Balkh (modern Afghanistan)·1207 – 1273
مولانا رومی
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Mawlana — The Whirling Ocean of Love
He whirled until the lover and the Beloved became one.
“What you seek is seeking you.”
Life
Born in 1207 in Balkh, in the Khwarezmian Empire (modern Afghanistan), Jalal ad-Din Muhammad was the son of Baha ud-Din Walad, a theologian and mystic. The family fled the Mongol invasions, eventually settling in Konya, the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (hence “Rumi”). After his father’s death, Rumi inherited his position as a respected Islamic scholar and jurist.
In 1244, at age thirty-seven, everything changed. He encountered Shams-i-Tabrizi, a wandering dervish of extraordinary spiritual intensity. Their meeting shattered Rumi’s scholarly composure and plunged him into an all-consuming love that became the furnace of his transformation. When Shams disappeared — probably murdered by Rumi’s jealous disciples — Rumi’s grief became the source of an oceanic outpouring of poetry.
Over the remaining decades of his life, he composed the Masnavi (six books, over 25,000 verses), the Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi (over 40,000 verses of lyric poetry), and established the Mevlevi Order, known for the whirling sema ceremony. He died on 17 December 1273 in Konya. His tomb remains one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world.
One Heart
“The lamps are different, but the Light is the same. It comes from Beyond.”
Teachings
Love as the Only Reality
For Rumi, divine love is not one quality among many but the very substance of existence. The universe was created by love, is sustained by love, and returns to love. Every form of human longing is, at root, the soul’s longing for God.
Fana — Annihilation in the Beloved
The lover must die to the self to live in the Beloved. This is not destruction but transformation — like a drop of water falling into the ocean. The ego dissolves; what remains is God.
Beyond Religion to the Tavern of Ruin
Rumi constantly points beyond the forms of religion to their essence. “I am not from the East or the West.” The tavern of ruin is where all concepts, identities, and doctrines are dissolved in the wine of direct experience.
Works & Publications
Masnavi-yi Ma’navi
Six books of mystical verse — stories, parables, and teaching poems. Called “the Quran in Persian.”
Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi
Over 40,000 verses of ecstatic lyric poetry addressed to — and through — his beloved teacher Shams.
Fihi Ma Fihi (It Is What It Is)
Prose discourses and table-talk, offering his teaching in a more direct, conversational form.
An Inspiration
Rumi’s insistence that love is the only reality and that the seeker must die to the self to live in God echoes both Advaitic self-dissolution and the bhakta’s total surrender. His poetry dissolves all boundaries between traditions.