Masnavi (poetic form)

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The masnavi (Persian: مثنوی, also transcribed as mathnawi; Turkish: mesnevî) is a poetic form in Persian and Ottoman literature.

The masnavi consists of an indefinite number of couplets, with the rhyme scheme aa/bb/cc, etc.

By far the most well-known masnavi is the Masnavi-i Ma'navi of the 13th-century Persian Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, which consists of six books of poems containing more than 25,000 verses. Many other poets, however—such as the Ottoman poet Fuzûlî, whose Leylâ ve Mecnun was written as a masnavi—have used the form.

Indeed, throughout the Perso-centric Islamicate world, the masnavi has been a tremendously popular poetic form. In India it is found especially in Persian, Dakani and Urdu. In India the form has tended to tell two types of stories: the romantic tale and the panegyric of kings.