The Qur'an in the Persian Language Piritual Poem by Rumi

 

The “Qur’an in the Persian Language”

Rumi’s largest work is the Masnawi Manawi, the Spiritual Couplets. It’s a single poem of 25,000 verses in six books, together with 300 longer and shorter anecdotes that deal with love. It has been called the “Qur’an in the Persian language.” A sample:

He is a source of evil, as thou sayest,
Yet evil hurts Him not. To make that evil
Denotes in him perfection. Hear from me
A parable. The heavenly Artist paints
Beautiful shapes and ugly: in one picture
The loveliest women in the land of Egypt
Gazing on youthful Joseph amorously;
And lo, another scene by the same hand,
Hell-fire and Iblis with his hideous crew:
Both master-works, created for good ends,
To show His perfect wisdom and confound
The sceptics who deny His mastery.
Could He not evil make, He would lack skill;
Therefore He fashions infidel alike
And Moslem true, that both may witness bear
To Him, and worship One Almighty Lord.