Mesnevî-i Şerîf, 1. Defter

Rumi opens the Masnavi with the reed flute's lament for the reed bed it was cut from, then teaches through stories: the king and the slave girl, the parrot and the grocer, the lion and the hares. Ahmed Avni Konuk gives the first book's four thousand couplets in plain Turkish, fifty at a time. This book uses the racial and other slurs of its period as written; the Book Guide explains these words where they occur.

Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.