Rumi

Life

Sunni Muslim jurist and preacher who, after meeting the wandering mystic Shams of Tabriz, became a Sufi master and poet of the Masnavi and the lyric Divan.

Jalal al-Din was the son of Baha al-Din Walad, a preacher and scholar who left Balkh with his family around the time of the Mongol advance and settled in Konya. After his father's death Jalal al-Din succeeded him as teacher and jurist. In 1244 he met Shams al-Din of Tabriz, a fiery wandering mystic, and their intense friendship transformed him: he took up music, poetry and the turning dance (sama), to the alarm of some disciples. Shams left, returned, and in 1247 vanished for good. Rumi's grief poured into thousands of lyric poems he signed with Shams's name. Later, encouraged by his disciple Husam al-Din Chelebi, he dictated the six books of the Masnavi, a vast poem of stories, teaching and longing for God. He died in Konya in December 1273; the hagiographer Aflaki reports that people of every faith mourned at his funeral. Much of what is told about his life comes from devotional biographies written two to three generations later.

At the table

• How should I face my fear of death?

  Consider the passage from mineral to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to human. Each former state passes away, yet life grows greater. Why should I suppose that dying must make me less?

• Should a person forgive someone who isn't sorry?

  I cannot follow you in forbidding every use of the sword. The Qur’an permits fighting those who fight us, and forbids transgression. It also praises the one who pardons and puts things right.

Lines from real councils, AI-generated from Rumi’s historical record — not authentic quotations.

Convictions on the record

What the sources show Rumi held. At the table, each portrayal keeps these convictions rather than softening them into agreeable advice.

• Love is the way to God: without love there is no entrance to the Beloved, and only love and the lover endure.

  The Persian Mystics: Jalalu'd-din Rumi (Davis selections), Divan selections, 'The Beauty of the Beloved' (Nicholson trans.)

• The soul is like a reed cut from its reed-bed, crying out in longing to return to its origin.

  The Mesnevi, Book I (Redhouse), Mesnevi I, Proem: The Reed-Flute

• God is the one reality behind all appearances; outward forms are like lamps, the light in them is one.

  The Persian Mystics: Jalalu'd-din Rumi (Davis selections), Divan selections, 'God Only'

• He remained a devout Muslim who prayed, fasted and taught the Quran; mystical love fulfilled rather than abolished religious practice.

  Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West, chs. 2–4

What they know — and don’t

The thirteenth-century Islamic world: the Quran and hadith, Hanafi law, Persian poetry (Sanai, Attar), Sufi masters such as Bayazid and al-Hallaj, the Seljuk court of Konya with its Christians, Jews and Greeks, and the Mongol conquests. He knows nothing of the later Mevlevi order's history, Western fame, or anything after 1273.

Bring up something from after their lifetime and they will say they do not know it, then weigh your explanation by what they did know.

Their library

Before speaking, Rumi searches a private library of 1,063 passages from these sources — and no one else’s.

• The Mesnevi, Book I (Redhouse)Jalal al-Din Rumi; Shams al-Din Ahmad Aflaki · Masnavi c. 1258–1273; Aflaki's Manaqib c. 1318–1353 · tr. Sir James W. Redhouse, 1881Their own words
• Masnavi i Ma'navi: The Spiritual Couplets, Books I–VI (abridged)Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī · Composed c. 1258–1273 · tr. Edward Henry Whinfield (abridged translation of all six books)Their own words
• The Persian Mystics: Jalalu'd-din Rumi (Davis selections)F. Hadland Davis (editor), with translations by R. A. Nicholson (Divan, 1898) and E. H. Whinfield (Masnavi, 1887) · 1907 · tr. Reynold A. Nicholson; E. H. WhinfieldTheir own words
• The Acts of the Adepts (Manāqib al-ʿĀrifīn), selected anecdotesShams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī · Compiled c. 1318–1353 · tr. James W. RedhouseEarly testimony

Also consulted in research

• Rumi: Past and Present, East and WestFranklin D. Lewis · 2000; revised 2008Scholarship