Masnavi

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Mevlana Museum, Konya
, Turkey

The Masnavi, or Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi (Persian: مثنوی معنوی, DMG: Mas̲navī-e maʻnavī), 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, ascribed to be like a "Quran in Persian".[1] Some Muslims regard the Masnavi as one of the most important of Islamic literature, falling behind only the Quran.[2] It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature.[3] The Masnavi is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines.[4][5] It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God.[6]

General description

Jalal al-Din Rumi
showing love for his disciple Hussam al-Din Chelebi (c. 1594)

The title Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi (

Couplets". The Masnavi is a poetic collection of anecdotes and stories derived from the Quran, hadith[7] 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 Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi, 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.[8]

Creation

The Masnavi was started by 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.[9]

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.[10]

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, as well as to claims about existence of another volume.[11]

Themes and narrative devices

Manuscript of the Masnavi from 15th century in Iran, Khalili Collection of Islamic Art

The six books of the Masnavi can be divided into three groups of two because each pair is linked by a common theme:[12]

  • 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:[13]

  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:[14]

     Problem/Theme → Complication → Resolution

English versions

Direct translations from Persian

Paraphrases of English translations

Urdu and Persian interpretations

  • Keys of Masnavi * (Kelid Masnavi), Vol. 1 and 2, Ashrafali Thanvi, interpreter: Samira Gilani, Asra Institute and Rashedin Publication, Tehran: 2018.

See also

References

  1. ^ Jawid Mojaddedi (2004). "Introduction". Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Masnavi, Book One. Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition). p. xix.
  2. ^ Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature. (2013). (n.p.): Taylor & Francis.
  3. ^ Jawid Mojaddedi (2004). "Introduction". Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Masnavi, Book One. Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition). pp. xii–xiii. Towards the end of his life he presented the fruit of his experience of Sufism in the form of the Masnavi, which has been judged by many commentators, both within the Sufi tradition and outside it, to be the greatest mystical poem ever written.
  4. ^ Allamah Mohamad Taghi Jafari, Tafsir Masnavi
  5. ^ Karim Zamani, Tafsir Masnavi Ma'navi
  6. ^ Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and Alan Williams. Spiritual Verses: the Book of the Masnavi-ye Manavi. London: Penguin, 2006. Print
  7. ^ Badiozzaman Forouzanfar has published a compilation of the hadith quoted in the Masnavi, under the title Ahadith-i Mathnawi (full title: Aḥadíth va qiṣaṣ-i-Mathnaví: talfiqí az dú kitáb ‘Aḥadíth-i- Mathnaví' va 'Má'khidh-i- qiṣaṣ va tamthílát-i- Mathnaví; 1955).
  8. ^ Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and William C. Chittick. The Sufi Path of Love: the Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany: State University of New York, 1983. Print.Pg 6)
  9. ^ (Franklin Lewis, "Rumi, Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalâl al-Din Rumi," Oneworld Publications, England, 2000.)
  10. ^ Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and William C. Chittick. The Sufi Path of Love: the Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany: State University of New York, 1983. Print. Pgs 5-6
  11. ^ Jawid Mojaddedi (2004). "Introduction". Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Masnavi, Book One. Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition). pp. xxi–xxii.
  12. ^ Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and Alan Williams. Spiritual Verses: the First Book of the Masnavi-ye Manavi. London: Penguin, 2006. Print. Pgs xx-xxvi
  13. ^ Collected Poetical Works of Rumi. Delphi Classics. 2015. p. 15.
  14. ^ Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and Alan Williams. Spiritual Verses: the First Book of the Masnavi-ye Manavi. London: Penguin, 2006. Print. Pgs xvii-xix

Further reading

External links