Persian Poetry Forms: Ghazal, Ruba’i, Masnavi, Qasida and More, With Real Examples

The main forms of classical Persian poetry are the ghazal (غزل, a short lyric), the ruba’i (رباعی, a quatrain), the masnavi (مثنوی, a long poem in rhyming couplets), the qasida (قصیده, a long ode), the qit’a (قطعه), the dobeyti (دوبیتی) and stanza forms such as the tarji’band (ترجیع‌بند). Each one is defined by its rhyme pattern and meter, not by its subject.

This guide explains every form the way a Persian literature teacher would: how the rhyme works, how long the poem is, what poets used it for, and who mastered it. For each form you get one real example, checked against the text on Ganjoor (the standard online library of Persian poetry), with transliteration and our own English translation. First, though, you need six words.

The building blocks: beyt, mesrâ’, ghâfiye, radif

Persian poets and teachers describe every form with the same small set of terms. Learn these and the rest of the page becomes easy.

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Rhyme plus refrain: how ghâfiye and radif work together

English rhyme usually sits on the very last word. Persian poets often put the rhyme a little earlier and then repeat the same word or phrase after it. In Hafez’s line یوسف گم‌گشته بازآید به کنعان غم مخور (yusof-e gomgashte bâz âyad be kan’ân gham makhor), the rhyme is کنعان (kan’ân) and the refrain is غم مخور (gham makhor, “do not grieve”). In the next half-line the rhyme changes to گلستان (golestân) but the refrain stays the same. A radif can be one short word like را (râ) or نیست (nist), or a whole phrase.

Meter in one paragraph

Classical Persian poetry is never free verse. Each poem follows a meter built from long and short syllables, named with model words such as فاعلاتن (fâ’elâton) and مفاعیلن (mafâ’ilon). Take the first line of Rumi’s Masnavi: besh-no-in-ney / chon-she-kâ-yat / mi-ko-nad. Read it as long-short-long-long, long-short-long-long, long-short-long, and you have فاعلاتن فاعلاتن فاعلن (fâ’elâton fâ’elâton fâ’elon). You do not need to scan meters to enjoy the poems, but knowing that every form has a meter explains why Persian verse is so easy to sing and memorize. Two forms, the ruba’i and the dobeyti, are partly defined by their meter, as you will see below.

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Persian poetry forms at a glance

In the rhyme column, a, b, c stand for rhymes and x for a half-line that does not rhyme. Each pair of letters is one beyt.

Ghazal (غزل): the Persian love lyric

The ghazal (غزل, ghazal) is the best-loved form in Persian. It is a short poem, usually around 5 to 15 couplets, held together by a single rhyme and, very often, a radif. Both halves of the first couplet rhyme; after that only the second half of each couplet rhymes. In the last couplet the poet usually names himself with his takhallos.

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A ghazal does not tell a story. Each couplet is close to a small, complete poem, and the couplets are linked by mood, imagery and the returning refrain rather than by plot. The subject is love in its widest sense: love for a human beloved, love for God, or both at once, which is why the same ghazal of Hafez can be read as a love song and as a mystical text. Saadi (13th century) and Hafez (14th century) are the masters of the classical ghazal, and Rumi’s Divân-e Shams holds thousands of ecstatic ghazals. The form is still alive: modern poets such as Simin Behbahani wrote ghazals in new meters.

Example: Hafez, ghazal 255

یوسف گم‌گشته بازآید به کنعان غم مخور
کلبهٔ احزان شود روزی گلستان غم مخور

yusof-e gomgashte bâz âyad be kan’ân, gham makhor
kolbe-ye ahzân shavad ruzi golestân, gham makhor

Lost Joseph will come back to Canaan: do not grieve.
The hut of sorrows will one day be a rose garden: do not grieve.

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And the closing couplet, with Hafez’s pen name:

حافظا در کنج فقر و خلوت شب‌های تار
تا بود وردت دعا و درس قرآن غم مخور

hâfezâ dar konj-e faghr o khalvat-e shab-hâ-ye târ
tâ bovad virdat do’â o dars-e qor’ân, gham makhor

Hafez, in the corner of poverty and the solitude of dark nights,
as long as prayer and study of the Quran are your daily practice: do not grieve.

Source: Hafez, Divân, ghazal 255 on Ganjoor (10 couplets). Look at the shape: the rhyme words کنعان, گلستان and قرآن all end in -ân, and the radif غم مخور closes every rhyming half-line. The first half of the last couplet does not rhyme, and the name حافظا (“O Hafez”) marks the end. If you want more of his lines, see our collection of Hafez quotes in Persian, or learn how Iranians open his Divân at random in our guide to Fal-e Hafez.

