Persian poetic forms

thumb|An illustrated headpiece from a mid-18th century collection of ghazals and Rubaʿi|rubāʻīyāt

thumb|Calligraphic rendition of a ''ruba'i'' attributed to Omar Khayyam from Bodleian MS. Ouseley 140 (one of the sources of FitzGerald's [[Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam).]]

The qaṣīda (also spelled qaṣīdah; plural qaṣā’id) is an ancient Arabic word and form of poetry, often translated as ode. The qasida originated in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and passed into non-Arabic cultures after the Arab Muslim expansion.

Mathnawi ( ), also spelled masnavi, mesnevi or masnawi, is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawi poems follow a meter of eleven, or occasionally ten, syllables, but had no limit in their length. Typical mathnawi poems consist of an indefinite number of couplets, with the rhyme scheme aa/bb/cc.

The '''''qit'a''''' (from or 'piece') is a form of monorhyme poetry that usually appears in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and other associated literature.