Rumi's Mystical Design - Reading the Mathnawi, Book One (Paperback)

This landmark book reveals the structure of RB;mB;'s thirteenth-century classic, the MathnawB;. A beloved collection of 25,000 picturesque, alliterative verses full of anecdotes and parables on what appear to be loosely connected themes, the MathnawB; 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 RB;mB;'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.