Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi

Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273), known in Turkey and Persia as Mevlana or Mawlana, was a Persian poet, jurist and Sufi mystic. Born in Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan, he fled the Mongol advance with his family and settled in Konya in Anatolia, where he succeeded his father as a teacher of religion. His meeting with the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz transformed him into a poet of divine love. His vast Masnavi, a poem of stories and teachings in six books, and the lyric poems of his Divan made him one of the central figures of Islamic literature. His followers founded the Mevlevi order.