The Masnavi (Masnavi-yi Ma'navi, 'Spiritual Couplets') is Rumi's great poem in Persian, written in six books in the 13th century. It mixes stories, teaching and mystical reflection, and is one of the central works of Sufi literature.

Are the Rumi quotes on social media real?

Some are, many are not. A lot of popular lines come from modern interpretive English versions, which are loose by design and often still in copyright, and some have no clear source in Rumi at all. A real Rumi quote can be traced to a specific work and translation.

What is Rumi's most famous line about death?

In E. H. Whinfield's translation of the Masnavi: 'I died as an animal and arose a man. Why then should I fear to become less by dying?' The passage describes life as a series of transformations, each one a rising rather than a loss.

Yes. Jalal ad-Din Rumi was a Muslim scholar, jurist and Sufi teacher in Konya. The Masnavi is full of references to the Quran and Islamic tradition, even where its themes of love and longing speak to readers of any background.

Is Hafiz the same as Rumi?

No. Hafiz of Shiraz was a 14th-century Persian poet, about a century after Rumi, known for his ghazals. Gertrude Bell translated a selection of his poems into English in 1897.

Rumi Quotes From the Masnavi, in a Public-Domain Translation

Real Rumi quotes come from his own works, above all the Masnavi, and in a public-domain translation they sound a little different from the lines that circulate on social media. Here, in E. H. Whinfield’s translation, is Rumi on love: “Through love a prison seems a rose bower”. On death: “I died as an animal and arose a man. Why then should I fear to become less by dying?” And on the heart: “Knowest thou why thy mirror reflects not? Because the rust has not been scoured from its face.” Below is a collection of Rumi quotes from the Masnavi, each with its source, grouped by theme, with a short section on Hafiz at the end.

Who was Rumi?

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207 to 1273) was a Persian poet, Islamic scholar and Sufi teacher. Born in the eastern Persian world, he settled with his family in Konya, in what is now Turkey. His meeting with the wandering mystic Shams of Tabriz turned a respected teacher into one of the great poets of love and longing. After Rumi’s death, his followers formed the Mevlevi order, known in the West for the “whirling” dervishes.

His great work, the Masnavi, is a vast poem of rhyming couplets in six books. It moves between stories, jokes, sermons, commentary on the Quran and moments of pure ecstasy. It opens with the Song of the Reed: a reed flute crying because it has been cut from its reed bed, a picture of the soul longing for its source.

About this translation

Edward Henry Whinfield published an abridged English translation of the Masnavi in 1887, with a second edition in 1898. It is in the public domain, and it is the translation in Soulfeed’s library. Whinfield keeps Rumi’s religious language and his stories intact, so you meet Rumi as he was: a Muslim mystic who quotes scripture, tells parables and then breaks into song.

Many of the Rumi lines shared online come from modern English versions written as free interpretations rather than translations, often still in copyright. Some of those are lovely, but they are a different thing. Everything below is Whinfield’s wording, with the part of the Masnavi it comes from.

Rumi quotes on longing

I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day he shall return.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 1, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

These lines belong to the Song of the Reed at the very start of the poem. The “home” is the soul’s origin, and the ache of being apart from it runs through everything Rumi wrote.

The man athirst cries, “Where is delicious water?”
Water too cries, “Where is the water-drinker?”
This thirst in my soul is the attraction of the water;
I am the water’s and the water is mine.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Rumi quotes on love

When the discourse touched on the matter of love,
Pen was broken and paper torn.
In explaining it Reason sticks fast, as an ass in mire;
Naught but Love itself can explain love and lovers!

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 1, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Through love a prison seems a rose bower,
Without love a grate full of ashes seems a garden.
Through love burning fire is pleasing light,
Through love the Devil becomes a Houri.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 2, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

A houri, in Islamic tradition, is a heavenly companion of great beauty. Love, Rumi says, can turn even the worst thing into the most beautiful.

With bare feet I trod upon thorns and flints,
Seeing I was bewildered, and beside myself, and senseless.
Think not my feet touched the earth.
For the lover verily travels with the heart.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

The love too of Him on high is directed to the soul:
Know this for ‘He loves them that love Him.‘
The sum is this, that whoso seeks another,
The soul of that other who is sought inclines to him.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

“He loves them that love Him” is a quotation from the Quran (5:54), one of many in the Masnavi. For Rumi, human love and divine love are not two separate subjects.

Rumi quotes on the heart and the mind

Knowest thou why thy mirror reflects not?
Because the rust has not been scoured from its face.
If it were purified from all rust and defilement,
It would reflect the shining of the SUN of God.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 1, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

In older mirrors made of polished metal, rust really did dim the reflection. The spiritual work, in this picture, is not adding anything. It is polishing.