Qasida (قصیده): the long ode

The qasida (قصیده, ghaside) looks like a ghazal on paper: the first couplet rhymes in both halves, and every couplet after that rhymes in its second half, all on one rhyme. The difference is length and purpose. A qasida is much longer, often several dozen couplets, and it was the public, formal poem of the royal courts: praise of a king or patron, a lament, a sermon on ethics, or a showpiece description of spring or a palace.

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A classical praise qasida often opens with a lyrical prelude (تشبیب, tashbib) about love or nature, then turns at a transition couplet (گریزگاه, gorizgâh) to the real subject, the praise, and ends with a prayer for the patron. The qasida dominated early Persian poetry. Rudaki, often called the father of Persian poetry, Onsori, Farrokhi, Manuchehri, Anvari and Khaqani wrote famous ones, and Naser Khosrow used the form for philosophy and religion instead of flattery. In the 20th century Mohammad-Taqi Bahar kept the qasida alive.

Example: Naser Khosrow, qasida 6

نکوهش مکن چرخ نیلوفری را
برون کن ز سر باد و خیره‌سری را

nekuhesh makon charkh-e nilufari râ
borun kon ze sar bâd o khire-sari râ

Do not blame the lotus-blue wheel of the sky;
drive the wind of pride and reckless folly out of your head.

Listen

Source: Naser Khosrow, Divân, qasida 6 on Ganjoor (46 couplets). The rhyme is -ari (نیلوفری / خیره‌سری) and the radif is the small word را. All 46 couplets keep that same rhyme, which is what makes a long qasida a feat of skill. The poem’s message is that we, not the heavens, are responsible for our deeds.

Qit’a (قطعه): the “fragment”

The qit’a (قطعه, ghet’e, literally “piece” or “fragment”) rhymes like a qasida with one difference: the first couplet does not rhyme in both halves. It looks as if someone cut a piece out of the middle of a longer poem, which is where the name comes from. Only the second half of each couplet rhymes. A qit’a can be as short as two couplets.

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Poets used the qit’a for everything that was not love lyric or grand praise: moral advice, short anecdotes, requests to a patron, complaints, jokes, and little debates between two characters. Anvari and Ibn Yamin are classical masters. In the 20th century Parvin E’tesami made the qit’a famous again with her dialogue poems.

Example: Parvin E’tesami, “The Drunk and the Sober”

محتسب مستی به ره دید و گریبانش گرفت
مست گفت ای دوست این پیراهن است افسار نیست

گفت مستی زان سبب افتان و خیزان می‌روی
گفت جرم راه رفتن نیست ره هموار نیست

mohtaseb masti be rah did o garibânash gereft
mast goft ey dust in pirâhan ast, afsâr nist
goft masti zân sabab oftân o khizân miravi
goft jorm-e râh raftan nist, rah hamvâr nist

The morals officer saw a drunk in the road and grabbed him by the collar.
The drunk said, “Friend, this is a shirt, not a halter.”
He said, “You’re drunk; that’s why you stumble as you walk.”
He said, “The fault isn’t in my walking. The road isn’t level.”

Listen

Source: Parvin E’tesami, Divân, “Mast o hoshyâr” on Ganjoor, where its form is listed as قطعه (10 couplets). Notice that the first half-line ends in گرفت, which does not rhyme. The rhyme is افسار / هموار with the radif نیست. The drunk wins every exchange, and the poem ends as sharp social criticism.

Masnavi (مثنوی): rhyming couplets for long poems

The word masnavi (مثنوی) comes from the Arabic for “two by two”, and that is the whole rule: the two halves of each couplet rhyme with each other, and every couplet can have a new rhyme (aa bb cc dd). Because the poet never has to find a hundredth word for the same rhyme, the masnavi can run for thousands of couplets. That is why almost every long narrative poem in Persian is a masnavi.

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Masnavis are usually written in the shorter meters, and each great masnavi has its own. The form covers three big genres:

• Epic: Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, the “Book of Kings”, opens به نام خداوند جان و خرد (be nâm-e khodâvand-e jân o kherad, “In the name of the Lord of soul and wisdom”) and keeps one meter, فعولن فعولن فعولن فعل, from start to finish.
• Romance: Nizami’s five poems, the Khamsa, including Khosrow and Shirin and Layla and Majnun, and later Jami’s Haft Owrang.
• Teaching and Sufism: Attar’s Conference of the Birds (منطق‌الطیر), Saadi’s Bustan, and Rumi’s Masnavi-ye Ma’navi, so famous that in Iran “the Masnavi” means Rumi’s poem.

Example: Rumi, the opening of the Masnavi

بشنو این نی چون شکایت می‌کند
از جدایی‌ها حکایت می‌کند

کز نیستان تا مرا ببریده‌اند
در نفیرم مرد و زن نالیده‌اند

beshno in ney chon shekâyat mikonad
az jodâyi-hâ hekâyat mikonad
kaz neyestân tâ marâ bobride-and
dar nafiram mard o zan nâlide-and

Listen to this reed as it complains,
telling the story of separations:
“Ever since they cut me from the reed bed,
men and women have wept at my cry.”

