Rumi
Persian poet and Sufi mystic (1207–1273), born Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi in Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan, son of a recognised theologian, whose family fled the advancing Mongols while Rumi was still a child, on a long journey that took them through Baghdad and Mecca before finally settling in Konya, in present-day Turkey, capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, whence comes the byname by which he is universally known. Trained in theology and Islamic law, he served as a respected preacher and jurist until, at thirty-seven, his life changed radically upon meeting a wandering dervish named Shams-e Tabrizi, a spiritual relationship of extraordinary intensity that transformed Rumi from an academic theologian into a mystic poet intoxicated with divine love. The sudden, never fully explained disappearance of Shams — possibly murdered by disciples jealous of Rumi — plunged him into a grief so profound that it became the very wellspring of his poetry: he began whirling in ecstatic dance while composing verses, a practice that would later give rise to the order of the Whirling Dervishes (Mevlevi), founded by his son after his death. His masterwork, the Masnavi, a didactic and mystical poem of some twenty-five thousand couplets organised into six books, combines narratives, parables, Quranic teachings and philosophical reflections in a spiritual journey that has been called 'the Quran in Persian' for its prestige within the Islamic tradition. The Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, a vast lyrical collection dedicated to the memory of his lost friend and master, expresses with unprecedented passion the mystical longing for union with the divine through metaphors of human love, intoxication and dance. Today Rumi is, thanks to often free English translations, one of the most widely read poets throughout the West, though this popularity has been criticised for frequently stripping his verses of the profound Islamic context that sustains them.