Animal Tales in the Mathnawî of Mevlânâ Jalalu’d-Dîn Rumî

Abstract

In the creation o f a literary work, purpose and m aterial are the two essential components as in m any other fields.W e w ould like to take a closer look at how these two components are displayed in the m onum ental w ork Mathnavvî o f the great Islam ic poet and mystic M evlânâ.W e know that M evlâ n â 's purpose for w riting in verse is not to poetize or to meet his need to do so.O n the contrary, he poetized to capture his deciples' attentions and to make them happy.H e had said that in his old country and am ong his people, there w ould be nothing more shameful than being a poet and if he had stayed there, he w ould have had spent his time b y lecturing, w riting books and preaching in conform ity w ith the custom o f these p e o p le .1 M evlâ n â 's purpose, on the other hand, is to insinuate the good and the higher feelings to men b y showing the good and the right and to direct them tovvards these, or, in other words, to try to save them from animality and help them reach hum anity.In the Mathnavvî, M evlânâ achieves this aim by the use o f stories that have the quality o f being easily rem em bered and w ith these stories he makes use o f plentiful and varied m aterial w hich consist o f verses from the Q uran, sayings o f the Prophet M oham m ed, stories on prophets, tales o f the famous people who lived before him, such as A ttâ r and Sanâî.H owever, animal tales and motives m ake up a very im portant part o f his m aterial and this is vvhat we w ould like to em phasize here Scanning through the M athnaw î, one sees that M evlânâ has used fifty-one small and big animals in order to explain and dem onstrate his thoughts.These animals v a ry from the fle a to the cam el, from the