The Way of the Lover
Jalaluddin Rumi, the great Sufi mystic and love poet, was born 800 years ago, in the city of Balkh (now in Afghanistan), Eastern Persia, to surroundings of wealth and power. His well-to-do family, relatives to the king of Khorasan, were scholars, theologians, and statesmen, and it seemed clear that Rumi would follow them into a profession befitting a member of the elite.
Rumi, however, was something of a rebel, more motivated by freedom and the quest for love and truth, than by social convention and the rules – and roles – that went with it – to the extent, in fact, that his behaviour was sometimes shocking to his peers. When his family moved to Konya (now Turkey), for example, Rumi made friends among the merchant class – which would at least have raised an eyebrow at the time. Perhaps it would even today. Imagine a child of ‘blue blood’ and ‘good breeding’ preferring the company of tradesmen to those of his own class. Rumi, however, made no distinction between people based on status, wealth, or fame. To him, everyone was an aspect of God and carried the divine spark within.
The area of Konya they settled in was called Rum, from which Jalaluddin acquired his name. He also acquired a reputation as an extraordinarily gifted spiritual teacher, even greater in power than his father, Bahauddin Veled, who was himself a revered Sufi scholar and the founder of a successful religious college, which Rumi was to inherit upon his father’s death. The mystic, Ibn Arabi, is said to have met them both and exclaimed in joyful surprise that “The father is a great lake, but the son is a mighty ocean!”
It was in Konya that Rumi’s life was to change forever, through a chance