Mesnevi Circle
The sessions
Monthly, every second Saturday
17:00 Rome time · Free and open to everyone
Reading the Mesnevi is one of the major native forms of psychoeducation and mental health care of the Muslim world, together with the Bimaristan, the Dar al-Shifā’, the circles of dhikr, and those of knowledge. Developed over centuries of the Ottoman caliphate and spreading through a remarkable diversity of lands and cultures, Muslims have been reading the stories Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi presents in his Mesnevi, commenting on them, and creating thriving communities around it.
This website is a small attempt at reviving that tradition, keeping alive some of the pillars that made it unique among the many others the Muslim world has generated.
What we’re keeping
The pillars of a Mesnevîhan
We are now taking the first steps in reviving this noble tradition, carrying forward what kept it alive for centuries.
Open to anybody
Diversity is a key element to a successful Mesnevîhan. The Mevlevis have been famous in history for not turning people away, and behind this stand principles from the Divine Names of Beauty, to embodying the Sunna of being a Mercy to the worlds, to more psychological reasons.
Virtual for now, a home eventually
We meet only virtually for now, but that is a temporary solution. It is urgent to establish a proper Mesnevîhan space to serve as a home base for the project. More details will come soon.
Read through one lens, deliberately
The reading is filtered through the specific personality of the Mesnevîhane. Given Dr. Francesca's expertise in Islamic Psychology (sulūk), stories and characters will be interpreted as referring to psychological characteristics of human beings, and their relationship to the metaphysical.
Mirrors, not lectures
Done well, the reading generates unexpected realizations: something felt for the first time, or understood in a new way. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The believer is the mirror of the believer.” Different walks of life, denominations, ages and cultures, mirroring each other's hearts. That is the therapeutic community our Prophet ﷺ commanded us to foster.
The text
The Mesnevi
For those not already familiar with Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi’s magnum opus, the Mesnevi is a six-volume poetic work in Persian, composed after Rumi was famously requested to by his disciple Husam al-Din. It contains spiritual teachings hidden inside beautiful stories, sometimes explained clearly and sometimes allegorically. Many understand it as a commentary on the Qur’an in poetic style.
Western readers have often brought a particular bias to this work, treating it as a fruit of “Persian imagination” and finding it disorderly and confusing. But the masterful architecture of the Mesnevi is clearly visible to a reader who has spent enough time with the Qur’an, and who uses the heart, not simply the intellect, to know the text. Much of its beauty emerges through community work and personal engagement, rather than simple autonomous reading.
“I am the servant of the Qur’an as long as I have life.
I am the dust on the path of Muhammad ﷺ, the Chosen One.
If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,
I am quit of him and outraged by these words.”
Structure
Six books, in mirrored pairs
Like other classical Islamic works, the Masnavi is built with mirroring between its parts. The arc takes years to move through, and the reading in this circle will too.
Diagnosing the nafs: What is your ego, and how do you learn to recognize it?
Reason and knowledge: Are we intellectual beings or experiential ones, and how do we hold both?
Dissolving the ego: How to quiet the voice that never leaves you alone. Unfinished at Rumi's death.
Lineage
The tradition of the Mesnevîhan in Bosnia
This circle is connected to one of the many Ottoman schools of reading the Mesnevi, the Bosnian one. Shaykh Ćazim Hadžimejlić gave Francesca Bocca-Aldaqre the task of interpreting the Mesnevi in 2023; she has been holding a Mesnevîhan in her home ever since. After repeated requests from English-speaking students, Shaykh Ćazim authorised her to make it available online and in English.
The Mesnevîhan in Bosnia has a long history. Already in the first half of the 17th century, we find mention of one of them, Tawakkulî Dede, living in Sarajevo. In the Bosnian tradition, many Mesnevîhan were not Mevlevi, but belonged to other orders, and the Mesnevi was held as a common spiritual heritage, not the property of one school.
Further reading: Emin Lelić, Rumi in Sarajevo — The Mevlevi Tradition in the Balkans (Babagan Books, 2006); or, in Bosnian, Mesnevihan: Saraybosna’da Mevlevilik ve Mesnevihan Hacı Hafız Halid Efendi Hacımuliç.
Join
Come and listen
Join the monthly sessions to read the Mesnevi with us, or join the community to be part of the conversation in between. You can do either, or both.
- When
- Monthly, every second Saturday
- Time
- 17:00 Rome time
- Length
- 75 minutes
- 45 minutes of reading, then 30 minutes of Q&A
- Cost
- Free
- Open to everyone
- Where
- Online, on Zoom
- You get the link as soon as you register