On the other hand...

On the other hand, the Turks call him a Turk because after his early youth the family settled in Anatolia which was a Turkish province but was formerly a part of the Roman Empire, and hence the great mystic poet is Arab because at the summit of his genealogical table we find the great Caliph Abu Bakr, the first successor of the Prophet. The spirit of Rumi, the universal mystic, must be smiling at these attempts of racial appropriation.

In one of his lyrics he says that heaven is his original homeland, to which he craves to return. In another lyric he asks his fellow Muslims as to what he should say about himself, “As to my homeland it is not Khurasan, nor any other place in the East or the West, and as to my creed I am neither a Jew, nor a Zoroastrian, not even a Muslim as this term is generally understood.” In his ancestry we find great names, great not only as scholars and divines, but also from the mundane point of view.

On the maternal side he is a grandson of the great monarch Mohammad Khwarizm Shah who had given his daughter in marriage to the famous mystic Husain Balkhi, Rumi’s grandfather. The father of Rumi, Baha’ al-Din was famous for learning and piety. He lectured from morning until evening on religious sciences as well as on mystical lore, and delivered sermons on Mondays and Fridays to crowded audiences. Commoners as well as scholars, aristocrats, and royalty gathered to hear him.

The monarch held Imam Fakhr al-Din Razi, the commentator of the Qur’an and one of the great dialecticians, in great esteem and sometimes brought him along to hear Baha’ al-Din. Razi was reputed to be imbued with Greek dialectics, and attempted to prove religious truths by logic. Seeing Razi in the audience Baha’ al-Din would pour his wrath on these attempts at the Hellenization of Islam, but the presence of the monarch and the prestige of the preacher prevented him from defending himself.

Rumi as a young boy must have heard these denunciations from the lips of his learned father.