Deluxe facsimile edition

Dîvan-i Kebîr Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī
  
Konya, Turkey, Mevlânâ Müzesi, Kütüphane, Mss. 68-69





 
The Dîvân-i Kebîr ("Great Divan") by Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi (1207-1273) is considered one of the greatest works of Persian literature ever written. This masterpiece, an anthology of lyric poems comprised of more than 40,000 verses, comes down to us in a presentation manuscript preserved in the Mevlâna Museum in Konya Turkey. The museum is the mausoleum of Mevlana Rumi and is also the dervish lodge (tekke) of the Mevlevi order, better known as the whirling dervishes. The manuscript compiled in 1364 consists of  two volumes (Mss. 68-69) written in Khorasani Farsi; it also has some Arabic, Turkish, and Greek texts. In the second volume, on page 289, Abu Bekir al Mavlavi (the man who constructed the cover) indicates that the scribe of the Dîvân was Hasan ibn-I Osman who started writing on July 2, 1367 and finished in October of 1368. He worked from the original notes taken down by the "Secretaries of the Scribe", a circle of students and friends who wrote down the poems as they came out of Rumi’s mouth.

One of the central figures of Islamic culture, Rumi only recently began to emerge as a poet of significance to Westerners. According to Zahra Partovi "...the most remarkable biographical information about Jalaluddin Rumi's life is not the appearance and disappearance of the mystic Shams, but Rumi's imperative and conscious decision to make a change in his career from a Sufi teacher to a poet. Here the medium is truly the message: the most successful Sufi teacher of all times with countless devoted followers chooses to communicate through the path of poetry. This masterful poet combines philosophy, mysticism, and psychology in a language so piercing as to enter the realm of music. It is this element more than any other which has made Rumi's poetry so irresistible to readers for over seven hundred years, even through the filter of translation".
    

Mevlâna Museum, Konya, Turkey

Dîvan-i Kebîr, 1

Dîvan-i Kebîr, 2



Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (Persian: مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی), also known as Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balḫī (Persian: محمد بلخى), but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi (September 30, 1207–December 17, 1273), was a 13th century Persian (Tājik) poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian. Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he lived for the most part of his life in Anatolia which had been part of the Byzantine Empire two centuries before. Rumi was born in Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan), then a city of Greater Khorasan, and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey), then a city of the Great Seljuq Empire. His birthplace and native language/local dialect indicates a Persian heritage. His poetry is in Persian and his works are widely read in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and in translation especially in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the US, and South Asia. He lived most of his life in, and produced his works under the Seljuq Empire. After Rumi's death, his followers founded the Mowlawīyah, better known as the "Whirling Dervishes," who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance and music ceremony called the samāʿ (from Fotopages Fariborz and Friends).
 

According to Shahram Shiva, one reason for Rumi's popularity is that "Rumi is able to verbalize the highly personal and often confusing world of personal/spiritual growth and mysticism in a very forward and direct fashion. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. The world of Rumi is neither exclusively the world of a Sufi, nor the world of a Hindu, nor a Jew, nor a Christian; it is the highest state of a human being — a fully evolved human. A complete human is not bound by cultural limitations; he touches every one of us. Today Rumi's poems can be heard in churches, synagogues, Zen monasteries, as well as in the downtown New York art/performance/music scene." According to Professor Majid M. Naini, Rumi's life and transformation provide true testimony and proof that people of all religions and backgrounds can live together in peace and harmony. Rumi’s visions, words, and life teach us how to reach inner peace and happiness so we can finally stop the continual stream of hostility and hatred and achieve true global peace and harmony.


    
Dîvân-i Kebîr / Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Maulana.
Anniversary Edition.
Society for Understanding Mevlana, San Mateo, 2007.

The facsimile:
2 volumes, 35.2 x 47 cm, iv, 304, 346 pp. Preface in English by Nevit Oguz Ergin. Deluxe limited edition of 200 copies bound in light brown leatherette with
generous tooling and traditional fore-edge flaps. $1500

Please call for special OMI price
     
Dîvan-i Kebîr, 3        
        

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