Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi was born in 1207 in Central Asia. While much is known about his later life, some of the basic details of his early biography are unclear. For example, according to some traditions he was born in the city of Balkh (in modern-day Afghanistan), but others say he was born in the village of Vaksh in modern Tajikistan. Similarly, it is often said that Rumi’s family left Central Asia because of the Mongol conquests, but the explanation Rumi’s father gives in his recently rediscovered autobiography doesn’t mention the Mongols when discussing the family’s decision to move.

In Konya (modern-day Turkey), Rumi became a well-respected scholar of Islamic law, specifically adhering to the Hanafi Sunni legal school. At the time, Konya was a frontier town and had only recently been brought under Muslim rule. Rumi’s native language and cultural background was Persian, though he was also familiar with and influenced by Arabic, Turkish, and Greek, due to the region’s cultural diversity. 

Rumi embraced Sufism after meeting the mystic Shams of Tabriz, who became his spiritual mentor. After meeting Shams, Rumi dedicated himself to experiencing God’s love (‘ishq) and teaching others to do so through poetry, stories, and ritual dancing known as the sema. The sema is still practiced in Turkey by members of the Mevlevi Sufi order, which is inspired by Rumi’s teachings. Rumi died on December 17, 1273. Today, Mevlevi Sufis honor Rumi on this day each year, commemorating his ‘urs, or “wedding day,” when his soul was reunified with the divine. 

The most comprehensive study of Rumi’s life and writings today is Franklin D. Lewis’s book Rumi: Past and Present. For translations of Rumi’s writings, see Jawid Mojaddedi’s editions of the Masnavi and Franklin Lewis’s Swallowing the Sun. The most popular English interpretations of Rumi’s poetry have been published by Coleman Barks, who doesn’t speak Persian, but who provides beautiful renditions of Rumi’s poems based on earlier English translations. However, Barks’s versions have received criticism for minimizing Islam and Islamic references, which were fundamental to Rumi’s worldview. 

To learn more about Sufism, see William Chittick’s Sufism: A Beginner’s Guide. Elif Shafak’s novel The Forty Rules of Love provides a fictionalized account of Rumi’s life and legacy. To learn more about Rumi’s spiritual teachings, you can also see the works of William Chittick, Jawid Mojaddedi, and this video lecture by Omid Safi.

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