Coleman Barks

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Jalaloddin Rumi

Nevit Ergin

What is the heart? It is not human, and it is not imaginary. I call it you. – Rumi In 1244, the brilliant scholar Rumi and the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz met and immediately fell into a deep spiritual connection with one another. The Glance- a mystical experience that occurs when the eyes of the lover and the beloved, parent and child, and friend and friend meet – taps a major, yet little explored, theme . . . in Rumi's poetry. These powerful, complex and newly translated poems range from the ethereal to the everyday and reveal the unique place of human desire, love, and ecstasy, where in the meeting of eyes there exists not just the union of two souls, but the crux of the universe.

Songs of Soul-Meeting

The Glance

Jalaloddin Rumi's Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, or 'Spiritual Couplets', composed in the 13th Century, is a monumental work of poetry in the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism. For centuries before his love poetry became a literary phenomenon in the West, Rumi's Masnavi had been revered in the Islamic world as its greatest mystical text. Drawing upon a vast array of characters, stories and fables, and deeply versed in spiritual teaching, it takes us on a profound and playful journey of discovery along the path of divine love, toward its ultimate goal of union with the source of all Truth. In Book 1 of the Masnavi, the first of six volumes, Rumi opens the spiritual path towards higher spiritual understanding. Alan Williams's authoritative new translation is rendered in highly readable blank verse and includes the original Persian text for reference, and with explanatory notes along the way. 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 with an introduction, notes and analysis by Alan Williams and including the Persian text edited by Mohammad Este'lami.

A New English Translation with Explanatory Notes

The Masnavi of Rumi, Book One

Jalaloddin Rumi's Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, or 'Spiritual Couplets', composed in the 13th Century, is a monumental work of poetry in the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism. For centuries before his love poetry became a literary phenomenon in the West, Rumi's Masnavi had been revered in the Islamic world as its greatest mystical text. Drawing upon a vast array of characters, stories and fables, and deeply versed in spiritual teaching, it takes us on a profound and playful journey of discovery along the path of divine love, toward its ultimate goal of union with the source of all Truth. In Book Two of the Masnavi, the second of six volumes, we travel with Rumi toward an understanding of the deeper truth and reality, beyond the limits of the self. 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 with an introduction, notes and analysis by Alan Williams and including the Persian text edited by Mohammad Este'lami.

Jalaloddin Rumi

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