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

Masnavi
itself (e.g. v. 
2947). They seem to have worked on the Masnavi dur-
ing the evenings in particular, and in one instance Rumi begs for-
giveness for having kept Hosamoddin up for an entire night with it
(v. 
1817). After Hosamoddin had written down Rumi’s recitations,
they were read back to him to be checked and corrected.
The crucial role played by Hosamoddin as Rumi’s assistant in this
process, as well as an inspiration, is highlighted not only by the fact
that Rumi refers to the 
Masnavi on occasion as ‘the Hosam book’,
but also by the fact that its production was halted completely after
Book One was 
finished because of the death of Hosamoddin’s wife,
as indicated at the beginning of Book Two. The devastated
Hosamoddin spent almost a year, between 
1263 and 1264, mourning
his deep loss before they could resume their work. However, the
hyperbolic praise that Rumi lavishes on Hosamoddin in the prose
introduction to Book One, the very start of the 
Masnavi (pp. 
3–4),
should be understood as a token of his generosity in extolling the
virtues of his deputy, rather than at face value.
Rumi’s
Masnavi belongs to the group of works written in this
verse form that do not have a frame narrative. In this way, it contrasts
with the more cohesively structured 
Conference of the Birds, which is
already well known in translation. It is also much longer; the
Introduction
xxi

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Conference is roughly the same length as just one of the six component
books of the 
Masnavi. Each of the six books consists of about 
4,000
verses and has its own prose introduction and prologue. There are,
however, no epilogues, and the fact that the sixth volume ends
somewhat inconclusively has prompted suggestions that the work
may never have been completed, as well as claims that there was a
seventh volume. Book One stands apart from the rest, because of the
pause for approximately a year before work was started on Book Two.
The component narratives, homilies, and commentaries on cit-
ations which make up the body of the 
Masnavi are signalled by their
own separate headings. The text of longer narratives tends to be
broken up into sections by further headings. Sometimes the head-
ings are positioned inappropriately, such as in the middle of continu-
ous speech (e.g. vv. 
348–9), revealing that they were inserted only
after the text had been prepared and therefore do not represent some
form of organizational framework. The tendency for the given head-
ings to refer only to the immediate start of the subsequent passage of
text suggests that they were designed to serve primarily as markers
for the bene
fit of reciters. However, occasionally the headings are
actually longer than the passage that they represent (e.g. vv. 
2813–16),
and serve to explain and contextualize what follows. It is as if, on
rereading the text, further explanation was felt necessary in the form
of an expanded heading.
The diversity of the contents of Book One of the 
Masnavi is repre-
sentative of the work as a whole. It includes stories with characters
ranging from prophets and kings to beggars and tramps, as well as
animals. The citations which receive commentary are taken primarily
from the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet (
hadith), and the works
of Rumi’s precursors in Su
fism. The homilies cover, in addition to
speci
fically Sufi issues, general ethical concerns based on traditional
wisdom. Rumi drew on his knowledge of a vast range of both oral and
literary sources in the composition of his work,
16
as well as his famil-
iarity with a wide range of disciplines, including theology, phil-
osophy, the exegesis of the Koran and 
hadith, philology, literature,
16
Since most of the literary sources drawn upon for Book One are unavailable in
English, references have been provided only to the Koran and to those 
hadith that have
been translated in Nicholson’s commentary. A useful list of the sources for the main
stories of Book One is provided in Lewis,