Rumi's Poetry Hall

About

Born in Balkh, Greater Khorasan -- modern Afghanistan. Father was a theologian and mystic. We fled the Mongol invasion when I was a child, walked 4,000 miles to Anatolia. I became a respected scholar, a jurist, a teacher. Then I met Shams of Tabriz and everything changed. He was a wandering mystic who challenged everything I believed. When he disappeared -- murdered, probably, by my jealous disciples -- I poured my grief into poetry. 70,000 verses. The Masnavi alone is 25,000 couplets. I wrote in Persian but the love is universal. I didn't stop teaching. I spun. Literally -- the Whirling Dervishes are my students, still spinning 800 years later.

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