About the Quatrains Concordances
The concordance is a compilation of previously published translations and versions (from 52 books) in English of the quatrains attributed to Jalaluddin Rumi (in the earliest manuscripts in the critical edition of Foruzanfar). It is the result of many years of study of Rumi's quatrains. It was developed after translating (together with the Afghan scholar, Rawan Farhadi) all the quatrains attributed to Rumi in the earliest manuscripts. The names of the particular translators and version-makers are listed with the book titles and page numbers. There are also lists of multiple renditions: cases in which a quatrain has been translated or versioned by more than one author. Quatrains which are not in the authentic Foruzanfar edition of the quatrains (Volume 8) are distinguished, as well as some which have been identified as composed before Rumi's time (116 quatrains).
There are two on-line concordances available. The first is the "old concordance," which contains the first lines of all quatrains translations or versions in English published previous to the complete translation, "The Quatrains of Rumi". The second is the "new concordance," which contains the essential information from the earlier concordance (but differently arranged, without the first lines) plus the 1,983 listings for the complete translation, "The Quatrains of Rumi". The new concordance is Appendix IV in the published book. For more information about "The Quatrains of Rumi," translated by Ibrahim Gamard and Rawan Farhadi, 2008 and 2023), please go to the Announcement on this website.
(1) NEW QUATRAINS CONCORDANCE.
(2) OLD QUATRAINS CONCORDANCE.
Instructions for Using the Quatrains Concordances
(A) To verify that a particular quatrain is by Rumi: First, try a search in the old concordance by typing in the first words of the rendition (for example, "Out beyond"). This will lead to the listing, "Isf 158 (= F 395)." Go to the new concordance and search for the correct Foruzanfar edition number, "F-395" and this will lead to "F-395/FG-1314." Or, if there is an index of sources at the end of the book, find the pseudo-Foruzanfar number, "158," which is followed by the correct Foruzanfar edition number, "F-395." Or, if the quatrain search cannot be completed using the old concordance, use the new concordance to do a search on the book's abbreviation plus the page number (for example for Arberry's translation, "Arb 41a". Then, following that number, find our Farhadi-Gamard quatrain No. 1314 (on p. 430, second edition) in The Quatrains of Rumi. If, in using the old concordance, only an "Isf" number appears, without an "F-" number following it, then the quatrain was published in the Isfahan edition (1941) but does not exist in the authentic Foruzanfar edition (1963). Finally, make sure that this quatrain is not in Appendix V, "Quatrains Incorrectly Attributed to Mawlana".
(B) To find out if there are multiple translations or versions of a particular quatrain published, use the same methods as in "A" above.
(C) To compare a previously published translation or version of a quatrain with our accurate translation: The quatrain numbers in most of the popularized translations and versions cannot be used in order to find equivalent accurate translations in the new concordance, because they use different, "pseudo-Foruzanfar" numbers. Only the quatrain numbers used by university scholars (such as Chittick, Schimmel, and Lewis) should be used because these are the correct Foruzanfar edition numbers. In order to make comparisons with our accurate translations easily, use the methods in "A" above.