Rūmī , in full Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī byname Mawlānā (Arabic: “Our Master”), (born c. Sept. 30, 1207, Balkh, Ghūrid empire—died Dec. 17, 1273, Konya, Anatolia), The greatest Sufi mystic and among the most renowned Persian poets. He was a teacher at a madrasah in Anatolia when he met Shams al-Dīn (“Sun of Religion”), a wandering dervish who revealed to him the inner mysteries of divine majesty; their intimate relationship scandalized Rūmī’s followers, who likely had Shams al-Dīn murdered. The disappearance of his companion turned Rūmī to poetry, and his Dīvān-e Shams (“Collected Poetry of the Sun”) contains verses on his love and longing for Shams al-Dīn. His main work, the didactic epic Mas̄navī-ye Maʿnavī (“Spiritual Couplets”), widely influenced Muslim mystical thought and literature. He is believed to have composed poetry while in a state of ecstasy and often accompanied his verses by a whirling dance. After his death, his disciples were organized as the Mawlawiyyah (Mevlevī), a Sufi order called in the West the “whirling dervishes,” and his influence on Turkish culture is inestimable. His poems, originally in Persian, have been translated into a number of languages, including English, and have enjoyed a worldwide following into the modern period.
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Islam Summary
Islam, major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. The Arabic term islām, literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām) accepts surrender to the will of
poetry Summary
Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. (Read Britannica’s biography of this author, Howard Nemerov.) Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and
Sufism Summary
Sufism, mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. It consists of a variety of mystical paths that are designed to ascertain the nature of humanity and of God and to facilitate the experience