Masnavi


The Masnavi, or Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi, also written Mathnawi, or Mathnavi, is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi. The Masnavi is one of the most influential works of Sufism, commonly called "the 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. 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 means "The Spiritual Couplets". The Masnavi is a poetic collection of anecdotes and stories derived from the Quran, hadith 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, who observed that many of Rumi's followers dutifully read the works of Sana'i 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:
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:
  1. The Authorial Voice – Conveys the authority of a Sufi teacher and generally appears in verses addressed to You, God, or you, of all humankind.
  2. The Story-telling Voice – May be interrupted by side stories that help clarify a statement, sometime taking hundreds of lines to make a point.
  3. The Analogical Voice – Interruptions to the flow of narration in order to explain a statement by use of analogy.
  4. The Voice of Speech and Dialogue of Characters – Many of the stories are told through dialogue between characters.
  5. The Moral Reflection – Supported by quotations from the Quran and hadith
  6. The Spiritual Discourse – Similar to analogical and model reflections.
  7. 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:

English versions

Direct translations from Persian