Rumi

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273) was a Persian Sufi mystic and poet, born in Balkh in what is now Afghanistan, whose family fled westward ahead of the Mongol invasions and eventually settled in Konya, in present-day Turkey. There he became a religious scholar and, after his transformative encounter with the wandering dervish Shams-e Tabrizi, turned increasingly to mystical poetry. His major works, including the vast Masnavi and the lyric collection Divan-e Shams, are central to Sufi literature and Persian poetry, and his followers founded the Mevlevi Order, known in the West for the practice of whirling as a form of devotion. Rumi remains one of the most widely read poets in the world.