Mâwlânâ Jalâl-Ud Din Rûmî
(September 30, 1207 - December 17, 1273) Afghanistan
Poet and mystic
Alternative spellings: Mawlana, or Mowlana, and Jalal Al-Din, or Jalaluddin. Rûmî was born in Balkh (now Afghanistan), but his family settled in Anatolia (Rum), where his father taught at Qonya. Rûmî succeeded to this teaching position, and died in Qonya, actual Turkey.
Rûmî emotional life was centered on his relationship with other males. The first and most importnt of these was with Shams. The intimate relation of the two mystics aroused the wrath and jealousy of Rûmî students and family, and Shams was eventually killed, apparently vith the complicity of Rûmî's son.
 It was as a result of this relationship that Rûmî began to write poetry, and in the Dîwân Shams-ì Tabrîzi, where Rûmî uses Sham's name as his own pen-name, Shams appears as representative of the Divine Beauty.
Rûmî second important relationship was with the goldsmith Salah al-Dîn Zarkûb, to whom he dedicated a number of poems. If he saw Shams as the sun (shams = "sun"), he saw Salah either as the moon or as a ray from the sun.
The third important friendship was with his disciple and successor, Husam al-Dîn Chalabi. Rûmî's Mathnawi (or Masnavi-ye Ma'navi - "Spiritual Couplets"), a veritable encyclopedia of mystical love of nearly twenty-six thousand verses, was inspired by this relationship.
Some excerpts from Rûmî's work:
Yesterday your intoxicated dream image came with a cup in his hand.
I said: "I don't drink wine!"
He said: "Not doing it, then, is a pity!"
I said: "I am afraid that if I drink, shame will fly out of my head, and I may put my hand on your curls, and then you'll recede from me!"
Trom the Mathnawi, trans. by Schimmel
Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world... From the moment you came into the world of being a ladder was placed before you that you might escape. First you were mineral, later you turned to plant, then you became an animal: how should this be a secret to you?
Afterwards you were made man, with knowledge, reason, faith; behold the body, which is a portion of the dustpit, how perfect it has grownig when you have travelled on from man, you will doubtless become an angel; after that you are done with earth: your station is in heaven.
Pass again even from angelhood: enter that ocean, that your drop may become a sea which is a hundred seas of "oman."
From the Dîwân Shams-ì Tabrîzi, trans. by R. H. Nicholson
Twere better that the spirit which wears not true love as a garment had not been: its being is but shame. Be drunken in love, for love is all that exists. Dismiss cares and be utterly clear of heart, like the face of a mirror, without image or picture. When it becomes clear of images, all images are contained in it.
Ibid.
Happy the moment when we are seated in the palace, thou and I,
With two forms and with two figures, but with one soul, thou and I.
Ibid.
Once a man came and knocked at the door of his friend. His friend said, "Who art thou, o faithful one?"
He said, "'Tis I," he answered, "there is no admittance. There is no room for the raw at my well-cooked feast. Naught but fire of separation and absence can cook the raw one and free him from hypocrisy since thy self has not yet left thee, thou must be burned in fiery flames. "
The poor man went away, and for one whole year journeyed burning with grief for his friend's absence. His heart burned till it was cooked; then he went again and drew near to the house of his friend. He knocked at the door in fear and trepidation lest some careless word should fall from his lips.
His friend shouted, "Who is that at the door?"
He answered, "'Tis thou who art at the door, o beloved!"
The friend said, "Since 'tis I, let me come in, there is not room for two I's in one house."
From the Mathnawi, trans. by E. H. Whinfield
Rumi had an intense 3-year relationship with the spiritual vagabond, Shams of Tabriz:
"Others point out that the extraordinary and extreme and unique intensity of Rûmî's love for Shams, its particularity, its fabulous intimacy, its extreme love of every aspect of Shams' personality, could only have come from from a total love that included the physical.
Most of the Iranian sufis that I've ever talked to assumed that they were lovers, and looked at me amusedly when I was taken aback at first by the suggestion, that they were lovers in every sense, and every level... this love was a total and final and all-consuming and all-revealing love, in which everything was given, everything was taken, and everything was opened."
From: Harvey, Andrew. Song of the Sun, The Life, Poetry, and Teachings of Rûmî
To read some of Rûmî's love poems, go at our "Homoerotic Poems".
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