The Mathnawí of Jaláluʾddín Rúmí Volume IReynold A. NicholsonLabel: Edinburgh University PressDescription: Volume 1 of Reynold A. Nicholson’s authoritative translation and edition of Rúmí’s magnum opus – reissued with a new foreword by Alan Williams – provides the Persian edition of 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 25600 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.
