🌿 Farsi Class Launch & Weekly Workshop Info
Shivpreet Singh, Apr 30 2025
Folks —
I’m excited to share that we’ll be starting a weekly Farsi class on Seekers beginning next Monday! The class will take place every week at:
🕘 9am PST / 12pm EST / 9:30pm IST (See Online Group Meetings)
This class is for complete beginners, and will be a slow, joyful journey—just like our Punjabi class. Each week we’ll explore one word, phrase, or couplet, so you can join in at any time without needing to catch up. We will also ruminate on literature from Gurbani, Bhai Nandlal, Rumi, Hafez and other farsi poets. There are no prerequisites—just show up when you can! We’ll also try to record the sessions for those who want to review or watch later. You can RSVP for this class at the Online Group Meetings under Joy of Persian.
Our teacher is Leila Seyedghasem. Leila ji has a PhD in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran, and over nine years of teaching experience on italki. She is also the co-founder of Joy of Persian, and has authored several textbooks that are used in Iran today. Based in Turkey, she brings deep expertise in classical Persian poetry—she knows more about Rumi and Hafez than many who teach them here in the West. We’re very lucky to have her.
I will also try to add to this class my dear uncle, Bob Sahni ji — who used to live in Iran and knows who to speak Farsi well, and has been talking about Sikh Farsi literature. I’ve never formally studied or written Farsi—just picked up some from singing ghazals. So I’ll be learning alongside you, and plan to be in class most weeks!
I am excited about this and I shared with all the seekers that I have wanted to learn Farsi for a while. I put this in my Learning Goals that can be found in the Links on the Seeker’s menu. Its good to have your learning goals written, and reviewed once in a while. If you haven’t done it do it!!!
Hope to see some of you there!
Link to group chat.
مقدمهIntroduction
بر این باورم که این کلاس تجربه‌ای نو برای همهٔ ما خواهد بود و امیدوارم که از آن لذت ببریم. در طول هجده هفته، به‌آرامی—همچون حلزون—هجده بیت نخست مثنوی مولانا، معروف به نی‌نامه، را می‌خوانیم و بررسی می‌کنیم. این ابیات مقدمه‌ای بر مثنوی هستند که در آن مولانا از نی برای بیان مفاهیم عمیق جدایی، عشق، درد و رشد معنوی بهره می‌برد.
سه هدف اصلی ما عبارتند از: یادگیری الفبای فارسی، تمرین خواندن شعر فارسی، و درک اندیشه‌های مولانا.
مشتاقانه منتظر دیدار همهٔ شما هستم!
با احترام،
لیلا
این دوره با حمایت مالی بنیاد DhunAnand برگزار می‌شود. از این بنیاد برای پشتیبانی ارزشمندشان سپاسگزاریم.
Thank you so much for your kind words and respect. I’m deeply honored and happy to be the teacher of this class and to facilitate your journey into the rich Persian language and literature. I’m excited to meet everyone in the first session!I believe this class will be a new experience for us all, and I hope we all enjoy it. Over eighteen weeks, we’ll slowly—like a snail—read and explore the first eighteen verses of Rumi’s Masnavi, known as the Neynameh. These verses are an introduction to the Masnavi, where Rumi uses the reed flute to express deep ideas about separation, love, pain, and spiritual growth.
Our three main goals are: to learn the Persian alphabet, to practice reading Persian poetry, and to understand Rumi’s thoughts.
Looking forward to seeing you all!
With respect,
Leila
This course is sponsored by the DhunAnand Foundation. We are grateful to the Foundation for their valuable support.
بخوانیدRead
ترجمهTranslation
Note: Text based on Reynold A. Nicholson Edition. Verses translated by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, from “The Lament of the Reed: Rumi”, translated and recited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, music directed by Suleyman Ergunerm, 2000.
Verse 13 translation is omitted in Nasr’s version and has been supplemented from Reynold A. Nicholson’s translation in “The Mathnawī of Jalālu’ddīn Rūmī” (London: Cambridge University Press, 1926).
