Rumi (1207 - 1273) was a Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic whose verse became among the most widely read poetry in the Persian-speaking world and beyond [1]. Writing chiefly in Persian, he composed the vast spiritual epic known as the Masnavi and a large body of ecstatic lyric poetry gathered in the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi [2]. His work, centred on divine love and the soul's union with God, inspired the Mevlevi order of Sufis, famous in the West as the whirling dervishes [3].
Early life and education
Rumi, in full Jalal al-Din Muhammad, was born on 30 September 1207 in Balkh, a city of Greater Khorasan in the eastern Islamic world [1]. His father, Baha al-Din Walad, was a respected preacher and jurist, and the family left Balkh while Rumi was young, travelling through the region before settling in Konya, in Anatolia, then part of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum [1]. There Rumi received a thorough education in Islamic law, theology, and the religious sciences, and in time succeeded his father as a teacher and jurist, gathering his own circle of students [2].
Shams of Tabriz
The decisive event of Rumi's life was his meeting, around 1244, with the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz [1]. The intense spiritual friendship that followed transformed the sober scholar into a poet of ecstatic devotion. When Shams disappeared, Rumi's grief and longing found expression in torrents of lyric verse, much of which he attributed to his lost companion rather than to himself [2].
Major works
Rumi's poetry falls chiefly into two great collections. The Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi gathers thousands of lyric poems and quatrains celebrating love, yearning, and the soul's search for the divine [3]. His masterwork, the Masnavi, is a long didactic poem in six books that weaves stories, parables, and Quranic themes into a sustained meditation on the mystical path [2]. Both were composed in Persian, and the Masnavi came to be revered so highly that later admirers described it as a Quran in the Persian tongue [1].
Legacy
Rumi died on 17 December 1273 in Konya, where his tomb remains a place of pilgrimage [1]. After his death his followers organised the Mevlevi order, known in the West as the whirling dervishes for the turning dance that accompanies their devotional music [3]. His writings have shaped Persian, Turkish, and South Asian literature for centuries, and modern translations have made him one of the best-selling poets in the English-speaking world [2].
