WHY RUMIS MASNAVI HAS NO PROLOGUE OR EPILOGUE?

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KHANSARI M.

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Journal: Nameh Farhangestan Year:2001 | Volume:5 | Issue:1 (17) Page(s): 58-62

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Title

WHY RUMIS MASNAVI HAS NO PROLOGUE OR EPILOGUE?

Author(s)

KHANSARI M. | Issue Writer Certificate

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Abstract

Why is it that the Masnavī of Maulānā Jalāl aI-Dīn Rūmī begins with the now familiar بشنواز/این نی(Listen to the reed flute...) and not with a prologue in praise of God, as has been customary in Persian poetry? This is the question that the author sets out to answer in this paper.First of all he cites the precedents, from the Samanid poets down to Ferdowsī and then down to Farīd aI-Dīn 'Attār, whose Manteq aI-Tayr has served as a model for Maulānā to emulate. These all contain, he says, opening passages that praise God and then pass on to the praise of the Holy Prophet of Islam. The author says the absence of a laudatory prologue at the beginning of Masnavī,is so conspicuous that all commentators of Masnavīhave found themselves obliged to take note of this shortcoming and find some justification for it. Some have said the outcry of the reed flute at the beginning of Masnavī amounts in fact to the praise of Almighty, though in an implicit mode. Others have resorted to other arguments.The author then says, perhaps the best answer was provided by the late Professor Forūzānfar, an unquestioned authority on Masnavī, in his class:"Masnavī is a book of infinite vastness; it is a sea whose shores are nowhere in sight; it has no beginning or end, and unlike other long poems it has no prologue or epilogue."The author then amplifies on this theme by citing two verses from the Holy Qur'an (verse 109 from chapter 18, Kahf, and verse 27 from chapter 31, Luqmān) which say, in effect, that if all the seas turn into ink and if all the woods become pens to record the praise of the Lord, the seas will run dry before all these words of praise are exhausted.Masnavī has no proper ending either, the author says. Two stories which come at the end of different MSS of this book as the final episode remain unfinished. Some may think the final pages of the MS are missing, but the author says the fact that there is no beginning or ending to Masnavī is deliberate, and there is a delicate reason for it, which is expressed in the following lines of Masnavī:سر ندارد کز ازل بو دست پیش پا ندارد با ابد بو دست خویشIt has no head, for it has existed before pre-eternity, It has no legs, for it will last with eternity.

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APA: Copy

KHANSARI, M.. (2001). WHY RUMIS MASNAVI HAS NO PROLOGUE OR EPILOGUE?. NAME- YE FARHANGESTAN, 5(1 (17)), 58-62. SID. https://sid.ir/paper/87917/en

Vancouver: Copy

KHANSARI M.. WHY RUMIS MASNAVI HAS NO PROLOGUE OR EPILOGUE?. NAME- YE FARHANGESTAN[Internet]. 2001;5(1 (17)):58-62. Available from: https://sid.ir/paper/87917/en

IEEE: Copy

M. KHANSARI, “WHY RUMIS MASNAVI HAS NO PROLOGUE OR EPILOGUE?,” NAME- YE FARHANGESTAN, vol. 5, no. 1 (17), pp. 58–62, 2001, [Online]. Available: https://sid.ir/paper/87917/en

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