Mathnawi (Arabic: مثنوي, mathnawī) or masnavi (Persian: مثنوی, mas̲navī) is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawī poems follow a meter of eleven, or occasionally ten, syllables, but had no limit in their length.[1] Typical mathnawi poems consist of an indefinite number of couplets, with the rhyme scheme aa/bb/cc.
Mathnawī poems have been written in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu cultures. Certain Persian mat̲h̲nawī poems, such as Rumi's Masnavi-e Ma’navi, have had a special religious significance in Sufism. Other influential writings include the poems of Ghazali[clarification needed] and ibn Arabi.[2] Mathnawi's are closely tied to Islamic theology, philosophy, and legends, and cannot be understood properly without knowledge about it.[3]