Rumi
- Lived
- 1207 - 1273 CE
Who was Rumi? The Persian poet and Sufi teacher whose Masnavi is called the Persian Quran. His encounter with the wandering dervish Shams-i Tabrizi transformed him from a respected jurist into the greatest mystical poet of the Islamic world.
The Persian poet and Sufi teacher whose Masnavi is called the Persian Quran. His encounter with the wandering dervish Shams-i Tabrizi transformed him from a respected jurist into the greatest mystical poet of the Islamic world.
Life
Jalaluddin Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Balkhi al-Rumi was born in Balkh (in modern Afghanistan) in 1207 CE. His family fled the Mongol invasion when he was a child and eventually settled in Konya, in Anatolia (Rum, hence al-Rumi), in the Seljuk Sultanate.
His father Baha al-Din Walad was a renowned scholar and Sufi. Rumi succeeded him as the head of the madrasa in Konya. Until his late thirties he was a respected but conventional Islamic scholar.
In 1244 CE, a wandering dervish named Shams al-Din of Tabriz arrived in Konya. He asked Rumi a question about the relative merits of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and the Sufi master Bayazid al-Bistami. Rumi's answer stopped Shams in his tracks. The two men embraced, went into retreat together, and did not emerge for months.
Under the influence of Shams, Rumi began to write poetry. The Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi is the massive lyric collection that came from that transformation. His masterwork the Masnavi is a six-volume didactic poem of some 25,000 couplets, running through hundreds of stories and reflections on the Sufi path.
After Shams disappeared (perhaps murdered by jealous disciples), Rumi founded what became the Mevlevi order, the Whirling Dervishes. He died in Konya in 1273. His shrine, the Green Dome (Yesil Turbe), is still a major pilgrimage site.
Stories
Each story is drawn from the classical Islamic sources.