دانشگاه اصفهان متن شناسی ادب فارسی 2476-3268 18 3 2026 08 23 Textual Analysis of the Masnavi Lu'lu' Maknun, Laili, wa Majnun, a Newly Discovered Poem by Ali Gilani from the Tenth Century AH تحلیل متن‌شناختی مثنوی «لؤلؤ مکنون و لیلی و مجنون»، سروده‌ای نوشناخته از علی گیلانی در قرن دهم هجری قمری 123 146 30329 10.22108/rpll.2026.146882.2509 FA ابوالفضل مرادی استادیار گروه زبان و ادبیات فارسی، دانشگاه فرهنگیان، تهران، ایران Journal Article 2025 10 04 Abstract The masnavi Lu’lu’ Maknūn wa Laylī wa Majnūn, composed by ʿAlī Gīlānī—a largely overlooked poet of the tenth century AH—represents a significant yet neglected work in Persian love-mystical literature. To date, it has not received an independent critical edition nor a comprehensive scholarly analysis. This poem exhibits distinct linguistic, structural, semantic, and stylistic features that differentiate it from other nazīra (imitative) compositions within the Laylī and Majnūn tradition. This study aims to conduct a multi-layered textual analysis of the work, encompassing lexical, syntactic-rhetorical, semantic, and intellectual dimensions, to elucidate its literary, mystical, and cultural significance. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach, the research relies on close and comparative reading of the text, consultation of historical and literary sources, and examination of its rhetorical devices. The findings reveal that Gīlānī utilizes the framework of a love narrative to present a mystical interpretation of love, where earthly and divine passions are intricately intertwined. The poem’s multilayered language, blending Persian and Arabic vocabulary, technical terminology, and rhetorical devices such as allusion, metaphor, paradox, and dialogue, transforms the text into a dynamic, intertextual, and symbolically rich artifact. While drawing upon earlier literary traditions, the masnavi introduces subtle innovations that situate the reader within the continuity of Persian amorous poetry while offering a renewed perspective on lyrical-mystical literature. As the first step toward a systematic rereading of this work, this study seeks to establish ʿAlī Gīlānī’s contribution to Persian love-mystical poetry and open new avenues for the study of neglected texts in the Persian literary corpus. Keywords: Masnavi Composition, Ali Gilani, Lu’lu’ Maknūn, Leyli wa Majnoon. Introduction Romantic narrative literature is one of the oldest branches of literature, playing a significant role in reflecting emotions and social values across various cultures and civilizations. In Persian literature, the story of Laylī and Majnūn serves not merely as a tale of earthly love, but as a symbol of divine love and mysticism, having been reinterpreted numerous times by various poets. During the Safavid era, many Persian-speaking poets residing in Ottoman territories became standard-bearers of the Persian language and literature, creating luminous works. ʿAlī Gīlānī is among these poets; by integrating religious, mystical, and romantic themes, he composed the masnavi Lu’lu’ Maknūn and Laylī wa Majnūn. Through a multilayered language and diverse poetic structures, he crafted a dynamic work deeply connected to literary traditions. By employing rhetorical devices alongside religious and mystical elements, the poem invites the reader on a spiritual and interpretive journey into its deeper layers of meaning. The work’s language combines the traditions of lyrical literature with the poet’s innovations in this field, creating a fresh voice in romantic literature. Studying this work provides a deeper understanding of the evolution of the romantic genre and the connection between earthly and divine love in Persian literature, while also establishing ʿAlī Gīlānī’s place in the history of love-mystical literature. Materials and Methods This research adopts a qualitative, text-centered methodology grounded in close reading and content analysis. The primary source is the sole surviving manuscript of Gīlānī’s Laylī va Majnūn, preserved in the Manuscripts Library of the Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University. Codicological and paleographical features were examined to establish the manuscript’s historical context and authenticity. Subsequently, linguistic, stylistic, rhetorical, and thematic elements were systematically analyzed. Special