The Masnavi, Book One (Oxford World's Classics)

Saqi the cup-bearer. In Su
fi poetry the Saqi can also represent the Sufi
master or God.
Solomon the prophet and king, who is described in the Koran as possess-
ing deep wisdom and having been granted power over nature as well as
a legion of demons at his command (e.g. 
27: 15–44). His powers were
e
ffected by means of a special ring, on which was inscribed God’s
greatest name. One of the demons managed to steal this ring, and thus
to rule in Solomon’s place until he could retrieve it.
Thamud an ancient nation referred to on several occasions in the Koran
(e.g. 
7: 73–9, 4: 23–31, 11: 61–8). They hamstrung the she-camel of the
prophet
saleh, which had been sent miraculously by God out of a
mountain to test their willingness to share water and pasture. They
were destroyed as a result by either an earthquake (
7: 78) or a mighty
blast of noise (
4: 31, 11: 67), or perhaps a combination of the two. More
elaborate versions of this story describe Saleh as suggesting that they
might be forgiven if they caught her foal, but it escapes and disappears
into the mountain.
Yazid Yazid ebn Mo

awiya, the second Umayyad caliph, succeeding his
father, Mo

awiya, who had been a Companion of the Prophet from a
Glossary of Proper Names
270

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prominent Arab family. He is universally reviled for having ordered the
beheading of the Prophet’s grandson Hosayn and the massacre of his
followers in Kerbala.
Zayd Zayd ebn Haretha, a freed former slave and adopted son of the
Prophet Mohammad.
Glossary of Proper Names
271

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Document Outline

• Contents
• Introduction
• Note on the Translation
• Select Bibliography
• A Chronology of Rumi
• THE MASNAVI: BOOK ONE
• Prose Introduction
• The Song of the Reed
• The Healing of the Sick Slave-Girl
• The Bald Parrot and the Monk
• The Jewish Vizier who Deceived the Christians into Following him and Destroyed them
• The Description of Mohammad in the Gospels
• The Jewish King who Tried to Destroy Christians with his fire
  • The Man who Mentioned Mohammad’s Name with a Smirk
• How a Hare Killed the Lion that had been Tormenting all the other Animals
  • The Man who saw the Angel of Death
  • The Interpretation of the Fly in a Drop of Donkey’s Urine
  • Solomon and the Hoopoe
    • Adam’s Fall
• The Greater Jihad
• Omar and the Emissary from Byzantium
  • Adam’s Superiority to Satan
  • ‘He is with You Wherever You may be’
  • ‘Let Whoever Wants to Sit with God Sit with the Sufis’
• The Escape of the Merchant’s Parrot
  • ‘If Mystics Drink Poison it will Become an Antidote’
  • Moses and the Magicians
  • God’s Jealousy
  • The Harm in Being Venerated by People
  • ‘What God Wills Happens’
• The Old Harpist
  • ‘The Special Breaths Sent by God’
  • Aisha and the Unseen Rain
    • ‘Other Skies beyond These’
    • ‘Take Advantage of the Coolness of the Spring’
  • The Moaning Pillar
  • The Gravel that Affirmed Mohammad’s Prophethood
• The Prayer of the Angels in Favour of Big Spenders
• The Caliph Who Was More Generous than Hatem Ta'i
• The Poor Bedouin and his Wife
  • False Sufi Masters
  • Viewing from Limited Perspectives
  • ‘Women Prevail over Intelligent Men, while Ignorant Men Prevail over them’
  • Pharaoh’s Fate
  • ‘He Has Lost this World and the Hereafter’
  • Saleh and his She-Camel
  • ‘He lets the Seas meet Each Other with a Gap which They Don’t Encroach upon’
  • The Station of ‘That God may forgive you your past and future sins’
  • The Mutual Need of Beggars and Donors
  • False Dervishes
  • Lovers of the Superficial
  • ‘If You Fornicate, Do it with a Free Woman; If You Steal, Steal a Pearl!’
  • The Boatman and the Grammarian
• The Sufi Guide
• The Softie from Qazvin who Wanted a Tattoo
• The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox
  • The Man who Learned to Knock on his Beloved’s Door and Say ‘It is You!’
• Sufis Serve as Mirrors of the Soul
• The Gift Brought by Joseph’s Visitor
• The Prophet’s Scribe who Became an Apostate
  • Bal'am and the Damned
  • The Temptation of Harut and Marut
    • The Deaf Man who Visited his Sick Neighbour
    • Satan was the First to Rely on Reasoning
• The Importance of Hiding your Mystical Station
• The Painting Competition between the Greeks and the Chinese
• The Prophet Mohammad and Zayd
  • Loqman’s Test to Discover who had Eaten the Fruit
• Extinguishing Fire in Medina under Omar
• Why Ali Dropped his Sword in Battle
  • The Man who was Told that he would One Day Kill Ali
    • Adam’s Conceit
  • Why the Prophet Conquered Mecca Yet Said, ‘The World is a Carcass’
• Explanatory Notes
• Glossary of Proper Names
  • A
  • B
  • E
  • G
  • H
  • J
  • K
  • L
  • M
  • N
  • O
  • R
  • S
  • T
  • Y
  • Z