ATHENS A famous Egyptian scholar of Persian and Oriental languages has translated the full epic poem Masnavi by Iranian mystic and poet, Jalal al-Din Rumi, who lived in the 7th century of the Islamic Hijri calender (1207-1 The Arabic translation in six volumes containing 28,000 verses by professor Ibrahim al-Dasouqi Shetta was published in Cairo recently under the national project for translation, Egyptian weekly paper Al-Arabi reported.

Parts of Masnavi-ye Manavi (Spiritual Couplets ), which had an enormous influence on Islamic literature and thought, had been published in Arabic in Cairo in the past , but this is the first time that the complete work has been translated into Arabic in Born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan, Rumi traveled with his family during his youth and eventually settled in Konya, in what is now Turkey. After his death, his followers organized a Sufi sect called Mawlawiyah, or Mevlevi, known in the West as the whirling, or dancing, dervishes.

(IRNA)