Masnavi

The Masnavi, also known as the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi or Mathnawi, is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–1273), the poet and Sufi mystic known in the West as Rumi. It runs to six books and roughly 25,000 couplets, and it is among the most influential works in the history of Sufism. Its title means something like "The Spiritual Couplets", a reference to the rhyming pairs in which it is composed. Written to teach Sufi disciples how to reach the goal of being truly in love with God, it is so highly regarded that some Muslims place it just after the Quran in importance, and many critics have called it the greatest mystical poem in world literature.

Rumi began dictating it around 1258, when he was about fifty-four, at the request of his favourite disciple, Husam al-Din Chalabi. Chalabi had noticed that many of Rumi's followers studied the works of Sana'i and Attar diligently, and he suggested that Rumi write something in the same didactic manner to accompany his other poetry. The sessions are said to have been held regularly: Rumi delivered the verses, and Chalabi wrote them down and read them back. Rumi continued until his death in 1273, and the sixth book breaks off without a conclusion. Some scholars have suggested that a seventh volume may once have existed, though the evidence is inconclusive.

Unlike Rumi's Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi, with its ecstatic lyricism, the Masnavi is a comparatively sober text. It has no framing plot. Instead it gathers anecdotes, stories drawn from the Quran and hadith, fables, everyday tales and scenes from the bazaar. Each story is told to illustrate a point, and its moral is then discussed at length. The typical pattern moves from problem to complication to resolution. Although it draws on many strands of Islamic wisdom, its main emphasis is on an inward, personal reading of the faith, and it explains the many dimensions of spiritual life and practice to anyone who wishes to reflect on the meaning of existence.

The six books fall into three pairs. The first two concern the nafs, the lower carnal self, with its self-deception and wayward tendencies. The third and fourth deal with reason and knowledge, personified in the figure of the prophet Moses. The fifth and sixth are united by the idea that a person must renounce earthly, physical existence in order to understand the existence of God.

The Masnavi has had a vast influence and has been translated and commented upon in many languages.