Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi or Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi {{ref|Translit}} ?????? ???? ????? ???? ???? (September 30, 1207–December 17, 1273 CE) (also known as Mawlawi or Mawlana, meaning our guide or our lord in Arabic and Persian, or Mevlana meaning our guide in Turkish) was a Persian Muslim jurist, theologian, poet and Sufi mystic, who was born in Balkh (then a city of the Greater Khorasan province of Persia (Iran), now part of Afghanistan) and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey, then within the Seljuk Empire's territory). His birth place and native tongue points towards a Persian heritage. He also wrote his poetry in Persian, and is read widely in Iran and Afghanistan where the language is spoken. Yet, he is adored to such a degree that citizens of the modern Turkey, Pakistan, and India sometimes consider him one of their own.

References

• Rumi: A Spirited Biography (Wines, Leslie)
• Fundamentals of Rumi's Thought: A Mevlevi Sufi Perspective by ?efik Can, The Light, ISBN 1932099794 (2004)