The Masnavi or Masnavi-I Ma'navi, also written Mathnawi or Mesnevi, written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the celebrated Persian Sufi saint and poet, is one of the best known and most influential works of both Sufism and Persian literature. Comprising six books of poems that amount to more than 50,000 lines, it pursues its way through 424 stories that illustrate man's predicament in his search for God. Masnavi refers heavily to the Qur'an; there is a vast use of Qur'an verses in the poems' themes, reasons, and rhymes. Sometimes the whole idea of a long poem is mainly focused on a single Qur'an verse.