According to some sources, he was born on Rabīʿ I 604 [1207 CE]
in Balkh ( (Bausani, A. and H. Ritter. "D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Rūmī." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. , [n.d.] referenceworks.brillonline.com.)). Generally known by his
nickname Maulana, he was a Persian Sufi poet and the ideological founder of the Mawlawīyah Sufi order. He was the son of the Sufi thinker Bahāʼ al-Dīn Valad, 1150-1231 and together they migrated westwards when Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī was five years old. His family eventually settled in
Anatolia after travelling across Central Asia, Iran and
Iraq. Before taking up residence in Larende (Karaman), the family was for different periods of time in other
Anatolian cities such as Sivas and the region close to
Erzincan. Finally, at the request of the Seljuq prince
Kayqubad I, Sultan of the Seljuks, -1237 ( (Aflākī, Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad. The feats of the knowers of God : Manāqeb al-ʻārefīn. Translated by O'Kane, John. Leiden: Brill, 2002., pp. 22)), they
finally moved to Konya in 626 AH [1227-1228 CE]. It was in this city where Maulana became an influential religious
leader close to the Seljuq court and where the Sufi order based on his teachings was to be developed.
He had two main wives and a number of sons and daughters. Among them is Sulṭān Valad, 1226-1312,
who was the real person who began the organisation of the Mawlawīyah Sufi order and succeeded his father as leader of his followers after his death.
Different works by Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and compossed in the city of Konya have survived and arrived to our days. A collection of short ghazals and quatrains
in Persian can be found in his Divān, there is also a collection
of his sayings in the Fīhi mā fīh and letters written by him
(Maktūbāt). However, the most famous of his work is the Mas̱navī-i maʻnavī, a didactic poetical work that became one of the key
texts in Persian literature. Maulana died on the 5 Jumāda II 672 [1273 CE]
in Konya.
A verse work in Persian containing 36,360 verses (3,229 ghazals).This work has been considered by some
scholars as being "unrivalled by any other book of verse in the world’s mystical poetic literature"
(). The text came to be known as Dīvān-i Shams-i Tabrīzī (Shams’ book of verse) because the name of
Shams-i Tabrīzī, spiritual master of Rūmī, appears at the end of many of
poems in this work. The work is a compilation that received different alternative titles such as
Dīvān Kabīr, Kullīyāt-i Shams-i Tabrīzī, et. al. Due to the popularity of this work, many of the non-royal
manuscript copies of the work that have that have survived to the present are only partial copies of
the text.
A prose work containing 72 discourses referring to aspects of Sufism in simple
terms. It is generally regarded as an introduction to the famous Mas̲navī (مثنوى) of the same author
This work is a miscellany of 71 discourses (delivered both formally and informally) belonging to
Rūmī and compiled by an unknown person after his death. Because the text is based on oral
presentations, it lacks the stylistic sophistication of other texts of the period, with scarce use of
Arabic terms and less complexity in the sound patterning (292).
As the work is made out of notes taken by disciples, its contents include different teachings of
Rūmī but leave out prayers and sermons which were possibly also transmitted as part of the oral
discourses. If this work is not of the highest literary value for its style, it is of outmost importance
as a unique source of information about Rūmī’s teachings and a testimony of
his audience, composed by middle-class men and women and local rulers with little intellectual pretentions
in 13th century
Konya.(292)
The work is a vast collection of moral precepts and religious reflexions, with
comments on texts from the Qur'ān, and sayings of the Prophet, illustrated by
numerous anecdotes
The work is a vast collection of moral precepts and religious reflexions, with
comments on texts from the Qur'ān, and sayings of the Prophet, illustrated by
numerous anecdotes
The work is a vast collection of moral precepts and religious reflexions, with
comments on texts from the Qur'ān, and sayings of the Prophet, illustrated by
numerous anecdotes Show more
This manuscript contains prefaces and marginal additions
