Background:

Rumi (1207–1273) was a Persian poet, theologian, and mystic whose work explores love, self-knowledge, and the soul’s return to the Divine. His Masnavi is written in Farsi (Mathnawi), a six-volume poetic masterpiece written in rhyming couplets, weaves parable, allusion, folklore, and philosophy into a sustained meditation on separation and union. Its language and depth is uniquely potent; what follows is my exegesis of Rumi’s magnum opus. This poem is focused on the divine connection. 

Masnavi Book One دفتر اول

Ney-nāmeh (The Song of the Reed)

The Reed (نی): 

The نی (reed) Rumi refers to is not symbolic by accident. It is a natural reed that grows in the نیستان (reed-bed) near water. When it is cut, hollowed, and pierced, it becomes the ney, a flute whose sound arises only through breath passing through emptiness. Before being cut, the reed is silent. After separation, it becomes voice.

This physical reality grounds Rumi’s metaphor. The reed does not sing because it is whole, but because it has been emptied. Its music is born from loss, wounding, and dependence. Without separation, there is no song. 

1. بشنو این نی چون شکایت می‌کند 

Listen to this reed, how it complains

The command بشنو (listen) is not a request for casual hearing, but for attentive, inward listening. Indeed most humans are incapable of such! The شکایت (complaint) of the reed is not protest, anger, or blame. It is the unavoidable expression of its state. The reed does not choose to complain; it sounds because breath moves through it.

For Rumi, the complaint is truthful testimony. It reveals the condition of one who has been cut from their origin. Incidentally, the music of the flute is symbolic of people and our displays of beauty, performativeness, attention seeking and craving for connections. These are in fact our souls crying for connection and masking them in attempts to receive attention from things that are temporary in this material world as a distraction to inner lack and emptiness. This will slowly numb the music of the soul. 

The music itself is not the problem, it is the sign. Most hear the sound, but few truly listen to what it indicates. The music points beyond itself, toward the cause of its complaint.

2. از جدایی‌ها حکایت می‌کند 

It tells the story of separations

Here Rumi names the cause: جدایی (separation). The reed’s complaint is not vague suffering; it is rooted in a specific rupture. The reed was once part of the نیستان (reed-bed), living in proximity to water and others like it. Its unrest arises entirely from being torn away from that source. This separation is the soul’s distance from the Divine. So, all people's longings, and unrest flow from this primordial split with the divine, a story of having been removed from where it belongs.

3. کز نیستان تا مرا ببریده‌اند 

Since they cut me from the reed-bed

This line makes separation concrete. The reed was ببریده‌اند (cut) deliberately. Its transformation into an instrument required violence, loss, and exposure. Yet without this cutting, the reed would remain mute. All these emotions are valuable music, people should remain in this condition and not chase distraction from them. 

Rumi is not lamenting existence itself; he is describing its condition. The soul’s descent into the world is both exile and preparation. The reed’s emptiness is not a flaw, it is what allows the breath to pass through it. In that spirit, it is key to judge people's flaws not as necessarily moral failures because they are simply just empty souls. Just imagine a camel chasing the mirage of an oasis in the desert, only to lose their direction. Are they really to blame?. One must address the root of their suffering (their desire of meaning and divine connection), first. 

Still, the wound remains, and the memory of the نیستان never leaves the reed.

4. در نفیرم مرد و زن نالیده‌اند 

Through my lament, both men and women have cried out

The نفیر (lament) of the reed resonates universally. Every listener recognises something of themselves in its sound. This is not because the reed distracts or entertains, but because it awakens remembrance. The cry pierces the listener and stirs a latent knowledge of separation. Those who respond to the reed are not reacting to music alone, they are responding to a shared condition. 

5. سینه خواهم شَرحه شَرحه از فراق 

I want a bosom torn, torn apart by separation

Here Rumi shifts from description to desire. He no longer speaks only about the reed, but as it. The سینه (bosom, chest) is the seat of breath and receptivity. To be شَرحه شَرحه is to be split open, rendered vulnerable and hollow. This tearing is caused by فراق (severance), not by accident but by the same separation that created the reed’s sound in the first place.

Rumi implies that truth cannot be delivered to a closed, intact heart. Only one who has been broken open by loss can truly receive what is about to be said. Suffering here is not glorified, but recognised as a condition for depth. A person who has never been torn cannot resonate with the reed’s cry.

6. تا بگویم شرح درد اشتیاق

So that I may unfold the explanation of the pain of longing

The word شرح (to explain, to unfold) is deliberate. Rumi does not say he wishes to express pain, but to clarify it. The دردِ اشتیاق (pain of longing) is not meaningless anguish; it contains knowledge. Yet this knowledge can only be unfolded to one whose chest has already been opened by separation.

Longing is not a weakness here, but a signal. It is the soul’s intelligence remembering what it has lost. Those who rush to silence longing, through distraction, performance, or excess, remain unable to hear its meaning. Rumi suggests that the task is not to escape longing, but to understand what it points toward.

7. هر کسی کو دور ماند از اصلِ خویش

Everyone who remains far from their own origin

Rumi now states a universal condition. اصلِ خویش (one’s own origin) refers not to culture, family, or past identity, but to the soul’s source. To be دور ماند (left far) is not an exception, it is the shared state of all human beings in the world.

This line removes judgment. Separation is not a personal failure; it is a condition of existence. Thus, the unrest people carry should not immediately be condemned or pathologised. It arises from distance, not defect.

8. باز جوید روزگارِ وصلِ خویش

Seeks again the time of union

Because separation exists, seeking is inevitable. The verb باز جوید (seeks again) implies remembrance rather than invention. The soul does not imagine union; it remembers it. All human striving, whether directed toward love, success, belonging, or meaning, is a distorted or partial search for وصل (union).

Rumi suggests that people may mistake substitutes for the real object of their longing. Yet the impulse itself is not wrong. It is a faithful response to distance. The problem lies not in seeking, but in seeking in the wrong direction.

9. من به هر جمعیّتی نالان شدم

I cried out in every gathering

The reed declares that its lament has sounded everywhere, among all kinds of people and assemblies. Its cry adapts to each gathering, but its meaning remains unchanged. Some hear it as music, some as sorrow, some as beauty, some as noise.

Rumi implies that truth is not hidden, it is ubiquitous. What differs is the capacity to hear it. The reed does not withhold its voice; it is people who differ in receptivity. Only those already wounded by separation recognise the cry as their own.