Despite many a tattoo of his alleged verses decorating limbs of heartbroken US college students, the actual life, works and legacy of the Sunni Hanafi jurist and Māturīdī theologian Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī have been conveniently overlooked. To provide a historical introduction to Rumi, we are joined by Muhammad Ali Mojaradi, a University of Michigan graduate, translator, editor and founder of the persianpoetics.com project and is best known by his Twitter and Instagram handle @sharghzadeh.

Timestamps

01:28 Rumi was born in 1207CE quite likely in modern-day Afghanistan. He would been alive during the Mongol sack. Let's set some context for his life: socio-political, cultural and religious.

08:06 Rumi lived most of his life under the Persianate Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and is buried in Konya. What do we know about his life and tell us in particular about this pivotal episode of meeting Shams-e Tabrizi?

19:32 Rumi is best known for his Mathnavi but he has prose works too. Tell us about Rumi's written legacy and any genealogies of commentaries or inspired works. And importantly - as will get into more later - your recommended translation.

27:08 The Persianate was once the binding culture for the Bengal-to-Balkans complex but largely missing now from the lives of Anglophone confessional Muslims despite their immigrant backgrounds for the most part. You started a project called #RumiWasMuslim. Tell us about that and how we can improve reenculturation of the Persianate in Islamic societies?

35:32 And finally before we end with a reading and translation, tell us where listeners can turn next to learn more about today's topic and what are current projects that listeners can anticipate?

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