mystics
Overview Rumi was born to
Persian parents, in
Wakhsh, a village on the East bank of the
Wakhsh River known as
Sangtuda in present-day
Tajikistan. and
Sufism had developed there for several centuries. The most important influences upon Rumi, besides his father, were the Persian poets
Attar and
Sanai. Rumi expresses his appreciation: "Attar was the spirit, Sanai his eyes twain, And in time thereafter, Came we in their train" and mentions in another poem: "Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love, We are still at the turn of one street". His father was also connected to the spiritual lineage of
Najm al-Din Kubra.
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, where he produced his works and died in 1273AD. He was buried in
Konya, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Upon his death, his followers and his son
Sultan Walad founded the
Mevlevi Order, also known as the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for the
Sufi dance known as the
Sama ceremony. He was laid to rest beside his father, and over his remains a shrine was erected. A
hagiographical account of him is described in Shams ud-Din Ahmad Aflāki's
Manāqib ul-Ārifīn (written between 1318 and 1353). This biography needs to be treated with care as it contains both legends and facts about Rumi. For example, Professor
Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago, author of the most complete biography on Rumi, has separate sections for the hagiographical biography of Rumi and the actual biography about him. Some modern scholars, however, reject this claim and state it does not hold on closer examination. The claim of maternal descent from the
Khwarazmshah for Rumi or his father is also seen as a non-historical hagiographical tradition designed to connect the family with royalty, but this claim is rejected for chronological and historical reasons. The most complete genealogy offered for the family stretches back to six or seven generations to famous Hanafi jurists. We do not learn the name of Baha al-Din's mother in the sources, only that he referred to her as "Māmi" (colloquial Persian for Māma), and that she was a simple woman who lived to the 1200s. The mother of Rumi was Mu'mina Khātūn. The profession of the family for several generations was that of Islamic preachers of the relatively liberal
Hanafi Maturidi school, and this family tradition was continued by Rumi (see his Fihi Ma Fih and Seven Sermons) and Sultan Walad (see Ma'rif Waladi for examples of his everyday sermons and lectures). When the
Mongols invaded Central Asia sometime between 1215 and 1220, Baha ud-Din Walad, with his whole family and a group of disciples, set out westwards. According to hagiographical account which is not agreed upon by all Rumi scholars, Rumi encountered one of the most famous mystic Persian poets,
Attar, in the Iranian city of
Nishapur, located in the province of Khorāsān. Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea followed by an ocean." Attar gave the boy his
Asrārnāma, a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on the eighteen-year-old Rumi and later on became the inspiration for his works. From Nishapur, Walad and his entourage set out for
Baghdad, meeting many of the scholars and Sufis of the city. From Baghdad they went to
Hejaz and performed the
pilgrimage at
Mecca. The migrating caravan then passed through
Damascus,
Malatya,
Erzincan,
Sivas,
Kayseri and
Nigde. They finally settled in
Karaman for seven years; Rumi's mother and brother both died there. 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. On 1 May 1228, most likely as a result of the insistent invitation of
'Alā' ud-Dīn Key-Qobād, ruler of Anatolia, Baha' ud-Din came and finally settled in Konya in
Anatolia within the westernmost territories of the
Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm.
Education and encounters with Shams-e Tabrizi Baha' ud-Din became the head of a
madrassa (religious school) and when he died, Rumi, aged twenty-five, inherited his position as the Islamic molvi. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the
Shariah as well as the
Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing
fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to
Damascus and is said to have spent four years there. It was his meeting with the
dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an
ascetic. Sufi mysticism places great emphasis on the master-disciple relationship, in which the younger disciple studies under an older master. It is essential to engage in discipleship to reach
fana, the highest level of spiritual development in Sufism. Shams had travelled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice said to him: "What will you give in return?" Shams replied, "My head!" The voice then said, "The one you seek is Jalal ud-Din of Konya." On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. There are many theories as to Shams's disappearance. The most popular are that Rumi's youngest son killed him, that he was killed for blasphemy, or that Shams, a known wanderer, simply chose to move on. For more than a month, Rumi refused to believe the rumours of Shams's death and waited for his return. After forty days, Rumi accepted that he was dead and began dressing in black to signal his mourning. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems,
Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realised:
Later life and death ), 1461 manuscript Mewlana had been spontaneously composing
ghazals (Persian poems), and these had been collected in the
Divan-i Kabir or Diwan Shams Tabrizi. Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student,
Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. One day, the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside Konya when Hussam described to Rumi an idea he had had: "If you were to write a book like the
Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the
Mantiq ut-Tayr of 'Attar, it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it." Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written the opening eighteen lines of his
Masnavi, beginning with: Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the
Masnavi, to Hussam. In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known
ghazal, which begins with the verse: Rumi died on 17 December 1273 in
Konya. His death was mourned by the diverse community of Konya, with local Christians and Jews joining the crowd that converged to bid farewell as his body was carried through the city. Rumi's body was interred beside that of his father, and a splendid shrine, the "Green Tomb" (
Turkish: Yeşil Türbe, ; today the
Mevlâna Museum), was erected over his place of burial. His epitaph reads: Georgian princess and Seljuq queen
Tamar Gurju Khatun was a close friend of Rumi. She was the one who sponsored the construction of
his tomb in
Konya. The 13th-century Mevlâna Mausoleum, with its mosque, dance hall, schools and living quarters for dervishes, remains a destination of pilgrimage to this day, and is probably the most popular pilgrimage site to be regularly visited by adherents of every major religion. ==Teachings==