Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (Mawlana)

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.

Songs from Rumi’s Tradition

• ز همراهان جدایه

  Ze Hamrahan Judaye

  Separated from Companions

  A Rumi ghazal of spiritual counsel: separation from companions is not wise, self-centeredness is not wise, poverty when the heavenly table has arrived is not wise. The poem ends in dissolution — be silent, dissolve into the Real.

• من غلام قمرم

  Man Ghulam Qamaram

  I Am a Slave to the Moon

  I Am the Moon's Slave — Rumi's ecstatic ghazal of surrender: speak of nothing but the moon, nothing but candle and sugar. Love arrives in the night and commands silence; the speaker obeys.

• من مست و تو دیوانه

  Man Masto Tu Deewana

  I Am Drunk and You Are Mad

  I Am Drunk and You Are Mad — Rumi's ghazal of double intoxication, both speaker and beloved outside the boundaries of sober social life, both beyond the reach of ordinary judgment.

• همچو نی می‌نالم

  Hamcho Nay Menalam

  Like a Reed Flute I Lament

  The reed of the Masnavi — Rumi's founding image of the soul cut from its origin, lamenting separation. Ahmad Zahir sets the most famous opening in Persian literature as a pop song.

• ای قوم به حج رفته

  Ay Qawme Ba Haj Rafta

  O People Who Have Gone on Pilgrimage

  Rumi's famous challenge to the Hajj-pilgrims: the beloved is not in Mecca — she is wall-to-wall with you at home. The Sufi interior journey against the outward religious one.