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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. While acknowledging that scriptures can be good, Rumi also notes that too many people:
(a) Use scriptures against others.
(b) Are too ignorant to understand them.
(c) Forget to feel with their hearts.
(d) Get hung up on scriptures.

2. In one poem in Book 2, Chapter 1, Rumi states that every sheik rides a lion, whether that lion is:
(a) Young or old.
(b) Visible or invisible.
(c) Great or small.
(d) Male or female.

3. In a poem in Chapter 2, Book 2, about a king who loves a girl, what does the doctor say is afflicting her?
(a) She wants to go home to her husband.
(b) She's in love with another man.
(c) She's confused by the king's behavior around her.
(d) She misses her parents.

4. Rumi lived during a time when brotherhood was expected between:
(a) Muslims and Christians.
(b) Hindus and Muslims.
(c) Christians and Jews.
(d) Jews and Hindus.

5. In one poem in Book 2, Chapter 1, Rumi uses the image of Jesus Christ riding atop a donkey to explain a lesson about what?
(a) The divine living in the human world.
(b) The rational mind and the animalistic nature of mankind.
(c) The master becoming the servant.
(d) The lack of pretense when one is self-confident.

Short Answer Questions

1. Rumi advises people to accept help from holy scriptures and then:

2. Rumi's poetry gives us a glimpse of what?

3. When King Solomon woos a queen in Book 2, Chapter 1, he asks that she do what?

4. What kind of leader is Rumi for his people?

5. What is the Mathnawi?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain how Rumi uses the idea of Jesus riding a donkey as a metaphor.

2. What does King Solomon want from the Queen of Sheba?

3. Summarize the folklore Coleman Barks refers to when introducing the poems of Book 2, Chapter 2 to the reader.

4. What is the outcome for each of three fish in one of Rumi's poems?

5. How did Islam come about?

6. What happens to the three brothers who fall in love with a powerful princess?

7. In one of Rumi's poems, what happens when somebody comes looking for Sheik Kharraqani?

8. In one of Rumi's story poems, in what predicament do three fish find themselves?

9. Explain what the Mathnawi is.

10. According to Rumi, what limitations does one individual experience when trying to comprehend what another person is feeling?

(see the answer keys)

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