Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī… or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.[9][10]

Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish,[11] Arabic[12] and Greek[13][14][15] in his verse. His Masnavi (Mathnawi), composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language.[16][17] Rumi's influence has transcended national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Afghans, Tajiks, Turks, Kurds, Greeks, Central Asian Muslims, as well as Muslims of South Asia have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries.[18][19] His poetry influenced not only Persian literature, but also the literary traditions of the Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Pashto, Kurdish, Urdu, and Bengali languages.[18][20][21]

Rumi's works are widely read today in their original language across Greater Iran and the Persian-speaking world.[22][23] His poems have subsequently been translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet",[24] is very popular in Turkey, Azerbaijan and South Asia,[25] and has become the "best selling poet" in the United States.[26][27]

…Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these ideas that the practice of whirling Dervishes developed into a ritual form. His teachings became the base for the order of the Mevlevi, which his son Sultan Walad organised. Rumi encouraged Sama, listening to music and turning or doing the sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, samāʿ represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes and nations.

“What you seek is seeking you.”

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”

“What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.”
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames”
“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?”
“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”
“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.”
“When you go through a hard period,
When everything seems to oppose you,
... When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute,
NEVER GIVE UP!
Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!”