attention was given to Qur’anic allusions, hadith citations, mystical terminology, and poetic innovations, contextualized through relevant secondary sources. Research Findings The analysis reveals a deliberate convergence of love, religion, and mysticism, characterized by: The centrality of prophetic love as the supreme spiritual ideal. Functional integration of Qur’anic verses, hadiths, divine names, and Shi‘i symbols. A multilayered linguistic system combining Persian, Arabic, archaic forms, dialectal elements, and neologisms. Formal innovation through the incorporation of ghazals and quatrains. A dense rhetorical structure transforming romantic imagery into mystical meaning. The masnavi Lu’lu’ Maknūn wa Laylī wa Majnūn by ʿAlī Gīlānī cannot be confined merely to the framework of a lyrical love poem. On a deeper level, it serves as a manifestation of the deliberate and purposeful coexistence of romantic literature, mystical thought, religious discourse, and Iranian-Islamic cultural tradition within the intellectual context of the tenth century AH. Utilizing the well-known narrative pattern of Laylī and Majnūn, Gīlānī crafts a text in which the narrative of earthly love gradually elevates to an allegorical and epistemological plane. Love is reinterpreted as a metaphor for spiritual progression and the movement from multiplicity to unity. The work’s structure is consciously designed to be multilayered and expansive in meaning. It features a narrative layer that advances the romantic story; a mystical layer that highlights concepts such as annihilation (fanā’), tribulation (ibtalā’), patience (ṣabr’), and longing (shawq’); and a religious layer that grounds the text within theological and ethical discourse through divine praise, supplication, panegyrics to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and Qur’anic and hadithic allusions. These components are not merely decorative; they serve a structural and meaning-generating function, steering the reading of the work from an individual tale toward a collective, educational, and knowledge-producing experience. Discussion of Results and Conclusions The results of this study reveal that ʿAlī Gīlānī’s love for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), regarded as the highest form of sacred and divine love, holds a central and structural position within the Laylī and Majnūn masnavi. Although this conception of love has a precedent in Persian literary and mystical traditions, Gīlānī adopts a personal, emotional, yet consciously deliberate approach, transforming it into a meaning-generating element throughout the entire work. The continuous presence of panegyrics, supplications, and religious allusions not only expresses poetic devotion but also signifies an allegorical link between earthly and divine love—a connection in which the human romantic experience finds its meaning in the light of prophetic love, thereby elevating to an educational and spiritual horizon. Thus, Gīlānī’s consistent emphasis on the love of the Prophet deepens the mystical and ethical layers of the work, guiding the reader from individual sentiment toward spiritual self-awareness. This feature highlights the intellectual and artistic distinction of Gīlānī within the tradition of Persian romantic poetry. From a linguistic perspective, Gīlānī’s masnavi possesses a dynamic, multilayered system organized purposefully at lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels. The calculated integration of Persian and Arabic elements, both at the word and sentence structure levels, along with the inclusion of a complete ghazal in Arabic, is not merely a display of the poet’s linguistic skill. Rather, it demonstrates his awareness of the discursive and semantic functions of both languages in meaning production. The use of obsolete and local vocabulary alongside innovative compound formations bridges linguistic tradition with individual creativity, thereby preserving the text’s historical authenticity while creating new capacities for meaning-making. Furthermore, the application of phonetic markers and native suffixes gives the language an auditory and tangible quality, strengthening the text’s local identity and enhancing its communicative bond with the contemporary audience and lived cultural context. Gīlānī also demonstrates that his text is rich