Where to find the words of Rumi

On September 30, 1207 Mevlana (Master) Celaluddin Rumi was born in a village near Balkh, in the Persian Empire where his father was a renowned scholar and mystic. Mevlana is now widely known as Rumi because his family had to flee their original home in the face of the devastating advances of the Mongols and finally settled on Konya, in Anatolia, which was known as Rum – the eastern part of the Roman Empire. He succeeded his father as the foremost religious teacher in Konya and ultimately grew to become the greatest mystical poet in the Persian language, and maybe of all time.

Rumi’s presence in Konya attracted many disciples and devotees. He lived and taught there until his death in 1274.

The Mevlevi order (Tarikat) was founded after his death and is most commonly known for the whirling ritual, Mukabeleh (from Arabic face-to-face). The order flourished for about 700 years throughout the Ottoman Empire until it was banned from functioning under the constitution of the Turkish Republic in 1925.