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

This landmark book reveals the structure of Rumī’s thirteenth-century classic, the Mathnawī. A beloved collection of 25, 000 picturesque, alliterative verses full of anecdotes and parables on what appear to be loosely connected themes, the Mathnawī presents itself as spontaneous and unplanned. However, as Seyed Ghahreman Safavi and Simon Weightman demonstrate, the work has a sophisticated design that deliberately hides the spiritual so that readers, as seekers, have to find it for themselves—it is not only about spiritual training, it is spiritual training. Along with a full synoptic reading of the whole of Book One, the authors provide material on Rumī’s life, his religious position, and his literary antecedents. Safavi and Weightman have provided readers, students, and scholars with a valuable resource: the guide that they wished they had had prior to their own reading of this great spiritual classic.

İçerik tablosu

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

Yazar hakkında

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.