Investigating Medical Motifs in Masnavi Stories

The present article is concerned with those stories of Masnavi which contain medical and therapeutic points. To this end, the authors examined all Masnavi stories and extracted therapeutic and medical motifs from them. These statements, regardless of the name of the speaker, are like prescriptions of a physician. It is found that Rumi (Mawlana) has been familiar with medical concepts, using medical and therapeutic propositions to communicate his meanings; in the selected stories of Masnavi, the poet appears as a doctor and elaborates on physical and, mostly, on psychological illnesses and their treatments. In some stories of Masnavi, the main character is involved in a physical or mental illness that has been treated by a medical or spiritual physician.