- ۱. بشنو از نی چون حکایت می‌کند
- 1. Listen to the reed how it narrates a tale,
- از جدایی‌ها شکایت می‌کند
- A tale of all the separations of which it complains.
- ۲. کز نِیِستان تا مرا بُبریده‌اند
- 2. Ever since they cut me from the reed-bed,
- از نفیرم مرد و زن نالیده‌اند
- Men and women bemoaned my lament.
- ۳. سینه خواهم شَرحه شَرحه از فراق
- 3. How I wish in separation, a bosom shred and shred,
- تا بگویم شرح درد اشتیاق
- So as to utter the description of the pain of longing.
- ۴. هر کسی کو دور ماند از اصلِ خویش
- 4. Whoever becomes distanced from his roots,
- باز جوید روزگارِ وصل خویش
- Seeks to return to the days of his union.
- ۵. من به هر جمعیّتی نالان شدم
- 5. I joined every gathering uttering my lament,
- جفت بدحالان و خوش‌حالان شدم
- Consorting with the joyous and the sorrowful.
- ۶. هر کسی از ظنّ خود شد یار من
- 6. Everyone befriended me following his own opinion,
- از درون من نجُست اسرار من
- No one sought the secrets from within me.
- ۷. سرِّ من از نالهٔ من دور نیست
- 7. My secret is not far away from my lament,
- لیک چشم و گوش را آن نور نیست
- Yet, eye and ear do not possess that light.
- ۸. تن ز جان و جان ز تن مستور نیست
- 8. Body is not hidden from soul, nor soul from body,
- لیک کس را دیدِ جان دستور نیست
- Yet, none has the license to see the soul.
- ۹. آتش است این بانگِ نای و نیست باد
- 9. The cry of the reed is fire, not wind,
- هر که این آتش ندارد نیست باد
- Whoso does not possess this fire may he be naught.
- ۱۰. آتش عشق است کاندر نی فتاد
- 10. ‘Tis the fire of Love that befelled the reed,
- جوشش عشق است کاندر میْ فتاد
- ‘Tis the fervent desire of Love that entered the wine.
- ۱۱. نی حریف هر که از یاری بُرید
- 11. The reed is the comrade of whoever has become severed from a friend,
- پرده‌هااَش پرده‌های ما درید
- Its strains have rent asunder our veils.
- ۱۲. همچو نی زهری و تَریاقی که دید
- 12. Who has ever seen a poison and an antidote like the reed?
- همچو نی دمساز و مشتاقی که دید
- Who has ever seen a consort and a longing lover like the reed?
- ۱۳. نی حدیثِ راهِ پُر خون می‌کند
- 13. The reed tells of the road that runs with blood;
- قصّه‌های عشقِ مجنون می‌کند
- it tells the tales of Majnun’s passionate love.
- ۱۴. محرم این هوش جُز بیهوش نیست
- 14. The confident of this consciousness is none other than the unconscious.
- مر زبان را مُشتری جز گوش نیست
- For the tongue has no client save the ear.
- ۱۵. در غمِ ما روزها بیگاه شد
- 15. In our sorrow the days of our life become unseasonable,
- روزها با سوزها همراه شد
- The days have become fellow travelers of burning grief.
- ۱۶. روزها گر رفت گو رو باک نیست
- 16. If the days have passed, say go it matters not,
- تو بمان ای آنک چون تو پاک نیست
- Do Thou remain, O Thou like whom there is no one pure.
- ۱۷. هر که جز ماهی ز آبش سیر شد
- 17. Whoever is not a fish becomes sated with His water.
- هرکه بی روزیست روزش دیر شد
- Whoever has no daily bread, his day becomes long.
- ۱۸. در نیابد حالِ پُخته هیچ خام
- 18. The state of the ripe, none who is raw understands,
- پس سخن کوتاه باید والسّلام
- Hence brief my words must be. Farewell.