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Mevlâna Jalalu’ddin Rumi‘Mevlâna’ (meaning ‘Our Master’) was a title given to him by
his followers. The name
Rumi may be linked with this particular region of Turkey (Diyar-ı
Rum, land of the Romans). Mevlâna Jalalu’ddin
Rumi was born in 1207 in Balkh in what is today the borders of
Afghanistan and Pakistan. At an early age his family left Balkh because
of the danger of the invading Mongols and settled in Konya, Turkey,
which was then the capital of the Seljuk Empire. His father Baha’uddin
was a great religious teacher who became a professor at the university
in Konya. Mevlâna married and had
two sons and a daughter. He learned a great deal from his father and the
many scholars and philosophers who came to Konya. He, too, became a
teacher when his father died in 1231, and spent more than four years in
Aleppo and Damascus studying with some of the greatest religious minds
of the time. He constantly
repeated (zikr) the name of
Allah and developed remarkable powers, such as healing, through the vibrations
of his voice. In 1244 Mevlâna met a
dervish from Tabriz, in Iran, who had a great influence on him.
His name was Muhammed Shemsettin (known as Shems, meaning
‘sun’, for short). After
this he gave up teaching and became an inspired poet and a great lover
of humanity. Twice Shems
disappeared. The first time, Mevlâna’s son Sultan Veled searched for
and discovered him in Damascus. The second disappearance, however,
proved to be final, and it is believed that he may have been murdered by
people who resented his influence over Mevlâna. It was during this time that Mevlâna danced and whirled until he was exhausted and composed poems about
his longing for God, known as the Diwan (Poems) of Shems-i-Tabriz. “If once in my life I spent a moment
without thee, One day, as he walked by the goldbeater’s shop, he heard the sound of hammers pounding the rough sheets of gold into beautiful objects. With each step he repeated the name of God (Allah), and, with the sound of the hammers, all he heard was ‘Allah, Allah’. He began to whirl in ecstasy in the middle of the street, hearing this sound in everything, including the wind he created by his movement. Mevlâna developed other deep spiritual friendships such as that with
Husameddin Chelebi. Husameddin
was closely linked with a guild of tradesmen and craftsmen and was
influential in spreading Mevlâna’s teaching among them. He also encouraged him to write his greatest work, the Mathnavi,
known as the Persian Qur’an. Mevlâna in his early fifties began the dictation of this great work.
As Husameddin described the process: "He never took a pen in his
hand while composing the Mathnawi.
Wherever he happened to be, whether in the school, at the hot springs,
in the Konya baths, or in the vineyards, I would write down what he
recited. Often I could barely keep up with his pace, sometimes, night
and day for several days. At other times he would not compose for
months, and once for two years there was nothing. At the completion of
each book I would read it back to him, so that he could correct what had
been written."
This page last updated 24 January 2002
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