The Masnavi of Rumi, Book One: A New English Translation with Explanatory Notes

Jalaloddin Rumi's Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, or 'Spiritual Couplets', composed in the 13th century AD, is a monumental work of poetry in the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism. Long before his love poetry became a literary phenomenon in the West, Rumi's Masnavi has been revered in the Islamic world. Drawing upon a vast array of characters, tales and fables, and deeply versed in religious teaching, it takes us on a rich, profound and playful journey along the Sufi path of divine love, toward its ultimate goal of union with God.

In Book 1 of the Masnavi, the first of six volumes, Rumi explores the lower, carnal self which must be resisted if one is to attain a higher spiritual understanding. Alan Williams's authoritative new translation is rendered in highly readable blank verse and includes the original Persian text for reference. True to the spirit of Rumi's poem, this new translation establishes the Masnavi as one of the world's great literary achievements for a global readership.

Translated and edited with an introduction, notes and Persian text by Alan Williams

Mowlana Jalaloddin Balkhi (1207-1273), known to the West as Rumi is a Persian poet comparable to the greatest poets of Europe. In 1244, Rumi began the composition of a body (divan) of lyric poems (ghazals) totalling 35,000 verses. In the early 1260s he turned to the composition of his most mature and final work, the mystical masterpiece in six volumes of Persian verses known as the Masnavi-ye Ma’navi ’The Spiritual Couplets’.

Alan Williams is Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester and the translator of Spiritual Verses (London, 2006).