I am lord of thought, not overlorded by thought,
As the builder is lord of the building.
All creatures are enslaved to thought;
For this cause are they sad at heart and sorrowful.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 2, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Knowledge has two wings, opinion only one wing;
Opinion is weak and lopsided in its flight.
The bird having but one wing quickly drops down,
And again flies on two steps or more.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Ah! you who are asleep in the boat of the body,
You see the water; behold the Water of waters!
Under the water you see there is another Water moving it,
Within the spirit is a Spirit that calls it.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Rumi quotes on suffering and opposites

The opposite of light shows what is light,
Hence colours too are known by their opposite.
God created pain and grief for this purpose,
To wit, to manifest happiness by its opposites.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 1, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Leave thy nurse on the dry land and push on,
Enter the ocean of real Being, like the ducks!
Though thy nurse may frighten thee away from water,
Do thou fear not, but haste on into the ocean!

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 2, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

The image comes from a story of a duckling raised by a hen. The hen, its “nurse”, fears the water; the duckling belongs to it.

Rumi quotes on kindness

Doing kindness is the game and quarry of good men,
A good man seeks in the world only pains to cure.
Wherever there is a pain there goes the remedy,
Wherever there is poverty there goes relief.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 2, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Rumi quotes on death and change

These forms of speech are born and die again,
These waves cast themselves back into the Ocean.
Form is born of That which is without form,
And goes again, for, “Verily to Him do we return.”

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 1, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

“Verily to Him do we return” is from the Quran (2:156), a verse many Muslims say on hearing of a death.

I died as an animal and arose a man.
Why then should I fear to become less by dying?
I shall die once again as a man
To rise an angel perfect from head to foot!

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

This is one of the most famous passages Rumi wrote. Each death, he says, has been a rising, so why fear the next one?

Though they have gone forth by revolution of fortune,
They are with me still, playing round me.
The cause of lamentation is separation or parting,
But I am still with my dear ones, and embrace them.

Rumi, The Masnavi, part 3, tr. E. H. Whinfield (1898)

Beyond Rumi: a few lines of Hafiz

Hafiz of Shiraz lived about a century after Rumi and is loved across the Persian-speaking world; many families keep a copy of his Divan at home. In 1897 the traveller and scholar Gertrude Bell published Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, an English translation now in the public domain.

Ah, seek the treasure of a mind at rest
And store it in the treasury of Ease;
Not worth a loyal heart, a tranquil breast,
Were all the riches of thy lands and seas!

Hafiz, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, poem 21, tr. Gertrude Bell (1897)

Give thanks for nights spent in good company,
And take the gifts a tranquil mind may bring;
No heart is dark when the kind moon doth shine,
And grass-grown river-banks are fair to see.

Hafiz, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, poem 40, tr. Gertrude Bell (1897)

Hafiz, why art thou ever telling o’er
The tale of absence and of sorrow’s night?
Knowest thou not that parting goes before
All meeting, and from darkness comes the light!

Hafiz, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, poem 32, tr. Gertrude Bell (1897)

Key terms

Sufism: the mystical path within Islam, centred on love of God and the purifying of the heart.
Masnavi: a long poem in rhyming couplets; Rumi’s is so famous that the word alone often means his book.
Ney: the reed flute of the opening song, still central to Mevlevi music.
Shams of Tabriz: the wandering dervish whose friendship transformed Rumi’s life and poetry.
Ghazal: the short lyric love poem in which Hafiz excelled.

How to read Rumi

Read Rumi slowly and aloud if you can; these are poems, and their sound matters. Do not rush to a moral. Let an image (the reed, the mirror, the thirsty man and the water) stay with you for a day. If a line puzzles you, look for the story around it; many of the Masnavi’s sayings are the punchline of a parable.

Soulfeed’s Rumi on love plan offers a week of the Masnavi on love and longing, and Poets of the heart spends six days with Hafiz, Omar Khayyam and Attar. Each day has one passage with a plain explanation and a reflection question. See our guide to building a daily spiritual reading habit for how plans work.

If Rumi’s longing speaks to you, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet explores love in a similar spirit, and the Bhagavad Gita’s verses on devotion are gathered in our Bhagavad Gita quotes.

Read Rumi and the Sufi poets in Soulfeed

Soulfeed’s Sufism path brings together Rumi’s Masnavi, Hafiz, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Attar’s Bird-Parliament, all in public-domain translations, with a modern rendering, meaning, key terms and a question to sit with for every passage. It is a quiet feed of spiritual teachings for iPhone. Learn more in What is Soulfeed? or visit the Soulfeed home page.