavi in Nesih calligraphy, Herat
''Masnavi-e Ma'navi'', recited in Persian by Mohammad Ghanbar
{{Authority control
Works by Rumi
Sufi literature
Persian poems
Mystical books
Kalam
Sunni literature
Maturidi literature
Islamic theology books
Mathnawi