The Anchorage of Rumi’s Mathnavi in The Qur’an: A Study of some Allegories from Rūmī s Mathnavi:

Abstract

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273), known as Rumi in the West, was one of the most renowned Sufis and literary figures of the Muslim World whose Islamic Sufi teachings, imbued with his personal mystical experiences, are laid out in his poetry.  This study tries to establish links between teachings, didactic lessons, insights of Rumi in his Mathnavi Ma’anavi and their Qur’anic roots as unfolded in the allegorical tales of The Mathnavi. By shedding light on Rumi’s life, his works, especially his Mathnavi, and a trajectory of allegory in world literature and Muslim Sufi literature, the researcher has attempted to highlight the fact that how Rumi has woven Islamic and Qur’anic wisdom, infused with his personal and traditional Sufi insights.  Mathnavi of Rumi is deeply interconnected with The Qur’an and Islamic teachings. The warp and woof of the Mathnavi is woven from various Islamic and mystic texts and it is steeped in the spirit of The Qur’an, hadith and other Islamic teachings. Rumi’s poetry and teachings, as laid out in his Mathnavi, are deeply entrenched in the Muslim civilization Rumi lived in.These teachings cannot be delinked from these civilizational moorings. His poetry throb with powerful emotions and grandeur, which characterize the impressive style of the Qur’an. It is indubitably the extraordinary attachment Rumi had with the book of God, which has lent palpable fervor to his works. This was literature-based research and it mainly revolved around the original Persian Text Of Mathnavi, its Persian,Arabic,Urdu and English translations and commentaries and related books by Rumi and about Rumi. Parallel with it was consulted Quran and its various English and Urdu translations and commentaries to collate, compare Mathnavi’s references with.