Rumi was a 13th century Sufi enlightened poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian. He is considered as "insan-e kamil" — a perfected or enlightened human being.
While historical sources claim that he was born in Balkh (Persian: بلخ - Balḫ), the hometown of his father's family, modern scholars now believe that Rumi was probably born in 1207 CE in Wakhsh (Waḫš), a small town located at the river Wakhsh in what is now Tajikistan and mentioned in Rumi's poetry. Wakhsh belonged to the larger province of Balkh, and in the year Rumi was born, his father was an appointed scholar there. Both these cities were at the time included in the Greater Persian cultural sphere of Khorāṣān, the easternmost province of historical Persia, and were part of the Khwarezmian Empire.
When the Mongols invaded Central Asia sometime between 1215 and 1220, his father, Baha' al-Din Walad, with his whole family and a group of disciples set out westwards. On the road to Anatolia, Rumi encountered one of the most famous mystic Persian poets, Attar, in Iran's 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." He 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's thoughts and later on became the inspiration for his works.
From Nishapur, his father and his entourage set out for Baghdad, meeting many of the scholars and Sufis of the city. From there they went west and performed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. They then passed through Damascus, Malatya, Erzincan, Sivas, Kayseri and Nigde and finally settled in Karaman during seven years. His mother and his brother died in Karaman. In 1225 Rumi married Gawhar Khatun in Karaman. They had two sons: Sultan Walad and Alaeddin Çelebi. When his wife died, Rumi married again and had a son Emir Alim Çelebi and a daughter Melike Khatun.
On 1 May 1228, most likely as a result of the insistent invitation of 'Alā' ud-Dīn Key-Qobād, ruler of Anatolia, Rumi's father and family, including Rumi, moved and finally settled in Konya in Anatolia within the westernmost territories of Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm.
His father became the head of a madrasa (Islamic religious school) and when he died Rumi inherited his position and succeeded him at the age of twenty-five. One of his father's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din-e Muhaqqiq, continued to train Rumi in the religious and mystical doctrines of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practiced Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240-1. From then on started Rumi's public life. He became the teacher who preached in the mosques of Konya and taught his adherents in the madrasa.
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 changed his life completely. Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice came, "What will you give in return?" "My head!" "The one you seek is Jalal ud-Din of Konya." On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is believed that he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.
Rumi's love and grief for the death of Shams found their expression in an outpouring of music, dance and lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:
Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!
For more than ten years after meeting Shams, Mawlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals, and these had been collected in the Divan-i Kabir. Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, the goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favorite student Hussam-e Chelebi assumed the role.
Rumi died in 1273 CE. He was buried in Konya and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage (see locations tab).
Following his death, his followers and his son Sultan Walad founded the Mawlawī Sufi order (Mawlawīyah or Mevlevi, as it is known in Turkey), also known as the order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for its Sufi dance known as the samāʿ ceremony.
