Mevlana Jalaladdeen Rumi is one of the great spiritual masters and poetic geniuses of mankind, and the Mevlevi Sufi order was founded to follow his teachings.
He was born in 1207 in Balkh in present day Afghanistan to a family of learned theologians. Escaping the Mongol invasion, he and his family traveled extensively in Muslim lands, performed pilgrimage to Mecca and visited Medina; the journey brought the family to Erzincan and then Karaman, where Rumi studied for a short period in the Halaveye School.
In 1228, at the invitation of the Sultan of the Seljuks, Alaeddin Keykubad, they settled in Konya, Anatolia, in present day Turkey, then part of the Seljuk Empire. Here Jalaleddin married and lived with his wife, Gevher Hatun, who borned him two children. He is called "Rumi," meaning "Anatolian" because of his life in that place. He also gained the title "Mevlana" which means "Our Master" through his life's work there.
He died on the 17th of December 1273 in Konya (Turkey), where he had spent most of his adult life and composed all his works, and where his tomb lies today.
His Religious Life
Although Rumi had already succeeded to his father's position as a teacher, when the great scholar and Sufi Burhaneddin al-Tirmithi arrived in Konya; Rumi studied under him and devoted himself to his service for nine years. This training was focused on divine love, worship, austerity and abstinence, piety, consciousness of God, humility, and tolerance, which are the foundations of Sufism.
Rumi spent his days mostly praying and serving people who came to visit the Sufi center, preparing food for them, collecting wood for cooking and heating, and cleaning the toilets and bathrooms used by visitors. He thus learned the merit of serving people and knew that serving people is ultimately serving God. On Burhaneddin's advice Rumi completed his scholarly education in Aleppo, mastering also the classical Islamic sciences, including jurisprudence (fiqh), commentary on the Qur'an (tafsir), tradition (hadith) and epistemology (usul). There were thus a number of significant figures in Rumi's spiritual development. Apart from his father and Burhaneddin, he met many great philosophers and scholars of the age including the renowned Ibn Arabi in Aleppo and Damascus, and others in Konya under the patronage of the Seljuk Court. He thus acquired both the inner and outer sciences within sixteen years.
The most famous and probably the most fruitful relationship in his development was with Shems-i Tebriz, whom he met in Konya at the suggestion of Ruknuddin Zarqubi. Modern historians may argue about who influenced whom in their long association but this is not profitable. What we know is that for a particular period of time, two skillful and acute spirits came together, and by sharing the divine bounties and gifts they received from their Lord, they reached peaks that most would not be able to reach easily on their own. To this day the place where the two first met in Konya is known as Marc'al Bahreyn, the meeting point of the two oceans. Through their spiritual cooperation, they enlightened those of their own age, and have also influenced all the centuries which followed.
Following the departure of Shams, Rumi continued to compose his works and to develop the principles that would be followed by the order formed and named in his honour after his death. He started to live in seclusion and abstinence practicing ascetics in series of three periods of forty days; eating little, talking little and sleeping little were essential components of this discipline.
Here it is important to remember that while Rumi was informed by numerous sources of ideas, on his journey he seemed to leave many of his contemporaries behind his love and compassion flowed like the waters of the world's oceans; so much so that while continuing to live physically among humans, he managed to become ever closer to God. He never elevated himself above others but his writings, both during his life and after his entering into eternal life, provide a guiding star which reflects the light of the spiritual life of the Prophet of Islam. Thus, he is among the few figures who have exerted great influence over large parts of history and large regions of the world.
His Place in the Islamic Tradition
Rumi was not, and is not, the only hero of love. He was and is one of the great representatives of the school of love in the Islamic tradition based on the life and practices of the Prophet, which we call Sufism. This tradition, which includes names like Hasan Basri, Ibrahim Ethem, and Bishr-i Khafi in the Arabian Peninsula in the second century of Islam, grew rapidly with Ahmed Yasawi and Yunus Emre in Central Asia and Anatolia during the rule of both the Seljuks and the Ottomans. In recent times this understanding of Islam has been represented by Sufis and scholars like Mevlana Halid-i Bagdadi, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Muhammed Lutfi Efendi and recently Fethullah Gulen. Rumi was one of the important rings in that golden chain of Islamic tradition, and was deeply affected by and benefited from the wealth and experiences of those Sufis and scholars preceding him, as well as influencing those to come.
His Continuing Significance
Rumi was a devout Muslim and his teaching of peace and tolerance has appealed to men and women of all sects and creeds, and continues to draw followers from all parts of the Muslim and non-Muslim world. As both a teacher and a mystic, his doctrine advocates tolerance, reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love, looking with the same eye on Muslims, Jews, Christians and others alike.
Although Rumi was known and loved during his lifetime by the Christians in his immediate environment, the West only came to know him many centuries later, in part because the great German poet, Goethe, one of the fathers of the hugely Romantic movement, came to know and be influenced by some of the works of Rumi through the translations of the Austrian historian, Josef von Hammer. Even though most Islamic scholars would argue that von Hammer's translations were for the most part inadequate, nevertheless the power and beauty of Rumi's thought, mysticism and love shone through. By this route, Rumi has long been a strong, albeit indirect, influence on religious, cultural and even political life in Europe and the United States, and provides a real point of unity for East and West. The current truth and great potential of this cultural meeting is best proved by the fact that Rumi has been the best-selling poet in the United States for the last thirteen years.
