The famous Persian poet and mystic, Jalal od-Din Muhammad Balkhi Rumi

Compiled by: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On September 30, 1207 AD, the famous Persian poet and mystic, Jalal od-Din Mohammad Balkhi Rumi, was born to Iranian parents in the village of Wakhsh, a small town located on the river of the same name in Balkh, Khorasan. Wakhsh is now in Tajikistan while Balkh is in Afghanistan.
Balkh at that time was a major centre of Perso-Islamic culture and Sufism. It is said that the most important influences upon the young boy, besides his scholarly father, Baha od-Din Walad, who was connected to the spiritual lineage of Najm od-Din Kubra, were the Persian poets Attar Nishapuri and Sana’i Ghaznavi.
He was hardly ten years when the family had to flee Khorasan towards Iraq because of the barbaric Mongol invasion. After a sojourn in Baghdad and travel to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, followed by a brief residence in Damascus, he settled in Konya in Anatolia which was under the Persianate Seljuq Sultanate of Rum, and hence his title Rumi.
He produced his famous work the Mathnawi here and died in 1273 AD at the age of 67. He was buried in Konya and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage for Sufis. Iranians, Turks, Afghans, Tajiks, and other Central Asians as well as Muslims of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy.
His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages. In 2007 Rumi was described as the "most popular poet in the US.” His Mathnawi remains one of the purest literary glories of the Persian language. His poetry has influenced Persian literature as well as Urdu, Punjabi, Turkish, Pashto, Chagatai language and Sindhi languages.
Rumi in his poems has paid homage to the unsurpassed merits of Imam Ali (AS), the dear cousin, son-in-law and divinely-decreed vicegerent of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).