Jalal-al-Din Rumi (1207-1273)

Persian poet and Sufi religious mystic. He founded the Mevlevi dervish order of mendicants, in memory of Shams al-Din Tabrizi, from whom he received esoteric teaching. This order is characterized by a mystic dance symbolizing the movement of the spheres and of the soul. Jalal-al-Din Rumi's great poem the mathnavi-i Ma'navi is commonly known in Iran as ‘the Koran in the Pahlavi [Persian] language’.

The Divani-Shams-i Tabriz is a collection of Jalal's lyrical ghazals.

Jalal-al-Din Rumi was born at Balkh in Khorasan, but spent most of his life at Konya in Anatolia (Turkey).