Abstract

Mathnawi is the masterpiece of Mawlana Jalaluddin MohammadBalkhi Rumi Khorasani , the greatest Muslim Persianmystic and poet who composed the Mathnawi around seven hundredyears ago in Konya.Hitherto the most important criticism in regards with Mathnawi is itsapparent lack of structure and plan.However, in this paper, the author aims to illustrate the structure,semiotics and synoptic view of the second book of Rumi’s Mathnawi,which hitherto has never been attempted before.The main theme of the second book is ‘friendship’, “seeing”, “notseeing”and ‘certainty’ which has been presented in twelve paralleldiscourses. The sections within each discourse were not plannedlinearly but synoptically using the literary principles of parallelismand chiasmus.The structure of the second book, which is comprised of, 3810 verses,111 sections and 61 stories, is constituted of 12 discourses in 3 blocks.The present article is the third chapter of my forthcoming book, titled“The Structure, Semiotics and hermeneutic of Book Two of Rumi’sMathnawi”, which will be published in December 2011 by theLondon Academic of Iranian Studies Press