Seyed Ghahreman Safavi & Simon Weightman 
Rūmī’s Mystical Design [PDF ebook] 
Reading the Mathnawi, Book One

Foreword by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Preface
Introduction
1. Contextualizing the
Mathnawī
Mawlānā’s Life—An Outline
Mawlānā’s Religious Outlook
Mawlānā’s Literary Antecedents
2. Reading the
Mathnawī
The
Mathnawī as Given
The Question of Structure
Some Further Considerations
Synoptic Reading and the Principles of Parallelism and Chiasmus
Rhetorical Latency
Two Iranian Exemplars
The Synoptic Reading of Book One of the
Mathnawī
3. A Synoptic Reading of Book One of the
Mathnawī
4. Book One as a Whole and as a Part
The Synoptic Analysis of Book One as a Whole
The Rationale of Book One as a Whole
The Linear and the Nonlinear Ordering of Book One
Book One as a Part
5. Conclusion
How Mawlānā Composed the
Mathnawī
Mawlānā’s Hidden Organization as the Writer’s Plan
Th e Design of the
Mathnawī
Finale
Notes
Glossary
Select Bibliography
Index

Seyed Ghahreman Safavi is Research Associate of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London, and Director of the London Academy of Iranian Studies. He is the author of
The Structure of Rumī’s Mathnawī: New Interpretation of the Mathnawī as a Book for Love and Peace.
Simon Weightman is Former Head of the Department of the Study of Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London. He is the coauthor (with Rupert Snell) of
Hindi.