Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Jalal ad-Din Rumi was a Persian poet, jurist, and Sufi mystic whose poetry in the Masnavi and Divan-e Shams has made him one of the best-selling poets in history and one of the most beloved spiritual teachers across cultures. Born in Khorasan, he settled in Konya in modern Turkey, where he founded the Mevlevi Sufi order—known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes—after his transformative encounter with the wandering mystic Shams of Tabriz.

Rumi's philosophy is grounded in the Sufi experience of divine love as the engine of all existence. In the vast poem the Masnavi, he develops through stories and lyric passages a vision of the soul's longing for its divine origin, the transformative power of love, and the unity underlying all apparent diversity. His thought draws on the Quran, Islamic philosophy, and a poetic imagination without parallel in world literature, and continues to reach readers of every faith and none.