Join experts on Persian literature and literary interpretation in South Asia: Dr. Shariq Khan, Tariq Rasheed, Haroon Siddiqui, and Dr. Cyrus Ali Zargar and explore the afterlives of Rumi’s masterpiece, the Masnavi, in South Asia, as a literary masterpiece and as a lived tradition of commentary, and spiritual refinement. From madrasas and khānaqāhs to modern print culture and public discourse, Rumi’s poem has served as a guide to what is called “adab”—training in how to interpret and inhabit wise speech. This conversation reflects on how poetry becomes pedagogy, how interpretation becomes devotion, and how a classical text continues to animate modern religious life. This will be a rich and collaborative exploration for all who join.

About the speakers: 

• • Our featured speaker, Dr. Shariq Khan (PhD, University of Chicago), will open the discussion with a brief presentation drawn from his dissertation, Poetic Piety, Melodious Modernity: Rumi’s Masnavi in South Asia. His remarks will set the stage for a broader conversation about devotion, interpretation, and the living tradition of Masnavi commentary.
  • Responding to Dr. Khan will be Imam Tariq Rasheed—community leader, author, and descendant of the renowned Masnavi commentator Mulla Bahrul Uloom—along with Canadian author and journalist Haroon Siddiqui, a descendant of Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh Kandhlawi, whose Ekhtetam-e-Masnavi (written in 1801) has recently been critically edited and translated into English.