Biography
Rumi was born in Balkh in 1207 in what is now northern Afghanistan, making him, by birth, an Afghan poet of global stature. His father, a theologian and mystic known as Sultan al-Ulama, led the family westward to escape the Mongol invasion, and Rumi eventually settled in Konya in present-day Turkey, where he produced the Masnavi-ye Manavi, a six-volume spiritual epic widely regarded as the greatest work of Persian mystical literature. In Afghanistan the title Mawlana (Our Master) belongs to him alone; he is a figure of national pride as much as religious and literary heritage. His poetry provided the Sufi conceptual framework that runs through Afghan classical music: the burning reed separated from the reed bed, the soul longing to return to its divine source, the wine of love that dissolves the self.
Ahmad Zahir and Rumi
Ahmad Zahir's setting of "Aye Sarban Ahesta Ran" drew on a camel-caravan farewell poem attributed to Rumi, treating a classical text as a folk song without diminishing its elegiac weight, and demonstrating his characteristic gift for bridging learned tradition and popular music.