Work
Masnavi
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About this work
The Masnavi is Rumi's masterwork: six books of rhyming couplets, around 25,000 verses, woven from stories, parables, and sudden bursts of insight. It is often called the Persian Quran, not as scripture but as a guide that carries Sufi teaching through narrative rather than doctrine. Its subject, underneath every tale, is the soul's longing to return to its source.
About the author — Rumi
Rumi (1207 to 1273) was a Persian poet and Sufi mystic whose work became central to Islamic spirituality and, centuries later, beloved far beyond it. Founder of the order known for the whirling dervishes, he wrote of love as the force that draws everything back toward the divine.
15 quotes from this work
If you are wholly perplexed and in straits, have patience; patience is the key to joy.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.
The lion who breaks the enemy’s ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?
Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader, are your own nature reflected in them.
God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.
Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune: Every success depends upon focusing the heart.
Even though you’re not equipped, keep searching: equipment isn’t necessary on the way to the Lord.
If you dig a pit for others to fall into, you will fall into it yourself.
If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.
He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.
There is no worse sickness for the soul, O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
The idol of your self is the mother of all idols.
If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything.
Whoever enters the Way without a guide will take a hundred years to travel a two-day journey.
People also ask
What is the meaning of Masnavi by Rumi?
The title points to rhyming couplets of deep spiritual meaning. The work uses stories and parables to teach the Sufi path: letting go of the ego so the soul can return to God.
What is Rumi's famous Masnavi?
It is his six-book poem of roughly 25,000 verses, one of the most influential works in the history of Sufism, written in the last years of his life.
Who is the best Rumi translator?
There is no single answer. Reynold Nicholson's scholarly rendering is the standard for the full Masnavi; readers wanting a more lyrical experience often start with Coleman Barks, though his versions are looser interpretations.