Listen

Source: Rumi, Masnavi, Book 1, section 1 on Ganjoor, meter فاعلاتن فاعلاتن فاعلن. The first couplet rhymes شکایت / حکایت (with the radif می‌کند); the second switches to ببریده / نالیده (with the radif اند). New couplet, new rhyme. You can read this passage line by line with translation on our Song of the Reed page.

Ruba’i (رباعی): the four-line poem

The ruba’i (رباعی, robâ’i, plural رباعیات, robâ’iyât) is a quatrain: exactly two couplets, four half-lines. Lines 1, 2 and 4 rhyme, and line 3 is usually left free (aa xa), though all four may rhyme. What really makes a ruba’i is its meter, a special family of patterns used for nothing else, given on Ganjoor as مفعول مفاعیل مفاعیل فعل and its variants. Persian teachers traditionally remember the rhythm with the Arabic phrase لا حول و لا قوة الا بالله.

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The ruba’i is generally seen as a native Persian form, not a borrowing from Arabic. Its four lines build up to a turn or punchline in line 4. Omar Khayyam made it world-famous through Edward FitzGerald’s free English version, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859), though scholars still debate how many of the quatrains under his name are really his. Rumi and Attar also wrote many.

Example: Khayyam

این قافلهٔ عمر عجب می‌گذرد
دریاب دمی که با طرب می‌گذرد
ساقی غم فردای حریفان چه خوری
پیش آر پیاله را که شب می‌گذرد

in ghâfele-ye ‘omr ‘ajab migozarad
daryâb dami ke bâ tarab migozarad
sâghi gham-e fardâ-ye harifân che khori
pish âr piyâle râ ke shab migozarad

How strangely this caravan of life goes by.
Seize the moment that passes in joy.
Saqi, why worry about tomorrow for your friends?
Bring the cup: the night is going by.

Listen

Source: Khayyam, Robâ’iyât, no. 66 on Ganjoor. Lines 1, 2 and 4 rhyme on عجب / طرب / شب with the radif می‌گذرد; line 3 ends differently. Read more of his quatrains in our Omar Khayyam quotes in Persian, or the full Rubaiyat of Khayyam in Farsi with English translation.

Dobeyti (دوبیتی): the folk quatrain

The dobeyti (دوبیتی, “two couplets”) has the same shape as the ruba’i: four half-lines, rhymed aa xa or aa aa. The difference is the meter. A dobeyti uses مفاعیلن مفاعیلن فعولن (mafâ’ilon mafâ’ilon fa’ulon), a lighter, song-like rhythm that Ganjoor even labels “the dobeyti meter”. If you read a ruba’i and a dobeyti aloud one after the other, you will hear the difference at once.

Listen

The dobeyti is the form of folk poetry and folk song in Iran, often called ترانه (tarâne) when sung. Its themes are simple and personal: love, separation, poverty, homesickness. Baba Taher of Hamadan is its best-known poet (read his story in our post on Baba Taher), and Fayez Dashtestani of the south is another favorite.

Example: Baba Taher

ز دست دیده و دل هر دو فریاد
که هر چه دیده بیند دل کند یاد
بسازم خنجری نیشش ز پولاد
زنم بر دیده تا دل گردد آزاد

ze dast-e dide o del har do faryâd
ke har che dide binad del konad yâd
besâzam khanjari nishash ze pulâd
zanam bar dide tâ del gardad âzâd

I cry out against them both, my eyes and my heart,
for whatever the eyes see, the heart remembers.
I will make a dagger with a point of steel
and strike my eyes, so my heart can be free.

Listen

Source: Baba Taher, Dobeytihâ, no. 23 on Ganjoor. All four lines rhyme here: فریاد, یاد, پولاد, آزاد.

Stanza forms: tarji’band and tarkib-band

Some poems are built from stanzas. Each stanza (called a خانه, khâne, “house”) is like a short ghazal with its own rhyme, and between the stanzas comes a single linking couplet (the بند, band) whose two halves rhyme with each other.

• In a tarji’band (ترجیع‌بند, “returning band”), the linking couplet is the same every time, like the chorus of a song.
• In a tarkib-band (ترکیب‌بند, “composite band”), the linking couplet is different every time.

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Example: Hatef Esfahani’s tarji’band

The most famous tarji’band in Persian is by Hatef Esfahani (18th century). It has five stanzas, and after each one the same couplet returns:

که یکی هست و هیچ نیست جز او
وحده لا إله إلا هو

ke yeki hast o hich nist joz u
vahdahu lâ elâha ellâ hu

that He is One, and there is nothing but Him:
He alone; there is no god but He.

