Jalal ad-Din Muhammed Rumi (1207-1273)

Jalal ad-Din Muhammed Rumi was born on September 30th, 1207, probably in the little town of Wakhsh in the province of Balkh, in what is now Tajikistan, at the time part of Persia. In the year he was born, his father was appointed there as a scholar. When he was still a young man, his family migrated West possibly because of local quarrels, or perhaps under the threat of a Mongol invasion. After much travelling, they finally settled in the Anatolian city Konya, capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, which long before had been the Roman part of Anatolia, in present-day Turkey. Rumi means "the Roman," that is, "from Roman Anatolia."

Rumi followed in the line of his father and his ancestors - scolars, theologians and jurists. Until the age of 37 he seems to have been an conventional teacher under royal patronage. In 1244 he met the wandering dervish, Shams van Tabriz. "What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a person." This recognition strengthened and galvanized his belief. His poetry filled with a longing to be the Friend, the close spiritual presence he first saw in Shams, later in Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith, still later in his scribe, Husam. Rumi died December 17th, 1273 in Konya. During the last thirty years of his life he became a brilliant unfolding of that recognition, and a cause of its incandescence in others.

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