The Masnavi is one of the most celebrated works of both Sufism and Persian literature. Written by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, better known as Rumi, this is a book of poetry where each verse or poem denotes a moral message and teaches the essence of life and how to love god. Primarily focussed on the Sufi spiritual life and interpretation, the Masnavi is a collection of six books and almost 26,000 verses. The Masnavi, Book Three (Oxford World's Classics) has been translated by Jawid Mojaddedi. Book three of the Masnavi is associated with the elements of reason and knowledge, which have been depicted by Rumi as the Prophet Moses of the Bible and the Quran. Rumi classifies different levels of knowledge and reason to that is representative of his epistemology. With the stories, he goes on to describe these levels of knowledge with reference to the fools who are overcome by lust juxtaposed with the educated lot who are reserved and make good use of the resources available to them. The stories comprised in book three are more or less concerned with food or the act of eating for instance, in one of the stories, starving travellers, who are warned against devouring a baby elephant no matter how hungry they were, ignore this piece of advice and the consequences for them are not ideal. Some other stories that are featured book three of the Masnavi are A Lover's Mistake is Better Than the Stranger's Correct Act, Prayer and the Pure Mouth, the Answer to Prayers and the Townsman and the Village. The Masnavi, Book Three (Oxford World's Classics) was written by Rumi, the mystic saint and published by Oxford University Press in 2013. This third edition is available as a paperback. Key Features: The book provides an introduction as well a chronology of all of Rumi's works.

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