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Volume 7 of Reynold A. Nicholson's authoritative translation and edition of Rúmí's magnum opus - reissued with a new foreword by Alan Williams - provides the commentary on books I and II of the
Mathnawí.
The
Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí is his greatest work in every sense. As well as being his longest single composition, it is his most mature, as it was his last work, written from 1261 until his death in 1273 CE. It comprises six books, which amount to over 25,600 rhymed couplets in Nicholson's edition, plus six brief prose prefaces, variously in Arabic and Persian. The
Mathnawí relates a range of folk stories, from traditional Iranian and Muslim lore, as well as from pre-Islamic, Western Classical and Indian Sanskritic traditions. It also includes moral and mystically contemplative discourse, exegesis and meditation on the Qur'ān and Hadith, and stories not recorded before Rúmí's writing, which may have been composed for the work.
This volume is part of an eight-volume set by Nicholson. Three volumes present his edition of the Persian text, three volumes provide his English translations, and two volumes offer his commentary.
About the author
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (1868-1945) was one of the foremost European scholars of Islamic mysticism. His pioneering translations and editions of major Sufi texts--including
Dīvāni Shamsi Tabrīz (1898),
The Mystics of Islam (1914), and the monumental eight-volume edition and translation of Rumi's
Mathnawí (1925-1940)--remain foundational works in the field. He also authored the influential
Literary History of the Arabs (1907) and several studies on Islamic poetry and personality in Sufism. Nicholson's literary sensitivity and rigorous scholarship transformed Western understanding of Sufi thought and literature.
Summary
Volume 7 of Reynold A. Nicholson’s 8-volume authoritative translation and edition of Rúmí’s magnum opus – now reissued with a new foreword by Alan Williams – provides the commentary on books I and II of the Mathnawí.
