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Rumi, Jalal al-Din Mohammad
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Rumi, Jalal al-Din Mohammad (1207-1273), Persian
mystic and poet, whose verse is permeated by elements of Sufism, a movement
of Islamic mysticism. Born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan, Rumi traveled
with his family during his youth and eventually settled in Konya, in what
is now Turkey. In 1244 he accepted the friendship and religious guidance
of Shams al-Din, a dervish (devotee of Sufism) from Tabriz, Iran. Rumi
hoped to devote his life to creating poetry expressing his feelings for
his spiritual master. Shams al-Din disappeared unexplainedly in 1247 and
over the years Rumi composed nearly 30,000 verses expressing his feelings
at this loss. Later spiritual friendships again inspired his poetry, notably
the epic poem Masnavi-ye Manavi (Spiritual Couplets, mid-13th century),
which had an enormous influence on Islamic literature and thought. Late
in Rumi's life, or possibly after his death, his followers organized a
Sufi sect called Mawlawiyah, or Mevlevi, known in the West as the whirling,
or dancing, dervishes.
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"Rumi, Jalal al-Din Mohammad," Microsoft®
Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000
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