Listen

Source: Hatef Esfahani, Divân, tarji’band on Ganjoor. The second half-line is in Arabic. The poem opens ای فدای تو هم دل و هم جان (ey fadâ-ye to ham del o ham jân, “O you for whom both heart and soul are given”), and the first three stanzas visit different places, the fire temple of the Magi, a church and a tavern, and each one leads back to the same refrain about the oneness of God.

Example: Mohtasham Kashani’s tarkib-band

The best-known tarkib-band is Mohtasham Kashani’s elegy for Imam Hossein (16th century), widely called the “Twelve Stanzas” and still recited and written on banners in the month of Muharram. It begins:

باز این چه شورش است که در خلق عالم است
باز این چه نوحه و چه عزا و چه ماتم است

bâz in che shuresh ast ke dar khalgh-e ‘âlam ast
bâz in che nowhe o che ‘azâ o che mâtam ast

Again, what is this turmoil that has seized the people of the world?
Again, what lament is this, what mourning, what grief?

Source: Mohtasham Kashani, Divân, tarkib-bands no. 1 on Ganjoor. Each stanza closes with its own linking couplet, so the “chorus” changes every time.

Other forms you may meet

• Mosammat (مسمط, mosammat): stanzas of several half-lines that rhyme together, plus a last half-line that carries a second rhyme shared by every stanza. Manuchehri (11th century) is its classic master.
• Mostazad (مستزاد, mostazâd, “added to”): a poem where each half-line is followed by a short extra phrase in a shorter rhythm.
• Single couplet (تک‌بیت, takbeyt): one memorable beyt standing alone, the way many proverbs live in everyday speech.

Modern forms: she’r-e now and she’r-e sepid

In the 20th century Nima Yushij (1897 to 1960) broke the rule that every line must have the same length. In شعر نیمایی (she’r-e nimâyi), lines can be long or short and rhyme appears where the poet wants it, but the rhythm still comes from the classical feet. This became known as شعر نو (she’r-e now, “new poetry”). Ahmad Shamlu then went further with شعر سپید (she’r-e sepid, “white poetry”), which drops meter altogether, close to free verse. Forough Farrokhzad and Sohrab Sepehri wrote their best-known work in these new forms. At the same time, the ghazal never died: Iranians still write, sing and quote ghazals today.

Listen

Ruba’i vs dobeyti, ghazal vs qasida: the confusing pairs

Which poets wrote in which forms

Most classical poets wrote in several forms, and a divân is usually divided by form: ghazals, qasidas, qit’as, ruba’is. But each poet is remembered for one or two.

For more verified lines, see Saadi quotes in Persian and real Rumi quotes with sources.

How to use poetry to learn Persian

Iranians quote poetry the way English speakers quote proverbs, so even a few couplets go a long way. Three tips:

• Memorize couplets, not whole poems. Because each beyt of a ghazal stands on its own, one couplet is a complete thing to learn.
• Use the radif as a hook. Once you know a ghazal’s refrain, you can predict the end of every couplet and follow along when it is sung.
• Expect older grammar and spelling. Poetry uses forms such as بود read as bovad (“is, will be”) and shortened words to fit the meter. Learn them as you meet them.

Our Persian poems lessons give you complete poems with translations, and you can test yourself with the Persian poetry quiz.

Common questions

What are the main forms of Persian poetry?

The classical forms are the ghazal (short lyric), qasida (long ode), qit’a (fragment), masnavi (rhyming couplets), ruba’i and dobeyti (quatrains), and stanza forms such as the tarji’band, tarkib-band and mosammat. Modern Persian poetry adds she’r-e now and she’r-e sepid.

What is the most famous form of Persian poetry?

The ghazal, thanks to Hafez and Saadi, is the most loved and most quoted form in Iran. In the West the ruba’i is the best known, because of FitzGerald’s version of Khayyam.

What is the difference between a ghazal and a masnavi?

A ghazal is short and keeps one rhyme throughout, with couplets linked by mood rather than story. A masnavi changes rhyme with every couplet (aa bb cc), which lets it run for thousands of lines and tell long stories.

What is a Persian quatrain called?

It is a ruba’i (رباعی, robâ’i), plural rubaiyat (رباعیات). The folk quatrain in a different meter is a dobeyti (دوبیتی).

What is a radif in poetry?

A radif (ردیف) is a word or phrase repeated unchanged after the rhyme in every rhyming half-line, such as غم مخور in Hafez’s ghazal 255. It is common in Persian, Urdu and Turkish ghazals.

Is the ghazal originally Persian or Arabic?

The words ghazal and qasida come from Arabic, and the qasida came into Persian from Arabic poetry. The ghazal grew into an independent form in Persian, and Persian poets gave it the shape and signed closing couplet that spread to Urdu, Turkish and later English. The ruba’i and the masnavi are generally seen as Persian creations.

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