not only linguistically and rhetorically but also culturally and scientifically, by employing technical terms and specialized vocabulary from fields such as music, astronomy, and chess. This diversity, combined with structural and lexical innovations, transforms the masnavi into a multilayered, meaning-oriented, and intertextual work. Consequently, it is suitable for analysis in the fields of historical linguistics and semantics, while holding particular significance for studies in mysticism and cultural history. At the level of poetic structure and musicality, the calculated variety of forms—from masnavi to ghazal and quatrain—along with the conscious use of classical meters such as mafāʿīlun faʿūlun and the Hazaj Musaddas Akhrab Maqṣūr Maḥḍūf rhythm, reflects a coherent bond between form and meaning. These metrical choices not only demonstrate the poet’s technical mastery of classical prosody but also serve a meaning-generating function, aligning with the emotional and narrative developments of the text. Metrical variations and the targeted insertion of local vocabulary at specific moments, by reinforcing the poem’s internal music, highlight the intensity of romantic and mystical emotions. This allows the poet to represent the lover’s spiritual experiences in an auditory and impactful form. At the rhetorical and stylistic level, the masnavi employs a dense and purposeful network of allegory, simile, metaphor, metonymy, allusion, and paradox. Their function extends beyond mere linguistic ornamentation or aesthetic appeal. These figures of speech are the poet’s primary tools for objectifying complex mystical experiences and the lover’s psychological states, facilitating the conveyance of concepts that are difficult to express directly in ordinary language. Simple and composite similes and allegories, such as "the candle in the fire" or "the bird in the trap," not only depict the lover’s intense suffering and longing but also make the path of spiritual progression, tribulation, and self-sacrifice tangible and perceptible. Metaphors and metonymies, by creating nested semantic layers, transform the text into a hermeneutic space that invites the reader to actively participate in the meaning-making process. Qur’anic, hadithic, and literary allusions, in addition to strengthening the work’s connection to religious tradition and the preceding literary heritage, expand the semantic horizon of the masnavi, placing the romantic narrative within a sacred and supra-personal framework. In this context, the use of paradoxes such as "ice that is heated" illustrates the paradoxical states of the lover on the path of spiritual progression—a state in which suffering and joy, annihilation and subsistence, and burning and soaring coexist. Thus, the stages of the lover’s inner transformation are highlighted through a profound and rhetorical lens. مثنوی لؤلؤ مکنون و لیلی و مجنون سرودۀ علی گیلانی، شاعر ناشناختۀ قرن دهم هجری، یکی از نمونه‌های نادیده‌گرفته‌شدۀ ادبیات عاشقانه – عرفانی فارسی است که تاکنون نه تصحیح انتقادی مستقلی یافته و نه بررسی جامع و تحلیلی شده است. این اثر، از نظر زبان، ساختار، معنا و سبک، ویژگی‌هایی دارد که آن را از دیگر نظیره‌های لیلی و مجنون متمایز می‌سازد. هدف این پژوهش، تحلیل متن‌شناختی این منظومه در لایه‌های مختلف زبان، اعم از واژگانی، نحوی بلاغی، معنایی و فکری است تا ظرفیت‌های ادبی، عرفانی و فرهنگی آن به شکلی علمی و مستند روشن شود. روش پژوهش توصیفی‌تحلیلی و مبتنی بر خوانش دقیق و تطبیقی متن، بهره‌گیری از منابع تاریخی، ادبی و بلاغی، و تحلیل عناصر سبکی و معنایی است. نتایج پژوهش نشان می‌دهد که گیلانی در قالب یک روایت عاشقانه، تجربه‌ای عرفانی و تأویلی از عشق ارائه می‌دهد که در آن عشق زمینی و عشق الهی در هم تنیده‌اند. زبان چندلایه، ترکیب واژگان فارسی و عربی، کاربرد اصطلاحات علمی، و بهره‌گیری از آرایه‌هایی چون تلمیح، استعاره، تناقض‌نما، مناظره و غیره این سروده را به متنی پویا، میان‌متنی و رمزآلود بدل کرده است. منظومه با اتکای به سنت‌های پیشنیان در این حوزه و سعی بر ارائۀ نوآوری‌هایی هرچند اندک، فضایی خلق می‌کند که خواننده را هم‌زمان در استمرار سنت عاشقانه‌سرایی فارسی با چشم اندازی جدید در حوزه ادبیات غنایی وعرفانی آشنا می‌نماید. این پژوهش به‌عنوان نخستین گام در بازخوانی این اثر، تلاش دارد سهم علی گیلانی در گسترش ادبیات عاشقانه –عرفانی فارسی را تثبیت کند و افقی تازه برای مطالعات متون مغفول‌ماندۀ ادبیات غنایی بگشاید.

https://rpll.ui.ac.ir/article_30329_7fe96a9ae5ea48a45cc0a800e15022fc.pdf