E. H. Whinfield
Edward Henry Whinfield (1836-1922) was well versed in Persian mystical poetry, having previously translated Shabestari’s verse epitome of Sufi teaching, Golshan-e raz (“The Garden of Mystery), in 1880; he also collaborated with the great Persian scholar Mirza Mohammad Qazvini on an edition and translation of Jamal’s study of Sufism. Lava’eh, in the introduction to which Whinfield expounds upon the Greek influence of Sufism.
Whinfield rightly observed that Rumi’s mysticism is “experimental” rather than “doctrinal”. His 330-page abridged translation presents a tasteful and representative selection of about 3,500 of the approximately 25,500 lines of the Masnavi, though he inadvertently includes some scribal interpolations which appear in the uncritical edition of the Persian text he consulted but are not from Rumi. Whinfield renders the selections in lineated prose, corresponding to the lines of the original poem, interspersed with passages of paraphrase in paragraph form, all of which remains clear and readable. It was originally published in 1887 in London by Trubner as Masnavi-I Masnavi, the Spiritual Couplets of Maulana Jalalu- d-Din Muhammad I Rumi, with a second edition appearing in 1898; reprints include an Octagon Press edition in 1973 on the 700th anniversary of Rumi’s death, to which Idries Shah added a preface for the 1979 edition (reprint 1994). As recently as 1996, Whinfield’s Masnavi was reprinted in Tehran as part of the Persian Heratige series for English-speakers in Iran. In North America, however, Whinfield’s work is most widely known as a Dotton paperback, under the title Teachings of Rumi: The Masnavi of Maulana Jalalu d-Din Muhammad I Rumi (New York, 1973, 1975, ect.).
Source: Rumi: Past and Present, East and West, The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi OneWorld Publications, Boston, 2000, p573-574
