Background
Rumi was born in Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan to native Persian-speaking parents.
He migrated to Konya in Asia Minor at a young age with his father, fleeing the Mongol invader of his day, Genghis Khan.
jurist theologian scholars poet
Rumi was born in Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan to native Persian-speaking parents.
He migrated to Konya in Asia Minor at a young age with his father, fleeing the Mongol invader of his day, Genghis Khan.
The latter, in the course of his wanderings, visited Konya and thoroughly inspired Rumi with religious fervor.
Rumi and his father traveled through Baghdad, Mecca, Damascus, and Erzincan, finally reaching Konya about 1226 or 1227, where he resided for most of his remaining life. His father was appointed to a high post in the empire of the Seljuks of Rum. Rumi inherited this post in 1231, when his father died. Thus Rumi was a man of means and could devote his efforts to more esoteric fields.
The event which had the greatest influence on Rumi's intellectual and moral life was his meeting with the Sufi mystic Shams ed-Din Tabrizi. The latter, in the course of his wanderings, visited Konya and thoroughly inspired Rumi with religious fervor. As a result of this friendship, Rumi dedicated most of his writings to this wandering Sufi. Because of this also, Rumi founded the Mevlevi order of dervishes - the dancing dervishes. The unique trait of this order was that, contrary to general Moslem practice, Rumi gave a considerable place to music (the drum and reed) in the ceremonies.
The principal work of Rumi is his massive Mathnawi. This work is a compendium of poems, tales, anecdotes, and reflections-all meant to illustrate Sufi doctrine, the result of 40 years of work by Rumi. He also wrote a shorter Diwan and a prose treatise entitled Fihi Ma Fihi (What Is Within Is Within).
Rumi was a poet of the first rank. His style was simple and colloquial. His tales possessed diverse qualities: variety and originality, dignity and picturesqueness, learning and charm, depth of feeling and thought. The Mathnawi is no doubt very disjointed; the stories follow one another in no apparent order. But it is filled with lyrical inspiration. Each small tale may be read separately, and one cannot help but be impressed with its succinctness.
As a philosopher, Rumi is less original than as a poet. His subject is Sufism, expressed with glowing enthusiasm. But it is not systematically expounded, and lyrical fervor seems to run rampant. But it can be said that just as Ibn Arabi summed up and gathered into a single system all that had been said on mysticism in Arabic before him, so Rumi in his famous Mathnawi comes the closest to this in Persian.
As with other Sufi poets, many Neoplatonic ideas abound in Rumi's writing. Ties to Christian mysticism can also be found. But in the last analysis, Rumi was a Moslem of very special interest.
He was a brilliant lyrical poet who founded his own religious order, the Mevlevis. His poetry showed original religious and wonderfully esoteric forms of expression. Rumi's poetry forms the basis of much classical Iranian and Afghan music. Rumi's work has been translated into many of the world's languages, including Russian, German, Urdu, Turkish, Arabic, Bengali, French, Italian, and Spanish.
Rumi's major work is the Maṭnawīye Ma'nawī, a six-volume poem regarded by some Sufis as the Persian-language Qur'an. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of mystical poetry.
There is a famous landmark in Northern India, known as Rumi Gate, situated in Lucknow (the capital of Uttar Pradesh) named for Rumi.
(The Masnavi, written by Mawlana Jalal Al-Din Muhammad Rum...)
(The greatest Sufi mystic and poet in the Persian language...)
Rumi, however, asserts the supremacy of Islam by stating:
"The Light of Muhammad has become a thousand branches (of knowledge), a thousand, so that both this world and the next have been seized from end to end. If Muhammad rips the veil open from a single such branch, thousands of monks and priests will tear the string of false belief from around their waists. "
Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these ideas that the practice of whirling Dervishes developed into a ritual form.
He was philanthropic and strongly emotional. Rumi's favourite musical instrument was the ney (reed flute).
Quotes from others about the person
Shahram Shiva asserts that "Rumi is able to verbalise the highly personal and often confusing world of personal growth and development in a very clear and direct fashion. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. .. . Today Rumi's poems can be heard in churches, synagogues, Zen monasteries, as well as in the downtown New York art/performance/music scene. "
According to Professor Majid M. Naini, "Rumi's life and transformation provide true testimony and proof that people of all religions and backgrounds can live together in peace and harmony. Rumi’s visions, words, and life teach us how to reach inner peace and happiness so we can finally stop the continual stream of hostility and hatred and achieve true global peace and harmony. ”
In 1225, Rumi married Gowhar Khatun in Karaman. They had two sons: Sultan Walad and Ala-eddin Chalabi. When his wife died, Rumi married again and had a son, Amir Alim Chalabi, and a daughter, Malakeh Khatun.
