About The Book

This is the first complete translation into English of the nearly 2000 quatrains attributed to Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, the famous 13th century Persian Sufi master and mystical poet. A monumental and historic effort.

William C. Chittick, the American Rumi scholar (and author of The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teaching of Rumi), wrote:

“This most welcome addition to the literature on Rumi is the fruit of many years of collaborative effort by two dedicated scholars, both of whom are thoroughly familiar with Rumi’s historical, cultural, and religious context. Until now, Rumi’s quatrains have received little attention from scholars, yet they sum up his teachings in pithy and moving form.”

Much less attention has been given by scholars to his quatrains than to the rhymed couplets in his Masnavī (and the odes in his Dīvān). Up to now, what has been available are sometimes popularized versions of the quatrains that are often not linguistically and culturally accurate. The present book addresses this deficit by providing accurate translations and plentiful explanations made through the collaboration of two Rumi scholars: Rawān Farhādī (an Afghan) and Ibrahim Gamard (an American). The quatrains are ordered into numerous stages and themes of the mystical path of the “lover” and the “beloved” (the spiritual disciple and Sufi master).