In an informal sermon or discussion with his disciples, Mohammad Baha al-Din-e Valad, Rumi’s father, mentions that on the first day of the month of fasting, Ramadan, he was about to turn 55 years old. This date corresponds to December 22, 1150. However, the date of his birth is uncertain and various sources estimate it between 1150 to 1153 AD.
Baha al-Din Valad, Rumi’s father, was an eminent jurist, famous preacher, Sufi teacher and religious scholar who led a group of Sufi disciples. In 1212 when Rumi was only 5 years old, the Valad family moved to Balkh. A year or so later they moved to Samarghand and sometimes around 1216 they left the region for good. This emigration seems to have been motivated primarily by the approach of Genghis Khan’s Mongol army. Then from there they went to many cities before they finally settled down in Konya in 1229.
In Konya Baha al-Din Valad quickly became known as one of the chief learned men in the city and thus found the opportunity, under the patronage of the Seljuk ruler Alaoddin Kay Qobad I, to continue his work as a preacher and to teach students in religious schools and he continued doing so until his death in 1231. When he died, seven days of public mourning was decreed.
His Maarif (mystical intimations), which reveals the rapturous, ecstatic nature of his mysticism, contains a collection of notes, diary-like remarks, sermons, mystical experiences and visions.
A part of Maarif book written by Baha al-Din Valad:
‘Guide us on the straight path’ (Koran I: 6). I said, ‘O God, of Thy favor convey every part of me to the city of joy and ease, and open to every part of me a thousand portals of joy.’ The straight path is that which conveys a man to the city of joy, and the crooked path is that which conveys not a man to the city of joy.
Ma`ârif-e Bahâ’u’d-dîn Walad, Chapter 1, literal translation. Translated by A. J. Arberry as “Mystical Moments” in “Aspects of Islamic Civilization: As Depicted in the Original Text,” Allen & Unwin, 1964, pp. 227-229
References
Arberry, A. J.Discourses of Rumi: A translation of Fihi Ma Fihi, Samuel Weiser, New York, 1972.
Lewis, Franklin D. Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The life, Teaching and poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi. Oxford: One World Publications (UK), 2000.
Rumi, The Masnavi: Book One, translated by Jawid Mojaddedi, Oxford World’s Classics Series, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Lewisohn L. The Philosophy of Ecstasy: Rumi and the Sufi Tradition, Nicosia, London, Rumi Institute and I.B. Tauris, 2011.
