Jalal al-Din Rumi
Islamic · Middle East · 1207 to 1273
Persian poet and teacher whose poems move from love and loss toward closeness with the divine, written to be sung.
What it is
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207 to 1273) was a Persian-language poet and Sufi mystic, famous for his lyric poems and for his long poem, the Masnavi. He lived most of his life in Konya, in what is now Turkey, where he taught and later wrote the poems for which he is known.
Sufism is the mystical current of Islam. Rumi's work centres on love, longing and loss, and it is widely read in Iran and Turkey.
The main ideas
- Love as the way. Rumi's poems grow out of an experience of love, longing and loss.
- A meeting that changed him. In 1244 he met the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz. Until then Rumi had been an established teacher. After their meeting he turned to poetry.
- Grief as a source. When Shams left or vanished, Rumi grieved. His collection of lyrics, the Divan of Shams of Tabriz, grew out of that love and loss.
What it looks like in practice
Imagine someone grieving a friend who has left their life, and finding that the grief has turned into something they need to say aloud. A reader of Rumi might recognise that move, from loss to words to a kind of devotion. This is an illustration, not a passage from his writing.
Books and moments
- The Masnavi is his famous long poem of paired lines, written in Persian.
- The Divan of Shams of Tabriz gathers his lyrics, written out of his love for Shams.
- The move to Konya. His family left their home in the east, travelled west, and settled in Konya in 1228. The name Rumi points to Rum, the old word for Anatolia.
- The order. After his death his followers formed an order, known as the Mevlevi, whose members are known in the West as whirling dervishes.
Questions and criticism
- What happened to Shams. Some accounts say he was murdered. Others list several theories, including that he simply moved on. The sources differ, and the matter is open.
- Where he was born. Accounts differ on whether he was born in Balkh or in the village of Wakhsh, both in the east of the Persian-speaking lands.
- Poet or teacher of a system. It is fair to ask whether his verse is a body of teaching to be applied or an expression to be felt, and whether translations into other languages carry his meaning.
Close neighbours
The page on Ibn Arabi sits closest, as another Sufi writer of the same century. The pages on Ibn Sina and Al-Ghazali show other ways in which thinkers of the same world joined reason and faith.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Who they connect to
Influenced
- Muhammad Iqbal · He called Rumi his guide, and wrote a poem in which Rumi leads him through the heavens.
Other Islamic thinkers
- Al-Kindi · 801 to 873
- Al-Razi · 865 to 925
- Al-Farabi · 872 to 950
- Ibn Miskawayh · 932 to 1030
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna) · 980 to 1037
- Al-Ghazali · 1058 to 1111
- Ibn Tufayl · 1105 to 1185
- Averroes (Ibn Rushd) · 1126 to 1198
- Suhrawardi · 1154 to 1191
- Ibn Arabi · 1165 to 1240