The Spiritual Couplets
The most significant contribution of Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (popularly known in Persian as Mawlānā, and in English as Rumi, 1207–73), the renowned poet and mystic of Iran, to Persian literature may be his poetry, and especially his famous Masnavi (The spiritual couplets). This work, which is said to be the most extensive verse exposition of mysticism in any language, discusses and offers solutions to many complicated problems in metaphysics, religion, ethics, mysticism, and other fields. Masnavi highlights the various hidden aspects of Sufism and their relationship to the worldly life. To accomplish his purposes, Rumi draws on a variety of subjects and derives numerous examples from everyday life. His main subject is the relationship between man and God on the one hand, and between man and man, on the other. Rumi apparently believed in some form of Pantheism and portrayed the various stages of man's evolution in his journey towards the Ultimate. Rumi’s cultural impact has been very profound throughout Middle East, in the Islamic world and, recently, in the Western world. The present book is a facsimile printing of a manuscript of Masnavi by the famous 19th-century calligrapher Towhid Vesal. It contains beautiful illuminations and elegant headpieces. The original manuscript is preserved in the manuscript collections of the National Library and Archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Academy of Arts and Society of Calligraphers, Tehran
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Last updated: March 30, 2015