{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.2",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/index.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "rumi-masnavi",
    "name": "Masnavi-i-Manavi (Rumi)",
    "stream": "persian",
    "epoch_reflected": "persian",
    "epoch_written": "greco-latin",
    "form": "mystical didactic verse",
    "tradition": "Islamic mysticism (Sufi)",
    "author": "Jalal ad-Din Rumi",
    "year_approx": 1273,
    "note": "Jalal ad-Din Rumi's six-book Persian poem of mystical love — ~26,000 couplets composed 1258–1273. The central text of the Mevlevi (whirling dervish) order. E.H. Whinfield's 1898 abridged verse translation.",
    "books_slug": "rumi--the-masnavi-i-manavi",
    "books_slugs": null,
    "has_project_translation": false,
    "steiner_loci": []
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "sufism",
      "name": "Sufi Poets",
      "url": "/sources/sufism/"
    }
  ],
  "translation": {
    "title": null,
    "author": null,
    "source": null
  },
  "chapters": [
    {
      "num": 1,
      "slug": "01-the-masnavi-book-i",
      "title": "The Masnavi Book I",
      "words": 18650,
      "url": "/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/01-the-masnavi-book-i/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/01-the-masnavi-book-i.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Book I — *Listen to the reed* — the great prelude",
      "blurb": "Opens the Masnavi with the most famous passage in Persian literature — the *song of the reed* (*Bishnaw īn nay*): *Listen to the reed, how it tells a tale, complaining of separations*. The reed cut from the reed-bed becomes the figure of the soul cut from its divine source. The frame for the entire 25,000-couplet didactic-mystical epic."
    },
    {
      "num": 2,
      "slug": "02-the-masnavi-book-ii",
      "title": "The Masnavi Book II",
      "words": 15574,
      "url": "/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/02-the-masnavi-book-ii/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/02-the-masnavi-book-ii.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Book II — the perils and disciplines of the path",
      "blurb": "Book II returns to the *Masnavi* form after the great prelude. The dangers of the spiritual path: false teachers, self-deception, the *nafs* (lower self) disguising itself as the higher. The tales gather around the discipline by which the seeker distinguishes truth from imitation."
    },
    {
      "num": 3,
      "slug": "03-the-masnavi-book-iii",
      "title": "The Masnavi Book III",
      "words": 18752,
      "url": "/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/03-the-masnavi-book-iii/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/03-the-masnavi-book-iii.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Book III — the depths of the soul; ecstatic intoxication",
      "blurb": "The exploration of the soul's depths. The famous tales of the elephant in the dark room (each describing only the part they touched), of Solomon and the hoopoe, of Bahlul. The relation of *sukr* (intoxication) and *ṣaḥw* (sobriety) in the Sufi path."
    },
    {
      "num": 4,
      "slug": "04-the-masnavi-book-iv",
      "title": "The Masnavi Book IV",
      "words": 15676,
      "url": "/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/04-the-masnavi-book-iv/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/04-the-masnavi-book-iv.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Book IV — Love's secret; the wisdom-tales",
      "blurb": "The middle book of the cycle. Stories of the lover's secret kept and broken; of the prince and the beggar; of the slave-girl in love. The Sufi doctrine of love as the supreme path — the *'ishq* (impassioned love) that surpasses even the higher reasoning of the *ḥakīm*."
    },
    {
      "num": 5,
      "slug": "05-the-masnavi-book-v",
      "title": "The Masnavi Book V",
      "words": 18054,
      "url": "/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/05-the-masnavi-book-v/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/05-the-masnavi-book-v.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Book V — *fanā* and *baqā* — annihilation and subsistence",
      "blurb": "The Sufi doctrine of *fanā'* (passing-away of the self) and *baqā'* (subsisting in God). Tales that illustrate the moments of *fanā'* — the lover dissolved in the Beloved — and the corresponding state of *baqā'* in which the dissolved one returns to ordinary life now living in God."
    },
    {
      "num": 6,
      "slug": "06-the-masnavi-book-vi",
      "title": "The Masnavi Book VI",
      "words": 17576,
      "url": "/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/06-the-masnavi-book-vi/",
      "api": "/api/sources/sufism/rumi-masnavi/06-the-masnavi-book-vi.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Book VI — the closing book; the tales of the King and the Three Princes",
      "blurb": "The closing book of the *Masnavi*. The long *Three Princes* tale of the king who would not let his sons see the perilous castle until they were of age; their disobedience; their corresponding adventures and disciplines. Rumi's death interrupted the book's completion — its final couplet is famously unresolved."
    }
  ]
}